You can take the girl out of Catholic school...

Heh.  Bet that got your attention.  

Here's the thing:  I love to bake.  What's not to love, really?  It's soothing and gratifying and makes the house smell great, and you can eat it. 

The problem is that I'm not that big into eating the results.  I don't really have a sweet tooth; a pint of Ben & Jerry's will last me a month.  (Salt is another story.)  And with baking, you can't ever make just one cupcake or cookie or brownie... you end up with a whole mess of them.  Given that one of my posts last week was all about healthy eating, I should probably practice what I preach. 

But the lure of those cutie pie Cookie Monster cupcakes from earlier in the week was just too much to resist!  

So I did a little research and found an outlet for my Betty Crocker urges.  The Catholic parish I belong to here in the 'bus hosts Friday night fish fry dinners during Lent, and they're always looking for donations in the form of dessert.

ENTER RACHEL!  Check me out:

They don't look exactly like the other pic (that's right: they're cuter) but I was still pretty satisfied with how they turned out.  J wasn't complaining, that's for damn sure!  My sister Erin even said "ugh, you kind of make me want to barf, in a good way."  I could have stopped there, but I was on a roll, and I upped the ante with a batch of red velvet cupcakes too.

I drove extra carefully on the way to work this morning, so as not to disturb the trays of sugar shock in my backseat, planning on a lunch hour delivery.  

And I made it all the way to the church parking lot before it happened. 

I didn't see the pothole, and I took the turn a little too fast, and my little tank came to a stop faster than I intended... and a dozen cupcakes ended up on my car floor.  Frosting side down, natch.  I heard the smush before I saw the damage, and I shouted - no, I shrieked:

Ohhhhhhhhh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge. 

Only I didn't say fudge.  I said the word, the big one, the queen mother of dirty words, the f-dash-dash-dash word.*

And that is precisely when I realized that the church shares its parking lot with the parish school, and that it was noon recess, and that approximately ninety grade school kids were outside romping around in the sunshine.

Boy, nothing brings a game of Red Rover to a halt like a woman yelling obscenities.



*Ralphie (Peter Billingsley), A Christmas Story