Cup Cake Hero

The voice on the phone was tinged with the desperation that comes each year at Spring Fair time.

"We need cakes for the cake walk," it said. "You couldn't bake one." Truer words have never been spoken - I can't bake anything - but how was that sweet-voiced woman to know that of all the things on earth I cannot do, cake baking, ahem, takes the cake.

I ran down my mental list of excuses and evasions. Too busy? Nope, that wouldn't work because the woman on the phone was probably busier. Something else going on? A possibility but you can bake the cakes beforehand and drop them off. Broken stove? Too obvious. Can't bake cakes? Pathetic.

So I replied in the only way I could. "Why, yes, of course I'll bake a cake. Any kind in particular?"

"No," she said. "Just a simple cake." Again, how could she know that in my world, cakes are neither "simple" nor "just." But I was committed, and now there was only one way forward. Go out and buy the mix.

Things started out OK. The directions were clear and simple; just four easy steps and presto! Perfect batter. In fact, it was so easy that I started thinking. Why settle for a boring old cake? Why not do cup cakes and throw in a little something to spice them up.

My hand automatically went for the bourbon, but I managed to stop myself before splashing it into the batter. What was I thinking? These cakes were destined for children. You don't waste perfectly good bourbon on children! I took a quick swig and put the bottle away.

Strawberry jam seemed more appropriate, so I spooned a dozen dollops into the batter then shoved the tray into the oven.

Fifteen minutes later, the aroma of chocolate cake filled my house and I was imagining myself parading into the Spring Fair with my fabulous jam-filled cup cakes, other moms and dads rushing up and fawning over them, the music of Foreigner's Juke Box Hero playing in he background.

She's a Cup Cake Hero, got stars in her eyes….

But the dream was shattered when someone who cannot be named in this column waltzed in and asked what was exploding in the oven. Good Lord. The cup cakes. When we opened the door, we found the oven covered in the shrapnel of half-baked cup cakes, several having indeed blown up, the others poised like hand grenades with their pins pulled waiting to go off.

We got the cup cakes out of the oven, and when the danger passed He Who Cannot be Named lectured me on the laws of thermodynamics: the jam heats up more quickly than the batter, ergo the fireworks, darling. Thank-you.

Luckily, the jam had sunk to the bottom of the cup cakes and I was able to resurrect the survivors by cutting off their bottoms. But this didn't solve the problem of the wart-like nodules on top, the baked-on debris from the less fortunate cup cakes, I could only assume.

So I did what one does in these situations: I smeared white icing over the top then made happy faces with chocolate icing squeezed through a plastic bag with a hole cut in the corner.

"Mutants!" thrilled He Who Can't when he saw my creations. And he was right. The faces were more homely than happy. In any other circumstance, I would agree with those who say that plastic surgery is barbaric and perverse, but in the case of these cup cakes, cosmetic intervention seemed merciful and necessary.

I microwaved what was left of the white icing and poured it over the faces. Now we had creepy, Goth cup cakes - Addams Family cup cakes. But at least they weren't mutants.

The clock was now bonging. Time had run out. Spring fair was here. He Who Can't Be Named took my Goth cup cakes to the opening, and bless him, he told the people the children made them.

Not surprisingly, they were the last chosen by the winners in the cake walk. I'm not entirely sure they weren't given away as charity or perhaps to the dog waiting by the door.

And if this was the case, then let it never be said that this Cup Cake Hero faded away. She just crumbled in the jaws of a dog.

Carpet bomb 'em with impatiens

I've recently taken up gardening. Well, gardening might be a bit of an exaggeration. What I've actually taken up is harvesting the knowledge of real gardeners on the subjects of annuals, shrubs and things you put in the ground because they look pretty.

My own knowledge of gardening does not run deep. It goes something like this: That is a yellow flower. This is a red flower. And the one over there? Why, it's an orange flower with black specs in the petals. Lovely, those petals, aren't they?

So in a quest to improve myself, I embarked on a horticultural journey.

It began in late March as the snows were receding. I began to clear that little patch of evergreens in front of the house. The job required a certain type of tool, so I called upon the sharp-teeth of my Swedish Sandvik Force 24-inch bow saw.

I don't know what kind of trees they have in Sweden, but the blade on one of those things goes through a local stump like a hot knife through butter. Down, down went the bushes one after another.

So slick was the Sandvik that I found myself striding around the property looking for more dead bush and branches. The bush that would sprout those little yellow flowers in spring? Gone. The one that had the purple blossoms in summer? Hacked.

I cut them because I thought they were dead. I was later informed by He Who Can't be Named that, barring evergreens, everything looks dead in March. Hmmm. It was probably just as well that he confiscated my Sandvik and hid it in the basement.

Now I had my empty flowerbed, but what to plant? Rhododendrons, advised one gardening guru. So when the time came, I nipped over to the annual Rhododendron Society sale and found at least thirty people line ahead of me. Other Rhododendron dolts like me, I assumed.

Ha! How wrong I was. This was a crack commando squad of gardeners, Special Forces parachuted in to storm the gardening gates, Green Berets of rhododendron fanciers. Trust me. What this crowd didn't know about rhodos wasn't worth knowing.

And there I was, the noxious weed amongst the blossoms, not knowing a rhododendron from the back end of a pick-up truck.

When the gates opened, it was rhododendron pandemonium. The commandos shot off in every direction and plucked up choice rhodos, perennials, conifers and azaleas. I stood in the middle of it all, lost and too embarrassed to ask the question I most needed to ask: "So, what does a rhododendron look like, anyway?"

When I realized I was missing the boat, I waded in, grabbed the first two plants I could get my hands on, paid and got out. When I got them home, their tags revealed that I had two rhodos, a Patty Bee and a New Patriot (not part of the US missile defence system.)

Then, as if to mock me, their pretty blossoms promptly slumped over and fell off. I was gutted, but my gardening guru said not to worry; plant sales are stressful for rhodos, too. So I planted my defrocked rhodos.

Now I had to fill the rest of the garden, but with what? Impatiens, implored my guru. So off I skipped to the nearest garden centre to buy some. The impatiens were pretty when planted, but the gaps between them loomed large.

After a second trip to the garden centre, there were still more holes than flowers. This bugged me so I bought and planted again. A third planting helped but the holes persisted. My garden needed more plants, more blossoms, more colour.

Now, it was obsession. I had to fill those gaps. So, like a crazed military commander launching a rearguard action, I threw caution to the wind, called up the heavy artillery and carpet bombed the thing with impatiens.

I know what you're thinking. Impatient with the impatiens. Tut tut. But decisions had to be made, and once I started knocking out those holes, it was like a drug. I couldn't stop. Plant. Plant. Plant. More. More. More. I love the smell of bone meal in the morning!

The garden looks great now. The rhodos are thriving and the impatiens, bless them; they're exploding with colour. I don't call myself a real gardener - an enthusiastic planter, perhaps - but I think I've achieved the first step. Now I can't pass a garden centre without stopping in for a look.

You know who I am and where I live so I leave you with this. Asked to use the word horticulture in a sentence, American wit Dorothy Parker said: "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."

Tip toe through the low-functioning tulips

I want to tell you about my tulips, but I have to be careful because I wouldn't want to hurt their feelings.

Hmmm. How to describe the tulips without destroying their self-esteem? Ok, put it like this: my tulips aren't exactly what you'd call Miss Universe material. They might take home the award for Miss Congeniality, but they're never going to bag the royal crown, or even a runner-up ribbon.

It's OK, I've accepted this. I am not blind to their poor performance and undeniable homeliness. If I'm honest with you, I'd have to say my tulips are dysfunctional, but you don't like to saddle the poor things with labels.

So, for the purposes of description but not judgment, let me say that I have scruffy tulips with fat leaves that slouch over as if too lazy to stand up straight.

And to add insult to injury, the ones growing in the "flower" bed at the front of the house haven't bothered to sprout flowers this year. It's as if they popped out of the ground in April, looked around and said, "You know, I think I'll just give the whole thing a miss this year."

There was a half-hearted flowering from the tulips in the other bed, but they shouldn't have bothered. The little tight-fists of colour didn’t exactly bloom into glorious flower; they just sort of flopped down, one petal here, one there, giving the whole thing an ugly asymmetry.

I'd like to blame the weather. I’d like to say that my tulips were waterlogged by the excesses of May. But I know my tulips. They'd have looked like a train wreck even if the rains of May had never happened.

It has been pointed out to me that the lifespan of a tulip bulb is something like six or seven years. I’m sure this is true, but I’m one of these immediate gratification gardeners. If I'm going to bother planting something, I want to see results, now, not in six months.

I probably wouldn’t be regaling you with this sad tulip tale were it not for the actions of a certain neighbour. The fact is that while my tulips may never been much to look at, they found good company with the tulips growing her front garden.

I’m not one to dine on the failure of others, but I must say that it always brought me comfort to know her tulips were equally sad and in some cases worse than mine. She had the neighbourly decency to keep the tulip standards low in the ‘hood.

But that all changed last fall when my neighbour began taking advice on her tulips. She did her research, dug up her tulip beds, dressed them in fancy new soil, bought a bag of bulbs and planted them; all of this without my knowledge or consent.

Well, imagine my shock when I walked by her house and found pert, nubile, symmetrical tulips springing out of the beds. Not only are they beautiful young specimens, but they've clearly been arranged in cute little groupings and planned for staggered flowering!

When I questioned her, she was sheepish. Yes, she admitted, she'd put some effort into her tulip beds. And yes, she'd committed this act behind my back. She didn’t come out say it, but this neighbour knew darned well what her actions meant for me and my scruffy tulips.

Feeling guilty, she offered to help me with mine this fall, but I'm afraid it's a little too late for her advice. She betrayed us, me and my low-functioning tulips, and now we're the laughing stock of the ‘hood.

You know, I have good mind to run out, get a truckload of soil and plant a load of kick-butt annuals just as her tulips are dying off. Yes, that's it. I’ll call it the Begonia Revenge.

Snow rage

Like you, my fellow Northern hemisphere dwellers, I've had occasion to do some shovelling in my day. That would make me a shoveller, like you, and everyone else with a driveway.

But it occurs to me whenever I'm out there bullying my snow into submission that the term "shoveller" is too far too broad a church to define the diversity of shovellers who inhabit this cold hemisphere.

It seems to me that we can learn something from the Inuit people who have many ways to describe snow. In a winter like this, a shoveller is not just shoveller. A shoveller is a many-splendored thing.

So in this spirit, I offer a few different archetypes of the shoveller.

1. The civil engineer shoveller. Approaches a snow-filled driveway with a mental blue print. Assesses depth, width and length of snow-to-be-shovelled and then calculates most efficient effort-to-snow removal ratio. Sidewalks always cleared to spec.

2. The why-didn't-I-buy-that-snow blower-when-it-was-on-sale-last-winter shoveller. Fooled by arrival of spring, this archetype lapses into seasonal denial about the existence of winter and naively spends money on barbeques, lawn care products and little ornamental flowers, only to rue the day when the snow arrives. Full of self-loathing.

3. Protestant work ethic shoveller. Sees snow, finds shovel and gets to work. No complaints or moaning here. No enjoyment either. It's just another job that must be done so they get out there and they do it. End of story.

4. Catholic guilt shoveller. (Having grown up here, I have some appreciation). Performs as fastidiously as Protestant brethren, but is motivated by different reasons. Catholic guilt shoveller worries about what will happen if they don't shovel. After all, someone could slip and hurt themselves. And what if they’re ticketed for failing to shovel the sidewalk?

5. The woe-is-me shoveller. Takes the snow storm personally. Regards shovelling as yet another cross to bear. Always overestimates the amount of snow which has fallen. Sighs heavily and often.

6. The clean freak shoveller (also known as the M. Stewart shoveller). Makes sure every last flake is obliterated no matter how severe the storm. Chirps at sight of bare driveway, sidewalk and step. Judgmental of slobs who fail to live up to these standards.

7. Trailer Park Boy shoveller. I've never seen Ricky shovelling Sunnyvale Trailer Park but can imagine it would go something like this: "I effin' hate effin' winter. I effin' hate snow and I really effin' hate shovelling. They only thing snow's good for is stuffing up effin' Leahy's nose." Sound familiar anyone?

8. The Sergeant Major shoveller. Sees a snowstorm as an opportunity to teach the adolescent offspring a little something about the value of hard work. While beleaguered adolescent shovels, Sergeant Major provides rolling commentary on how much snow "we" used to get in the good old days and how kids back then weren't afraid of work.

9. Snow rage shoveller. Has propensity to throw beer bottles at plow just before it fills in mouth of a freshly shovelled driveway.

10. Cardio shoveller. Usually a runner whose athletic workouts have been severely curtailed by snow. Views a snowed-in driveway as an opportunity for endorphin release. Only stops to take heart rate. Does plenty of stretching before and after shovelling.

11. Snow blower envy shoveller. Covets neighbours' winter machines. Thinks size matters.

12. Smug snow blower owner shoveller. Occasionally gets shovel out to dust off front step and to feel like member of the snow-removing proletariat. Has no problem making friends with non-snow blowing neighbours.

13. Florida shoveller. Spends snow removal budget on golf clubs and sun block cream.