Two days ago it was my husband’s birthday. The wee one wanted to make him a Superman cake. Given his recent fascination with all things superhero (have a look at Superman, Popcorn and a Dye Job) it wasn’t much of a surprise. The irony of it all is this would be the first specialty cake I had ever made him. I have done loads over the years. Wedding cakes. Custom birthday cakes. Ornate cupcakes and cookies. But whenever my hubby’s birthday would roll around he always wanted something simple. Or a cheesecake. He loves cheesecake. This year he made no requests. So. I figured it was okay to put that decision into the hands of our 4 year old.

And so it was to be a Superman cake.

JUST CALL ME RUDOLPH

I swear I have no luck. Often times in the most hilarious ways. But. There are times it really sucks. Times I can’t even muster a giggle. Even if I do my trick. You see, each and every day, no matter what, I find a mirror and I look in it. And then stick out my tongue. At myself. It always makes me chuckle. And reminds me to never take anything (including myself) too seriously. It works. For me. Most of the time.

The morning of hubby’s birthday I was examining my face in the mirror. Closely. (I warn the following MAY fall into the “too much information” category – if so, my apologies.) Anyways. I noticed a wee blackhead on the tip of my nose. Ew. I know. I should have left it. Let nature do its thing. Time run its course. All that.

But I didn’t. I tried to extract it.

Generally I keep my fingernails very short. It is easier for me to do my various forms of art without the hindrance of long nails. But. Not this morning. They were WAY longer than usual. Dangerously so as I was about to find out.

I positioned my fingers on the tip of my nose. Prepared to squeeze. And…

My fingers slipped. I gauged the tip of my nose. Missed the blackhead entirely. And instead lobbed off a part of my sniffer. GREAT. Now I had to address the gaping hole I had made – compress, Polysporin. I had a little laugh, but surprisingly it really hurt. No tears. I’m a giggler when I hurt myself (rule of thumb: the more I laugh the worse it is), the giggles usually giving way to a litany of curse words. Real and made up. I managed to take a chunk big enough that my index fingernail looked like a crime scene. I was expecting to see a member of CSI: Wherever to show up and scrape under my nails for a sample.

Happy Birthday Honey.

Both honeys felt bad for me. Little honey kissed my boo-boo. Big honey looked at me with the usual pity eyes I get during a homeless Abbi incident.

The wound still visible, I resemble Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

BROAD CITY

I am the kind of person who plans. Then I have a back-up plan. And a back-up, back-up plan. And usually an if-it-all-goes-to-shit plan. Seriously. For me, if it can go wrong it will. At least I have consistency on my side, right? Right.

Not that I am overly negative or anything but I have come to expect that things generally do not go as planned for me. And that often times I will be required to roll with the punches instead of implementing the plan in place. Like the time I reworked my schedule to make a cake for a friend only to have them cancel the order the day I finished it. Or the time there was a fire in the triplex on our (now old) street and I took in two little boys who then in turn stole a third of our DVD collection. The time I managed to step on the one part of the hill in the rain that gave way and sent me slip-sliding away. 15 feet straight down. Goodbye rain coat. Goodbye boots. I had never seen or been covered in so much mud.

There are more examples than I can recall or care to share. But trust me. If it can go horribly wrong. It will. But that’s okay. I have grown accustomed to it all. Weirds me right out when things go perfectly right.

There is a show I adore. It is new. Very crass. What I like to call low-highbrow comedy. Every episode I laugh my brains out. I have even contemplated throwing on a pair of Depends I laugh so much.

The show is called Broad City.

There was an episode a few weeks ago where the two main characters were (very) temporarily homeless, one having to leave her apartment to be fumigated and the other, having lost her keys, was locked out. They spend the day wandering the streets. Biding time before Abbi’s art show. Everything that can go wrong for her does. In the most hilarious way. Because of this episode we now refer to my bad luck moments as a homeless Abbi incident.

It was nice to finally diagnose this, um, condition. These incidents have been happening my whole life. So. It was really great to give them a name.

YOU GOT ME

The day of my hubby’s birthday it was gorgeous. We hit 16 degrees (Celsius), had loads of sunshine. We even sat out on the back deck. Cracked a couple of wobbly pops (my hubby loves craft beer, has a blog about it). Cranked the classic rock. Watched the wee one and the pooch run around a nearly snow free yard.

We bought the house mid-November and moved in the first of December. We have had a few fun days outside shoveling snow and building snow people. But this day was different. No jackets. We fired up the BBQ for lunch. It was great.

Happy Birthday Honey.

He was having a great birthday. I could tell. The wee one and I (along with my mum-in-law) got him a guitar. My musically inclined husband had always expressed a desire to learn to play the guitar. New house, new life. It seemed like the perfect gift. And it was a big hit. So was the cake. And the Superman decorations.

But while we were out there enjoying the sunshine I sneezed. You know the sneeze. The one that almost certainly means you are infected with a cold. The one that causes your sinuses to swell up. Leaves your ears popping. You are congested yet your nose won’t stop running. When you can’t breathe out your face. Yep. That sneeze. And I sneezed it. Bleh.

I know I posted something previous about recently falling ill but it turns out that was a false alarm. After nearly two weeks of nursing the honeys back to good health it would appear that now I was the one in need of nursing. I was going down. FAST. I had to concede – YOU GOT ME – the stalking cold had finally snagged its last victim. Moi.

Fever. Runny nose. Watering eyes. Sounding like a goose.

Happy Birthday Honey.