I’m cooking the traditional today, for the 3 or so other people who also live here and want to partake. 3 people with picky palates and tummies and are used to getting exactly what they want and when. Today.. at the Castle, I’m making it all about me. I’m cooking food that I like to eat and will serve it when I want to eat it. And I’m not doing any ducking dishes when I’m done. None!

Zip, zero, zilch!

And since we are having holiday dinner Miss SugarCookie style, there will be no salad, veggies, or casserole. Efffff that noise.

I mean, I love me a mean broccoli-cheese casserole or veg tray with a savory dill dip but why not skip it and make more room for pie. Yes, there are only 4 of us here today but I bought two pies. Pumpkin and apple. Hey, ho, let’s go.

Say Yo?! What’s up with the voice today? The tone, the attitude? Must be the caffeine. Oh yeah, and imma have coffee today too and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Say Yo?! Do you ever feel like you’re just walking along having a conversation with yourself? Heh. Me too. 😏

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Productive despite not getting exercise or eating right. My four stats, in case you’re the newest member of the team and don’t know yet, are sleep, Exercise, productivity/mood, and healthy eating. I was going to say that since keeping track again I’ve not yet hit a day where I “achieved” my goal in all four categories but I just flipped back through the book I’m using to keep track and there have actually been 3 days where I hit 4 out of 4. 💃💃💃💃

November 6, 16, and 23rd. Despite the really rotten days, this is actually encouraging. That’s why it’s good to keep track. It’s also good to have days that you just toss into the wind, throw your hands in the air and tell the world that you just don’t care.

Say Yo? Guess what else? Two nights ago I did my first real honest to goodness public poetry reading. For realz. Now for some people I can guess that this is no big deal but for this SugarCookie it’s a BIG DILL.

Blog intermission: There should be a pickle emoji. Why is there no pickle emoji? Somebody needs to get on that.

One of the poems I read was “Cake at the Castle” which has several layers of meaning (pun intended) but people would not understand the layers unless they know me. I mean really know me. I’d like to imagine a scenario where I’m surrounded by all my favorite people and I read that poem and it makes them all smile. Not just for the attitude, but because they get it. They get me.

On the surface, it’s a fun poem, lamenting about hating cake, which is true. I don’t care for cake and when folks made a good god damned big deal about the cake that would be served at my first wedding I did not have the words to explain how much I did not care about the cake. I also didn’t really care much for all the wedding and reception planning, decisions, decor, food, yadda-yadda. I just wanted to focus on finishing my associates degree so I could  run away to Vegas with my love, which is where he was stationed in the Air Force and where we would live for the first two years of our marriage.

Fast forward 25 years and I’m getting married again and I STILL don’t care about cake. It’s just like it says the lines of the poem. But with this go round I had to make all the decisions and do all the planning because there was no future MIL who was going to do it all for me.

I literally waited till the last possible minute and ended up ordering from the grocery store down the block. I mean, I suppose I could have had pie, but in the end I realized I DID want that tall display and to stand beside my love, shoving a piece of stupid cake in his mouth. Oh for the love of a moment.

That’s what’s on the surface, of the poem. Dig deeper with some of the other lines though and one would have to know me and that one of my favorite bands is Cake. There was a time in my life where I crossed the line from fan to fanatic. I mean, as much as one can with a life of responsibility.

I traveled to watch them play live and collected stories about my failed attempts  to bring home a free tree to plant in my yard. I’d get drunk at parties and tell people all about how I had failed but was analyzing their selection process and figuring out how best to get their (the bands) attention the next time so I could win a free tree. 

I even participated in the music video experiment they orchestrated with fans around 2010/2011 for their song, “The Winter.” I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before. I’m in the video for a fraction of a second.

A fraction of a second of fame is all I’ll ever squeeze out of this life. But I’m satisfied.

But that’s just the middle layer of the poem. Going deeper requires an understanding of my connection to the Cake song referenced in the poem, “I Bombed Korea.” And here, my friends, is where the meaning is mired in the mind(s)—the intersection of my introspection and the interpretation by other interested minds peering in, drawing conclusions from their own experiences. Mysterious roads leading to mysterious places. So mysterious, in fact, that sometimes even I don’t know the deeper meaning of a poem I have written. Here are the full lyrics of the song: 

I bombed Korea every night.
My engine sang into the salty sky.
I didn’t know if I would live or die.
I bombed Korea every night.
I bombed Korea every night.
I bombed Korea every night.
Red flowers bursting down below us.
Those people didn’t even know us.
We didn’t know if we would live or die.
We didn’t know if it was wrong or right.
I bombed Korea every night.
And so I sit here at this bar.
I’m not a hero.
I’m not a movie star.
I’ve got my beer.
I’ve got my stories to tell,
But they won’t tell you what it’s like in hell.
Red flowers bursting down below us.
Those people didn’t even know us.
We didn’t know if we would live or die.
We didn’t know if it was wrong or right.
We didn’t know if we would live or die.
I bombed Korea every night.

I really dig that song. 

It never fails to amaze me, when I do this—Analyze one of my own poems and find some other meaning. Or return to one years later, reading with a fresh perspective and uncover a different spin on it. The deeper meaning hidden in “Cake at the Castle” shifts as my life shifts, though it has only been a year or so since it was born. I listen to the song today while walking the treadmill and am filled again with that “fuck yeah” feeling. Freedom. Don’t even get me started on not knowing if what you’re doing is wrong or right or being in the midst of life and just doing what it is you are “supposed” to do. Or telling stories about it, years later and knowing that the stories don’t do justice to the original experience in either meaning or implication. 

Kind of like me writing about setting up my camera and tripod at the kids’s elementary school park and shooting video of myself singing a few lines of the cake song, “The Winter” with the hope of making it into their music video. You just can’t know what that really meant to me. 

Say Yo?! So what’s a girl to do? I gush. I rush. I crush. And I mush and mash potatoes. Bake bread. Serve stuffing from the stove top. Yeah, that’s the only kind of Thanksgiving dinner I’ve cared for since I was just nineteen. 

Anyhow, that’s enough wandering for one day. Time now, to get that bird in the oven. 

With Peace an Gratitude,
~Miss SugarCookie