serendipity

where everyone knows my name

 

The spam folder - it's like they KNOW me

Our little Betty Crocker

As soon as Cassandre found out that friends were coming over for dinner, she wanted to bake for them. She had decided on a fruit tart and she scoured our books for a good recipe. She finally found what she was looking for on the Internet (where all good things can be found - right next to the bad things): a video from Rachel Edelman that stepped her through the whole process in two minutes and forty seconds. Cassandre watched the video repeatedly, wrote down a list of ingredients and was ready to go shopping by noon.

At Whole Foods she was responsible for selecting the fruit and making sure we bought all the right stuff. We used a frozen pie crust because while she was ready to go at noon, I was not and there wasn't enough time to make/freeze/roll/cook pie crust. Plus she's 10 and I wanted to limit the level of complexity this first time.

She used his super duper professional grade KitchenAid mixer to combine sugar, butter, eggs, almond extract and rum (gotta love a kid who finds a recipe that calls for rum) and she baked the custard with the crust.

The best part for her came when she got to design the fruit layer.

 

Cassandre's first tart

The verdict from our judges?

Delicious!

It was all we could do to save a small piece for Cassandre to eat for breakfast. And yes, we are very proud of her - she did this whole project with very little help from mom. I didn't even watch the video, instead I depended on her to know what she was doing. And she did. More importantly, she is very proud of herself. 

Gas and Accountability

She was in the lane that turns right.

I was in the lane that goes straight.

I went straight, and she did too.

I honked loudly to warn her of our impending collision, while I braked.

I missed her by an inch.

We turned right into the gas station.

We pulled into the same line of pumps, her first and me behind.

I was, as you might expect, a little agitated. I don't like nearly smashing into people.

I pumped my gas, watching her. Curious to see what she would do next.

She stayed in her car for a long time.

Finally, she came out and walked over to the pump, totally ignoring me.

No eye contact, no acknowledgement of my existence at all.

No apology.

This made me mad.

"Madam? Madam! Aren't you going to say something?"

Nothing.

"Madam. Aren't you going to apologize?"

She turned on her heel, walked back to her car and drove to another pump, on the far side of the gas station.

Oh really.

I finished pumping my gas and drove over to her, parking in front of her car.

She did not look at me, but I walked right up to her and said "Madam, all you had to do was say that you were sorry. Is that so difficult?"

She looked up at me and said "What? Who are you? Why would I say I was sorry?"

I reminded her, needlessly, that she nearly caused our cars to crash. That she went straight when she was obligated to turn right. She protested her right-of-way with "I had to go to the gas station." Yes, I say, and you nearly ran me off the road to do it. She looked at me and saw that I was not backing down, that I was not impressed with her fake righteousness. I saw her reconsider her options. I was after all, blocking her car. Maybe I was a nut (don't answer that). 

I looked at her and lowered my tone to a calmer, but still serious, range. "All you had to do was say that you were sorry, instead of trying to pretend I didn't exist." She looked at me and said, with just the right amount of sarcasm "I am very sorry I did this."  

What a jerk. A first-class, holier-than-thou, I-should-have-crushed-you-when-I-had-the-chance, jerk. I decided to take the high road (finally), having made my point (to no one). I ignored the sarcasm and said, in my so-nice-it-probably-sounds-crazy voice, "Thank you."

I drove home, understanding that she didn't care and that I had wasted precious moments of my evening family time for nothing, but that I had held her accountable nonetheless.