Happy birthday to me

It's July 5th, so you know what that means! Happy birthday -- in this case happy 66th birthday -- to me! And just look at that beautiful cake. It's a chocolate cake, actually more of a mocha because it has a cup of coffee in it (we made a special trip to Starbucks for the coffee), frosted and layered with a mixture of whipping cream, mascarpone, powdered sugar, and lemon curd, and with lemon curd drizzled on top and on the individual layers. The middle layer split in half when I transferred it over, but I don't think that matters. I patched it together with cream.

We haven't eaten it yet. I don't know if it's actually going to be that good. It just looks amazing. I can't believe I made myself a three-layer cake. I never make cakes. And it's so hot today, 95 degrees currently. What a day to be making (or eating) a cake. There was a lot of cream left over, and I just put it all down the drain. It would have upset my husband if he'd seen me, but come on, what are you going to do with three extra cups of whipped cream frosting? 

I am having a nice day, a nice weekend. We hung one of our huge American flags yesterday, hoping the Pride flag next to it will make people understand that we're not Republicans. It's still up -- probably should take it down soon. OK, I took it down and Rocket Boy is now folding it up, putting it back in its container for another year.

Though maybe we should pull it out for Election Day. I'll see.

Our primaries were this week (we had all voted already, of course, so I guess you could say it ended this week) and the results were interesting. The candidate Rocket Boy and I wanted for governor (Phil Weiser) won, so that was good, although his challenger (Senator Michael Bennet) would have been OK too. I like Bennet, but I thought it would be disruptive to pull him out of the Senate. Weiser is a little more liberal, not a lot, but anyway, he trounced Bennet. I was surprised to see that John Hickenlooper almost lost his Senate seat to a socialist challenger, and Diana DeGette, who's represented Denver in the House for eons, did lose her seat to a socialist challenger. I don't think of Colorado as a particularly socialist state -- we're not New York. Brooks and Capehart on the NewsHour were surprised too. 

The other race that surprised me was Secretary of State. Both candidates seemed fine, so I voted for the one who wasn't blond and had a Hispanic last name. That is seriously how I made my decision. Turned out she won in a landslide. Apparently she is more progressive than the blond candidate -- I didn't even realize. I need to pay more attention!

We are still watching the Republican race for governor, but it seems pretty clear that the craziest candidate is going to win. The Repubs had three people running: a relatively normal person, a MAGA nut, and a certifiably crazy weirdo. And the weirdo is winning. I don't think Phil Weiser is going to have to campaign very hard.

So, anyway, the 4th. We had a barbecue, although Rocket Boy first had to remove a wasp nest from the barbecue itself (eek!). I bought a thing of potato salad, and we barbecued swordfish (very good), broccoli (a little different, but OK), and chicken, which was already cooked. I had bought a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store a few days before because I wanted to make a Chinese chicken salad. I decimated the breast for the salad and then put the rest of the chicken in the fridge, planning to throw it in the compost when Rocket Boy wasn't looking. (I don't like chicken!) But he put the legs and wings on the grill instead. I guess that was fine. I didn't eat any. He had some -- and then had a terrible attack of reflux and couldn't eat anything for the rest of the night. 

For dessert, I had bought graham crackers and chocolate for s'mores, assuming that we had plenty of marshmallows. What we had, it turned out, was plenty of MINI marshmallows! Honestly, my brain. I toasted some mini marshmallows, but it was pretty pathetic. Teen B was very disappointed in me.

After dinner, and after it got dark, we walked down to the park and the school, looking for fireworks. We saw some, but couldn't figure out where they were coming from -- maybe just the middle of a street somewhere. Instead, in the park, we found this sign, which amused me. Like, if I were a teenager looking to set off fireworks, would I really be deterred by this sign?

We went home and watched an episode of "The Prisoner" which is on the Criterion Channel right now, and then went to bed.

This morning everybody got up terribly late, even me, at 11. I sat in the living room (with Teen A asleep on the sofa) and did Wordle and Connections and opened a card or two. Around noon or so I opened Teen B's door and whispered "Starbucks... Starbucks..." and finally he got up and we went. I couldn't miss my beloved Iced Horchata Shaken Espresso on my birthday. Last week, Teen B and I went to Starbucks in the middle of the week (Wednesday?) just so we could try all the new S'mores drinks and our verdict was: meh. So I went back to my favorite and so did he (the Iced Lavender Chai). 

Then we came home and I opened the rest of my cards and gifts and talked to my little sister. I had gotten myself some books on genealogy, which I was happy to receive from myself, and a dress (a smaller version of my favorite which it occurred to me was probably available on eBay and sure enough it was, so now I can give my old larger dress to Goodwill), and the Rosa Parks Barbie doll, who I'd been coveting for a long time now. Should have bought her when she was cheaper, but it's fine. My older sister gave me several little things: a book, a sheet of paper dolls, some little doll toys, and a set of 12 handkerchiefs with birds embroidered on them. I said to her, I am the only person in the world who would want this, and it is so smart of you to have figured that out. If I had a pocket in my dress, I would put a bird handkerchief in it now. As it is, tomorrow I will wear pants and can put a bird handkerchief in the pants pocket.

OK, we have now tried the cake, and the verdict is: meh. I'm so sad! Mocha and lemon, it turns out, is a weird combination. I think it would have been OK if it had been plain chocolate and lemon... but maybe not. Maybe I should stick with angel food cake, which I know goes great with lemon. Oh well. It's still an incredibly beautiful cake.

I need to finish this up because we are going to the Shakespeare Festival tonight -- we're going to see their version of "Shakespeare in Love" so not actually Shakespeare, but it will still be fine. It's outdoors in the Mary Rippon Theatre, and it's still 95 degrees right now, but we'll see. Probably it will cool down as the sun goes down. This is going to be a very hot week, the one coming up. The week that just ended was hot too, but not so bad. I went to the Boulder Concert Band concert on Monday again. This time it was at Harlow Platts Park, in south Boulder, and they combined with the band from the local National Guard, so that was interesting. Very good players. They encouraged people to join the National Guard and be in their band. Hmm? OK, whatever. 

There's no concert tomorrow, because they played for a 4th of July thing yesterday. I will be able to go to one more concert, on July 13th, and then I'll miss their last two, because we'll be in California (or headed home) on July 20th and 27th. But it's OK. I'm glad I've gotten to see as many as I have.

Tomorrow I take Sillers to the specialist vet, so we'll see if they can figure out anything about our very weird kitty. Other things scheduled this week: Teen B has a haircut on Thursday and that's about it. We can spend the time planning our trip and trying to check things off my master summer list. All of a sudden, with the trip looming, I feel like we don't have much summer left.