Belated.

I had a very wonderful birthday. It wasn't my first choice of events. My birthday often gets overlooked because February always ends sooner than people expect and the first week of March comes in seemingly unannounced. Also, I have hitherto spent my life in the rat race that is education with the full knowledge that March is about one thing: surviving until spring break. This year was extra set against birthday festivities in that I couldn't receive calls because my phone was broken and I had an evening class that day. I really didn't have the time to celebrate my birthday.

All the same. I felt loved. It was the little things, the roommate breakfast and egg curry. The boyfriend flowers and necklace. Texts from my family and attempted phone calls from Dallas and other places. A few belated wishes because, hey, we all have days and weeks and, well, years where we forget. It'll be my turn next if I haven't done so already.

Anyway, this post is really about the cake I made and kind of pieced together between classes. Keep in mind that I'm gluten free so if I'm going to go to the trouble of making cake...it's going to be the best damn cake that's ever been made...or close to it. Photographing it was an interesting challenge and lighting sparklers as my candle on my piece turned out to be less tasty than I anticipated (though just as awesome). Unfortunately there are no photos of the sparkler going that I care to put up because it's my birthday and if I don't want to put up pictures of me in my sweats with my hair not brushed staring in excitement and just a little terror at my firework cake, well no one can make me. :) That said, here are my belated photos including a very bad one of my flowers(...but what can I say? I really love flowers. All of them.):

This is a story I am sure to rewrite again and again until I find exactly what I am trying to say.

I have my mother to blame for my love of flowers,
which is not such a dark thing to blame your  mother for.
It is most definitely her fault though. 
I remember, summers at the farmer’s market.
Always waiting until we were ready to leave 
to go to the vendor we had asked to save our favorites.
It did not occur to me then 
that we did not have money for flowers
--but she bought them anyway. 
I learned from her
to love summers and flowers;
and that beauty is worth the price you pay.
At least, it is worth it for flowers
--More than makeup or high heels.
Flowers cause no pain.
And so I learned to love those summers, 
just us girls: my sister and my mother and I,
between my father and my stepfather,
between one school year and the next,
deep in that place of rest
between one remembered event and another.
It is a gentle space
too quickly unappreciated
for its lack of busyness 
and for its brevity.