coinage

I’ve never been too much of an Anglophile (unless you count my persnickety devotion to the finer points of the English language). A trip to the UK has, so far, stayed pretty far down on my list of burning travel desires (although it does have a slot there). When weeping with embarrassment about being an American (an increasingly frequent occurrence, & I don’t mean just for me), I’m generally not comparing myself to the British, at least not specifically.

Until now.

Is it not enough that the Dollar has become economically pathetic relative to the Pound? Now the gods & goddesses of design have decided it’s necessary to make the contrast as blatant as possible in three-dimensional, inescapable, everyday-in-your-pocket, visual terms? & I even like purple. Waaaah! Willya pass me a hanky, please? Then, after a good cry, umm, gonna check the airfares.

(If you haven’t already noticed, Ask H&FJ is my new favorite blog. I will try to restrain myself from linking to everydangthing Jonathan Hoefler says. I will not stalk him, any more than I stalked Chockylit the Cupcake Queen at the height of my cupcake obsession—which is to say, not at all. I promise. I do have a life, & all my marbles too. Really I do.)

Perhaps not the best thing for those of us trying to minimize mouseclicks, but so irresistible… Barack Obama wanted you to have some cupcakes.

Aww… look how cute! Typographically correct cupcakes. Scary thing is, I was going to claim that I’m not enough of a type geek to be able to ID the face, but I did have my suspicions, & then… then I turned out to be right. That’s not the same as knowing though. Is it?

More cupcake madness. Seems we have yet to see this thing crest.

Oh, dear. This is why the net can be so addictive. In my low-computer disengagement I had missed the absurdly silly cupcake rap. (Thanks to SFGate culture blog for cluing me in to this fine manifestation of cupcake consciousness.)

In non-cupcake news, I think I actually am sick, but I’m keeping it under control with various manifestations of Airborne. By the way: in the universe of house brand Airborne knock-offs (of which there are many), my vote for best flavor goes to the one from Albertson’s. It tastes better than real Airborne!

I think you may be getting the wrong idea about me. See, I blog so much about cupcakes, but in fact I’ve never baked a single cupcake in my whole life. On the other hand, have I ever mentioned popovers here, even once? (Maybe once. Yes, once.) Yet the number of popovers to have popped out of my oven is beyond reckoning. & maybe, reading this, you think: Indigo is a Popover Goddess! or at least a Popover Expert. Again you would be misguided, because my popover experience has been haphazard & inconsistent. Of my last five batches of popovers, one was a miserable, airless, custardy failure, & one was just okay. The others were fabulous, but 3 out of 5 is not exactly Popover Reliability, is it?

Here is someone who takes popovers seriously; next time I will try her method & see what happens. Although, scientifically speaking, I suppose I should try her method the next 5 times & see if more than 3 batches come out well.

Holy cupcakes! You know that other cupcake blog I mentioned? It is mere cupcake frivolity, my friends. Those people may be into cupcakes, but they are total lightweights compared to what I just found. This is the one! My jaw dropped lower & lower as I read through the recipes. Girl is out. of. control. She is obviously the Queen of Cupcakes! Seriously. I bow before her Cupcake Greatness. I'm really not the stalking type, but I admit the thought crossed my mind when I noticed she lives in San Francisco. Indigo Som, cupcake stalker. Can't you just see it?

If I had mo betta use of my hand, I would go ahead & get a life already, perhaps starting with baking my own damn cupcakes, but here I am in this strange limbo while my hand improves at a brisk, but never brisk enough, pace. It's sort of weird. I can now do enough things in a normal way (such as brushing my teeth) that I get lulled into this false sense that it's time to carry on with normal life now, when in fact my hand is still nowhere near normal. It's sort of a glass half full/glass half empty conundrum; I'm so happy that there's any water in the glass at all that I actually forget there's still a ton of room left for improvement.

& then I wonder why I'm having cupcake stalking thoughts.

Seems we are in the midst of an explosion in cupcake consciousness, or at least cupcake obsession. There's even a cupcake blog. The first inkling I had of the cupcake comeback (did they ever go away?) was Stephanie Brooks' very excellent conceptual cupcake installation in 2002.

A large part of cupcakes' appeal lies in the pleasing word "cupcake" itself. Would we be nearly so obsessed if they were called mini-cakes, personal cakes, individual cakes, or frosted muffins? I seriously doubt it.

The thumb likes cupcakes. The thumb has progressed quite remarkably & can now turn on the car ignition (I'd been reaching around with my left hand in an awkward contortion), cut chard, & lift a bottle of olive oil. Impressive, no?