constance | transiencies (Reply)

A brief but well-intentioned UL for you, with emphasis on the U:

I spent my afternoon at work furtively scrolling through Cake Wrecks, which I stumbled on while trolling other people's blogs, and trying not to burst a blood vessel suppressing giggles. I can't decide if I am yet unburst or not.

I wasn't quiet enough, and my next-door neighbor caught me wheezing and introduced me to the palate-cleansing joys of Charm City Cakes, which is apparently the subject of some kind of Food Network reality TV show? I don't know for sure, J was unclear, but really, I think cake is an awesome subject for a reality show. In fact, I'd actually watch this one if I had cable. The cakes are incredibly beautiful, but holy shit, $1000? A thousand dollars? For a cake? It's enough to make you want to master fondant icing and hie yourself to Baltimore. Or at least eat cake for the rest of the day. Mmmm, cake. Caaaaaake.

I'm being good, though, laying off the cake, and it's never been easier. It's harvest time in the deep south, see, and we've got baskets of produce coming into our office to show for it. I mean this literally, too; it seems that every day, anymore, someone's bringing in their homegrown surplus for the office to scavenge, which we do willingly. Well, who am I kidding, we're like freaking hyenas.

How shockingly nice to be eating well, without any effort from or cost to me; I cut up my peach tonight -- it was lovely, thanks for asking -- wishing that it could be like this all the time. And I'd willingly reciprocate, if there were a dreamsicle's chance in hell that I could manage to keep a vegetable plant alive all the way through harvest. There isn't, you know.

Or maybe there is! Because the thing is that I've only managed to kill one plant this year so far (see me hedging my bets here? Isn't that clever of me?). That's not out of one, by the way, ye of little faith, it's out of eight. I keep reminding myself of my overall failure rate so as not to get all cocky, but it's tough when my current sickly-but-still-alive success is staring me in the face every single day. Maybe next year I'll get all sick of my own tomatoes. It's a nice dream, anyway.

I think I like dreaming about Dexter even better, though. Yeah, I do, I really really do. Dreaming about Dexter is my new favorite pastime.

Unrelatedly, I have a question for you. Has anyone ever been around a housefire and its aftermath? Does anyone know how long it takes for the insurance companies to pony up for repairs? Because I'm wondering how long I'll have to live next door to this. It's been two weeks and nothing's been so much as cleaned up, and I'm starting to wonder if there's some problem or question -- but I don't know how long these things are supposed to take. Anyone?