Keeping the peace of cake

It’s my birthday! Today! I’m three. Ask me anything, and I’ll tell you the answer. Due to various schedule obligations and my gigantic desire to celebrate the day of my birth with my favorite Minnesota cousins, we rang in the start of my fourth year last weekend, rather than today. Mary Kate, Nora, Greta B. and Bridget know how to beef up a birthday party, let me tell you. In addition to buckets of giggles and a handful of new ways to play with my ATW Radio Flyer, the gals gave to me my very first airplane. Its Popsicle stick propeller is only the beginning of its cool factor, for the belly of the beast is made of an empty box. A box with an attached lid. And a bell. YES – a bell! Do you know what this means? This means that every time I open the lid, the bell rings. And every time I close the lid, the bell rings. Never has the storing and re-storing my stuff been so melodic and wonderful and authentically mine. Thanks for the kickass airplane, girls! I love it.

In other news, we recently harvested Dad’s hops. What used to be a fairly respectable ten-foot privacy fence has now become the primary ingredient in Dad’s next tap beer. A wet-hopped malt beverage, which will contain approximately 0.5 ounces of freshly harvested hops per pint of liquid confidence, I’m happy to report that Sam and I learned the finer points of picking hops blossoms and placing each one delicately into a paper Target bag: container temporaire until the brewing process called each blossom home. The barley pop is currently fermenting in our semi-temperature controlled basement laundry room; the concoction will most likely be tapped shortly before the Third Annual Conrad Brew Review (CBR). Need details of the CBR? Talk to Dad, and he’ll happily share the details. All are welcome. Until then, the smell of freshly harvested hops continues to permeate the basement and seep its way into all pockets of the Corrigan Conrad living quarters. So, if you pop by for a visit between now and mid-October, know that the faint odor of plant is not the result of your recent walk around the dog park; rather, it’s the scent of Dad’s seasonal bubble of toil and trouble. Three cheers for home brewing!

I learned an important birthday lesson this year. Wait, wait … Let me back up a bit. I had requested a green birthday cake. After all, the color green seems to accompany many things of the favorite variety: Dad’s hops, Sam’s matchbox car, Georgia’s bottle, my M socks – you get the idea. So, a white circle cake with homemade green frosting graced the center of the dinner table on the evening of my birthday celebration – along with three green candles and the birthday song. (I knew this birthday thing would rule.) I snuffed the candles in three breaths and devoured my green cake with all the lip-smacking gusto that a man of my size could muster. Happy birthday to me! What I've since learned, is this: In order to share a circle cake with favorite Minnesota cousins, a brother, a mom and a dad, a circle cake morphs into many triangle cakes, and one by one, the triangles disappear. Then, when a certain birthday boy later searches the kitchen for his circle cake (and searched high and low I did!) he learns the real meaning of that awkward saying: You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Alas!
It promises to be a good year. And next year, I’ll be smarter choosing the shape of my birthday cake. Until next time –

Ken