My Co-pilot's a Coffee Cup...no, really.

There is a 3-foot tall coffee cup in my car.

I'm sure this is a hazard of the trade - of working in the coffee industry.  I've already had a few hundred bags of coffee in my car (the best air fresheners around - oh, new tagline!), so it was only natural that a giant mug would find a place as my co-pilot one day.

Hm, maybe "natural" isn't the right word.

Nonetheless, I do admit that it strikes me as odd that not 10-minutes before this entry, my lovely coffee cup was sitting in the front seat of my car, soliciting stares, jutted fingers (not the middle one, to my knowledge), and "...do you see what I see?" connversations from Best Buy shoppers and their small children (AKA soon-to-be Best Buy shoppers).

It makes me rather happy, to be frank.

Truth: There aren't enough oddities in life.  Sure, if you drive down Route 66 you'll see more than a few cockroach farms, large balls of string, and the world's smelliest block of Limburger (which, in itself, says something), but in your hometown?  The odd is missing.  And I like the odd.  I like it a lot.  I like seeing the unexpected, the unusual, and the downright rubber-neck worthy, stop-dead-in-your-tracks, call-all-your-friends-to-tell-them-about-it kind of displays of not-so ordinary life.

Like the 3-foot tall coffee cup in the front seat of my car.

For those who would like an explanation of the mug of a co-pilot, you'll have to do the following:

1. Go to Burlington, Vermont today, Saturday, October 17
   
2. A little before 4:30 PM go into City Hall and then Contois Auditorium
3. Enjoy the Fair Trade Celebration - and look for a very large, walking mug of (Fair Trade) coffee.  Can't miss it - especially since it'll be giving away Fair Trade coffee samples.  And by "it," there is a very high probability I mean "me."

Oddities: I'm one of them.

Cupcakes were made to NOT outlast a celebration

I love cupcakes, as a previous entry may suggest. I love their size, their paper wrappers, their ability to make even the most hardened man look a like a little kid. Cupcakes are powerful and wonderful in my world.

But, today. Today, I fear that the all-mighty cupcake and I are reaching a breaking point.

“Oh, no! Why, Kristen? For all that is holy and pure and delicious in the world, why?” you cry.

Three words: Cupcake buffet overload.

For my family graduation celebration, I baked 10-dozen cupcakes. I frosted 10-dozen cupcakes. I served 10-dozen cupcakes. And today, 4-dozen cupcakes sit contently in my freezer, naïve to the pain they are causing me by their very existence.

I know this venture didn’t start in this anti-cupcake manner – it wasn’t always a sinkhole of flour, sugar, and butter. Once it was a beautiful party for my graduation. And I have pictures to prove it:

The set-up:

How Martha of me! Color-coordinated, labeled, and tiered! I just grabbed white bowls, flipped them over, and used Museum Wax to secure white plates for the cupcakes to rest upon. Call me a simpleton with vision.

The Grub: Vanilla

Plain and simple. For the classic palate.

The Grub: Lemon

Yes, these cupcakes are yellow and blue. Think school colors with a zesty finish.

The Grub: Carrot

The first cupcakes to go…because we forgot there was another dish in the other refrigerator.

Silver lining: They were fun to pipe. Dark, death-metal lining: I still have three bags of orange, green, and brown (see chocolate cupcake) icing in my house.

The Grub: Angel food
Loved by those who ate them; loathed by the rest of us. Sadly, 2- of the 4-dozen cupcakes in my freezer belong in the Angel food category.

The Grub: Pina Coloda

My absolute FAVORITE. Fun to make, fun to decorate, fun to eat.

Plus, the dried pineapple resembles a dorsal fin on a shark, so I was able to make a variety of Jaws references throughout the party. “Here are more cupcakes – oh, no! No room…I think we need a bigger boat!”

The Grub: Double Chocolate Chip with Mortar Boards

Winner of the whimsy award for the mortar board hat and tassel.

The hat? A solid wedge of milk chocolate – hello, sweetheart!

Once, these were dazzling cupcakes. Now, they are a slew of hockey puck sized weights in my freezer. Yes, my guests did their part – chatting, eating, and taking my comments of “Remember, I’m counting all of your cupcake wrappers before you leave” as jest. To their credit, they ate heartily, my brave party-goers, and still...

Still: 4-dozen cupcakes.

*Sigh*

Cupcakes, anyone?

Cupcakes were made to celebrate

Cupcakes. The mini-pleasantries of love and joy that we remember from childhood. A grade school birthday was never complete unless a plate of cupcakes was ceremoniously displayed, painstakingly passed out, and then ravaged in mere moments.

Reading that back, grade school sounds a lot like the Wild Kingdom.

Nonetheless: Cupcakes. As school has taught us, cupcakes are the best way to celebrate momentous events. Birthdays, weddings, graduations...

Yes, graduations. And by graduations I do mean mine. I submitted my last paper (a 50-page business plan) on Friday night and now I wait until that diploma arrives in the mail.

But I'm not going to wait. I'm going to celebrate - with cupcakes!

The Prep:
Observe: Carrot cake cupcakes in their oozy, sticky form.

The Result:

Observe: 8 dozen (soon to be 10), naked cupcakes.

The Beauty Shots:
Lemon cupcakes (Champlain blue and white)


Double chocolate chip cupcakes

Pineapple cupcakes (destined to be pina coloda)

Vanilla cupcakes

The Big Freeze: Take One

The cleanest my freezer has been in, well, forever.

The Big Freeze: Take Two
Frozen, organized cupcakes!

In two weeks these little beauties will make their graduation party debut - dressed to the nines in frosting and edible decorations. Until that day, I will refrain from freezing any items including, but not limited to: garlic, fish, onions, and Gorgonzola.