Holidays are a big deal at my house. Always have been. When it's just the three of us, we have to go just a little further to make it seem like a big party...that, and we're just a family that loves to celebrate. When I was little, practically every holiday was marked by a trip to the dollar store, where I would buy every tacky, over-the-top decoration I could afford, plus a ream of crepe paper and enough balloons to keep a latex factory in business. Then I'd come home, decorate, make cookies/cupcakes/cake (depending on the occasion) and we'd have an epic three-person party.
And the 4th of July was no exception. We put on our own "fireworks" display every year. I put it in quotation marks because what we did cannot, in any context, be compared to real fireworks. We had sparklers, Roman candles, smoke balls, those little things that burst and crackle when you throw them against the pavement. Every year, Dad would vow to somehow obtain real fireworks, but he never did (until this year, when they were legal). Whether it was because he couldn't find them or because he didn't want to get us in trouble with the law I don't know. But back then I didn't care, I just liked those little sparkly things. And we'd make cupcakes, and we'd have something special for dinner, and I'd get to stay up extra-late...all very, very good things in the eyes of a ten-year-old.
As I got older, the tradition drifted a bit. The childish fireworks were no longer exciting. There were no presents (no anticipation, no wondering what my parents got me, no looking forward to the expressions on my parents' faces when they saw their gifts from me), no candy handouts, no huge turkey dinner, no card exchanges, no Easter Bunny scavenger hunts...basically nothing I could connect to as a celebration geek. Unlike things like Christmas and Thanksgiving, which had meaning aside from the holiday hoopla, I had no real emotional connection to Independence Day. I've never been a hardcore patriot; I'm too much of a wanderlusting travel-addict to develop that kind of emotional connection to America. So without the fireworks and parties and whatnot, there was really no reason for me to love 4th of July.
And then this year, we decided to celebrate again.
When I was little, all I'd ever hear about was how much I looked like my dad. Fifteen-odd years later, all I can say is that it's clear we have the same taste in glasses.
I just could not get the camera to focus here! But it doesn't matter...you can still see that the sky was absolutely breathtaking.
And then for the rest of the weekend, we just hung out. While Mom prepared to go back to work, Dad and I went to see Monsters University and then, as we always do, we played Monopoly.
And then it was two weeks of ups and downs. Learning to parallel park, which I'm very sure will come in extremely handy all four times in my life I'll probably use it. Actually I learned a lot the last few weeks: how to parallel park, how to change a propane tank, how to clean a grill, how to fill a lawnmower tank, how to make Japanese chicken noodle soup, how to capture raindrops on camera, how to make red velvet cake...
Oh right. That cake. The reason I had to make it was so that I could go up to Interlochen and surprise my fiancee.
I was initially supposed to work at Interlochen with her this summer. Plans changed, I had to stay home--but she went up to camp anyway. Since I only live a few hours away from the Interlochen campus, I actually was able to visit her once during the summer. But, with my mom (a.k.a. the Keeper of the Car Keys) I developed another plan this past weekend. Her birthday was coming up, and I wanted to do something no one else had done for her before: surprise her on the big day.
Well. The day before the big day, because that was the only time I could go up. But close enough.
We bought the presents on Thursday--a red (her favorite color) Pandora bracelet with two charms: faith/hope/love (we're both Christians) and an Eiffel Tower (to say she's a Francophile would be an Epic Understatement). I laid the foundation: told her to be in her cabin at 2:30 on Saturday, because my "associate" was going to take her something from me, but that was the only time it could be done. And then on Friday, I baked the cake...and the cupcakes...and made cream cheese frosting.
Oh, boy.
That cake.
Okay, here's the thing. I love baking. Am I good at it? Well...not necessarily. Nothing I've ever made looks like a picture from a magazine. But I love doing it. And hey, it never looks like something out of a magazine, but I've never gotten any complaints about how anything I make tastes. I'm kind of the head cake planner in my family. Remember those celebrations I talked about earlier? Guess who's usually the brains behind the desserts? That's me. What I lack in raw artistic talent I make up in imagination and (a hell of a lot of) determination.
But I'd never made red velvet cake before last Friday. And I don't think I ever want to again.
I neglected to take photos of the cake-baking process out of sheer human decency. Trust me, no one wants to know what a red velvet cake looks like in raw form. Not even bakers who specialize in red velvet cake want to know what it looks like; if they are smart, they blindfold themselves and bake the cake by either sonar or muscle memory. I sure as all living hell did not want to know what it looked like. And I assure you nothing but true love for this woman could have made me keep going once I saw what the batter looked like.
I got two words for you, blog-lovers: human and blood. Human blood. That's what that stuff looked like. My mom went as far as to compare it to a placenta. I wouldn't know. All I know is that red velvet cake batter looks like something that should be in a high school haunted house and nowhere else (and especially not in my kitchen). I've always been that kid who wants to lick the mixing bowl after the cake goes in the oven. As you may imagine, for the first time in my life, I had no such desire whilst making the red velvet cake. And after the whole experience, I don't think I'll ever have the desire to consume anything under the heading of "red velvet" again.
But I did make it, and I got it into the oven. I think I overcooked it a little--red velvet cake is one of those annoying cakes that gives very little visual cue as to whether or not it's actually done--but I didn't burn it, and later on Ella had no complaints about the taste, so I don't think I did too badly. Then I made the cream cheese frosting and frosted the cupcakes (and despite my best efforts, ate about six tons of it in the process), cut the lone round 8-inch into a heart, frosted that, wrote "Happy B-Day Ella" in melted chocolate (which was a hell of a lot harder than I thought it would be), and dusted the mini cupcakes in red sugar.
Then, I had to figure out how to transport the cupcakes. Eventually I settled on extra-deep square Tupperware containers. I loaded up the Tupperware, used a pancake turner to transfer the sticky heart cake into its container, and used foil to cover the one container that didn't have a lid. There. Cupcakes done. Now all I had to do was pick up balloons, a teddy bear, and potentially flowers the next day on the way to Interlochen. The plan was to go to our usual Saturday morning nutrition class (no one will believe me when I say this is fun...but it is!), and then drive to Interlochen, set up a picnic table somewhere on campus with paper plates, plastic forks, and a dazzling cupcake display, knock on Ella's door, and after our joyful tears-and-hugs reunion, lead her to our newly set-up party. Simple, or so I thought.
Oh, if only I'd known.
On Saturday I woke up to a disturbingly gray sky. No problem, right? We'd be totally fine; the weather can change in a heartbeat in Michigan, and besides, maybe it'd be sunnier up north. (Yeah, right.) After the class, we had to come back--I forgot a letter that had come to the house for Ella, and Dad had forgotten his glasses. So we had a little setback. No big deal, right? We could still get there before 2:00 and have plenty of time to get the teddy bear and balloons. Right?
The weather turned to crap long before we got there. It was raining a half hour into the drive. I was worried, but not too much...it could still clear up, I was sure of that. In the meantime, I pulled off an outfit change in the car, no small feat as my dad was driving and my parents were teasing me every step of the way--according to them I flashed half the drivers on the interstate.
By the time we got there--late--I was freaking out. My debit card wasn't working, I had less than fifteen minutes to get a teddy bear and bunch of balloons, and there was no party store at Interlochen like I'd thought...only a Dollar General, and not a very good one at that. I ran around the store, looking for a stuffed animal--it went from a teddy bear to ANY stuffed animal--while Dad supervised the inflation of ten Happy Birthday balloons, one of which popped during the inflation process.
I was getting desperate. At the last minute, just as I was about to throw myself onto the floor and cry (a very mature reaction to the stress, I know), I saw a huge, fluffy bear sitting on a high shelf on the other side of the store. I practically sprinted to the shelf, got the bear down, and hugged that thing like it was my long-lost best friend. A bouquet of silk hydrangeas--because real ones would wilt, and I didn't want that--and the mostly-surviving balloons, and we were done. We got back in the car and, just barely, managed to get to Interlochen by 2:40.
It was actually raining by then. I half-ran to her cabin door, ducking down by the window so she wouldn't see me coming, got into position, and knocked.
Aaaaand...no one answered.
I froze on the step. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Was I too late? Had she up and left, sick of waiting for the mysterious surprise to arrive? Had she outsmarted me, decided to hide in the trees and sneak up on me while I stood there unsuspecting, holding an armful of cliche gifts? Had I blown it?
I took a deep breath. Calmed the hell down. Knocked again. I was going to call out, see if anyone was there, but I was afraid it'd ruin the surprise if she heard my voice. I knocked a third time and waited. Most of the window on the door was covered by a poster board sign, but I could see someone moving. Was it her? I took a step back, in the interest of not getting knocked over by the door.
It was her. Sleepy-eyed, without glasses, looking utterly confused. For a minute she just stared at me, blank and bleary-eyed. And I just stood there in the increasingly heavy rain, still laden down with presents, until I finally said in a tiny voice, "Surprise?" I didn't mean for it to come out like a question, but it did.
Then she recognized me, and made me come in. She was the only one in the cabin, and she had fallen asleep waiting for me. I barely got over the threshold before she pulled me into a hug. I had to convince her to let me go so I could put down the stuff I was holding and hug her back. "I missed you. I missed you so much," we both said over and over.
There was no one else in the cabin. We sat side-by-side on her bed, and I told her all the trials we'd gone through to get here. "Your parents are here?" she gasped, looking at me like I'd just told her the moon was made of green cheese. "They drove you all the way up here just for this?" I told her they had, and that prior to the rain, we were going to have a little party for her. She looked like she was about to cry when she heard the past tense. "No one's ever thrown me a birthday party," she told me.
I stood up and grabbed her hand. "C'mon, let's go fix that."
We huddled under her umbrella and ran for my parents' car. With nowhere else to go, we drove to the laundry cabin, which had an awning/porch that would shield us from the rain long enough for her to blow out the birthday candles. We all got out of the car. I made Ella close her eyes while we lit the candles. Dad broke out his phone and taped us singing Happy Birthday. I wish I'd had the foresight to snap a picture of Ella blowing out the candles--but I got plenty of pictures of her opening her presents, so that made up for it.
Then we went to Dove Song, this pretty little hippie-type shop in Interlochen village, and I found a ring that I resolved to get for Ella as soon as my damn debit card started working again. We ended up walking around outside for a bit after the rain stopped, while we waited for my parents to get back from the grocery store. Then it was back to Interlochen campus, where we delivered all eight thousand mini cupcakes to Intermediate Girls HQ for Ella's co-counselors. And then Ella and I had to go back to her cabin and say our good-byes.
I'll be honest here: I didn't want to stay in that cabin any longer than I had to. The rain was starting again, and you'd think it'd be all peaceful and quiet, but it kind of...wasn't. It was eerie. And kind of damp. And cold. And did I mention I was wearing a skirt? But I stayed and we hugged and pouted about leaving each other--again--and then she reminded me that we'd see each other again soon enough; camp is over next Monday. So I left, but kept calling "I love you" to her through the closed cabin door, and she kept saying it back until we were both out of earshot of each other.
But on the way home she called me, practically crying (or at least, it sounded like it) that she'd forgotten to give me this letter she'd written for me. I told her, it's okay, you can give it to me next Monday, or if you really want me to see it right away you can send it through the mail, I'm only a few hours away. She calmed down, and all was okay again...but I still made sure to let her know when we were home safe that night. Just in case she wasn't sure we'd make it.
One week until I see her again. Two weeks until she goes back to Maryland, and I won't see her until Christmas. Three weeks until what might be the biggest change of my life so far. I don't know. I'll keep you posted.
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