Baking

The rains came and the temperature came down. I could bake. 

Colette's father Marshall died and the memorial is tomorrow. I can't be there, but I baked sugar cookies and took them to the library where Colette works.  She told me about the memorial which is exactly what her father wanted.  It will be held not in a church, not in a funeral home, but at the meeting room in the library.  Colette is using the library "smart board" to show photos of her father with background country and western music, but there also will be Duffey and Denise, local musicians who play the violin and mandolin.  Colette and her brother will be grilling hamburgers and bratwurst.  

Per his instructions, Marshall will be there, too.  At least his ashes will be, in an old coffee can. 

I find the whole idea delightful.  I wrote my funeral instructions out and filed them away years ago, but now I see they need to be revised.  No boring funeral for me!  

Tonight I baked carrot cake to take to a solstice celebration tomorrow.   I picked carrot cake to use up ingredients, but as I worked I remembered why I hadn't used that recipe in years.  Grating carrots is a lot of trouble for someone who doesn't own a food processor.  A chocolate cake would have been a lot easier. But it is done now and I can look forward to a day of feasting and music at Skip and Judy's.  More about that tomorrow night. 

***

Black Coffee Fiction, the storytelling blog I started with Wade last summer celebrated its 5,000th hit two days ago when fourteen Indonesians checked it out.  Whenever we get a sizable foreign readership we figure it is students learning English.   

Wade posted his twentieth story today at http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com

I will be touring in Canada in the second half of July at the same time Wade's family is going on vacation. Either we will have friends' stories during that period, or we will have to re-run ours.  

We're also working on our collection of short stories.  We've determined the book should be no longer than 25,000 words.  That should work out to around fifteen stories.   We are in the process of selection and editing.  We plan on publishing at the beginning of October.