The Run Around

ROCK ON: It has been a week. A busy, Busy, BUSY week.

I'm not going to recap it all. None of us have that kind of time. But I will hit some highlights. 

Wednesday, the four of us went to WaMu theater in Seattle's stadium district. The draw was a concert by Third Eye Blind and Jimmy Eat World, a couple of bands who were perennial favorites on the airwaves at the end of the 1990s. 

We'd never been to a concert at WaMu before, and that wasn't an accident. I've read really not-so-great reviews about the place. And now I know why. ;)

It's really just this enormous concrete cavern. They host Home Shows and Boat Shows there - that kind of thing. But they also have concerts. When it's a concert night, they hang big black drapes around the cave, and put up all sorts of cattle fences (for lack of a better term. There's a huge standing-only area in front of a not-so-big-or-high stage. There are also two full service bars within the concert area, where people are fenced off from the rest of the crowd. The floor and the bars were really packed on Wednesday night. 

I'd read repeatedly that the venue has no seating, so we were pleasantly surprised to find some seating. They were clearly portable, "accordion" style seating that rolls into itself (think retractable high school bleachers). But rather than bleachers, they were actual seats, so that was good. What was not so good is that the height differential between each row was only about 3-4 inches, so it was hard to see over people in front of you. 

We chose to sit in the back row of the seats, because that way you can stand or sit as you like, no one's kicking the back of your chair, and you don't have to listen to people behind you blathering during the show.

The concert started at 7, with Ra Ra Riot up first. They were definitely not riotous, and had only a tad bit of ra ra. 

Next up was Jimmy Ear World. They had a number of solid hits back in the day, including  "Sweetness," and "The Middle."

I've seen Jimmy Eat World before (about 17 years ago, to be exact), and I have to say, it was strange to me on Wednesday night. For most songs, they sounded more like Death Cab for Cutie or Loverboy than they did themselves. I don't really know how else to explain it. 

Third Eye Blind was up next. Their self titled albums produced multiple huge hits back at the end of the '90s. We were so looking forward to seeing them live!

I have never checked the time so many times during a concert. I even Googled their setlist from their Portland show the night before to try to figure out how long it would be until it was over. ... :(

 It's hard to put into words what when wrong, but I found a review from their Portland show that summed it up pretty well.  One line from the review notes the band "had little intensity and felt altogether disjointed." Sadly, that was the case for the Seattle show, too. The energy of their music on CD simply did not translate to the stage. 

3EB lead singer  Stephan Jenkin was way too chatty for my tastes. For instance, I really don't need to go to a rock show to have the vocalist start talking woo about the shared experience and ordering audience members to turn to a stranger next to them and share pleasantries. It was awkard.

I also for SURE don't want to go to a show to hear songs I love sung live by the singer who recorded them, only to have said singer NOT sing the songs and, instead, hold the mic out to the audience and exhort them to sing. Um, I can stay at home and listen to people sing along with the song. Don't need to pay big $ to go to a concert for that. 

Given all of the above, people were leaving in droves during the show. So, toward the end, we ventured down to the floor and worked our way pretty close to the stage during their biggest hit, "Semi Charmed Kind of Life." 

It's also worth noting the sound during the concert was very meh. No bass, no treble, all middle. And super quiet. 

All in all, a mega disappointing event. I wish we'd stayed home. 

In keeping with our rock-n-roll lifestyle (ha ha), CJ and Christian are at a concert tonight, too, Uriah Heep and Judas Priest at the Showare Center in Kent, WA.

Early reviews are already in from then and it sounds like it was a great show, so yay for that!

SWEET SEND OFF: Thursday, our day was consumed with finishing some sizable projects for an event that evening, an eight grade "graduation."

For the event, we made and decorated vanilla and vegan chocolate sugar cookies, including some alphabet cookies to spell out the following message. ...  

 We also made about three dozen school logo cookies. 

 Each one was hand-painted. Fortunately, the school has a very simple logo!

And we whipped up two dozen vegan and gluten free chocolate cupcakes, plus three dozen organic strawberry lemonade cupcakes. I forgot to take a photo of the cupcakes, darn it (they replicated the school logo, as well), but I do have a pic of the sign that went with them. 

We also produced a couple of movies for the ceremony. One was a three-minute video about the eighth graders' trip to camp, the other was a super sentimental photo album set to music about each of the 15 graduates. Annabelle spent hours and hours and hours on those presentations, and they turned out beautifully, to the point that tears were shed by multiple people in the room. 

Friday was no less busy - we were up early hitting stores and then driving to Seattle to take 7 gallons of ice cream for root beer floats to be served at field day for the school.  And then I came home and made three batches of potato salad ('regular,' vegan, and onion-free), as well as vegan, gluten free and 'regular' shortcake for strawberry shortcake we're serving at Teen Feed tomorrow night. It was nice having Kennedy here, he was a big help in the kitchen!

I bet we all sleep well tonight. 

Half Baked

CAUGHT STEALING: This day has been circled on our calendar for awhile now. Ever since the Golden Warriors beat the Toronto Raptors in Canada during the NBA finals. That put the wheels for a Taco Bell promotion "Steal a game, steal a taco" into motion.

Every man, woman and child in the U.S. had a chance to have a free Taco Bell taco today between 2 and 6 p.m.

As you might have expected, we were at our nearest Taco Bell shortly after 2 p.m., and scored three free tacos for nada.

As you might also expect, we were at another nearby Taco Bell at about 3:30 p.m. There, we also got three free tacos. This time, I actually let the kids buy a drink, though, but only because it was 'happy hour' and the drinks were only $1 apiece.

So for $2, it was six tacos and two drinks for us today. Not bad on the budget.

BAKE AT 350:  I think I turned the oven on at 8:30 this morning. It's now 9 p.m., and the last batch of baked goods is finishing up.

Today we made vanilla sugar cookies in custom shapes, vegan chocolate sugar cookies, also custom cut, two batches of vegan cocoa cupcakes, and two batches of organic strawberry cupcakes. 

That's a lot of baking!

We're doing all this for a Thursday night eighth-grade 'graduation' event. There are probably going to be about 70 or so people there. There should be enough treats for everyone based on what we churned out today!

Tomorrow will be a lot of decorating - that's the fun part. :)

And because we didn't spend enough time in the kitchen today, we also decided to whip up a yummy Indian-inspired dinner of vindaloo chicken with bread and some lovely, spicy sauce over rice. Mmmm!

While they each helped in the kitchen some today, CJ and Annabelle each had their own projects.

CJ, for the first time, tried his hand at a Perler bead project. Annabelle and I spotted a cute Boston Terrier kit when we stopped in Jo-Ann for cupcake liners this afternoon. He liked it even more than we thought he would and got right down to business when we got home.

Annabelle has been working on a rather involved PowerPoint project, making montages of all the graduates and setting them to music. It's been a good exercise for her. She has learned a *lot* more about PowerPoint. 

TUNE IN, MOON IN: We learned in an email today that on June 18, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing and President Kennedy’s vision that launched the effort, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum will host a day-long symposium highlighting the history that led to the first Moon landing, current scientific and technological space initiatives, and the future of space exploration. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy will be on hand for the special event.

The museum will be livestreaming the event all day, starting at 6 a.m. West Coast USA time. There is a full day of panels, and each sounds super interesting. Featured speakers include Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, Apollo 11 Pilot Michael Collins, a host of scientists, and former leaders from NASA will all discuss how President Kennedy’s vision to send a man to the Moon still inspires our role in the universe today. 

You can follow this link to the broadcast schedule and live streams: 

https://www.jfklibrary.org/watch-the-jfk-space-summit

A Stitch in Time

DREAMERS: This weekend we checked on our bees, celebrated Father's Day, and did a few other things on the 'to do' list, but one of the biggest tasks was working on a donation cake for Birthday Dreams, a non-profit that provides birthday parties (decorations, gifts, cake, treats and all) for homeless youth.

The birthday person, an older teenager, we signed up for had a very specific request - they wanted a Lilo & Stitch-themed cake. 

We love making cakes for teens, and we love making specific/obscure cakes, so this was a good project to put the MPA cake squad to the test. 

We found a really great video online that featured a woman making a sculpted Stitch cake. While that's not the route we went, it helped Annabelle get some ideas for how to sculpt her Stitch out of homemade modeling chocolate. Annabelle watched it a couple of times and took notes.

Then, she was off to the races. She made the entire cake topper herself, fearlessly. I'm so impressed by her skill and confidence. 

Making blue modeling chocolate is a bit of a mess. At one point she said, "I look like I murdered a Smurf!"

Couldn't argue with her on that.

CJ was super helpful making the fondant and the pineapple filling for the top tier. 

The top tier is a coconut cake covered in coconut buttercream, with pineapple filling and chopped macadamia nuts for some crunch. It was our first go 'round for this particular recipe and I have to say, it tasted amazing. :) The "bamboo" around the top tier are hazelnut and vanilla Pirouette cookies. The sand on top of the cake is light brown sugar. The surfboard is modeling chocolate with sugar sheet and a little marshmallow fondant. (The recipient's name is on the surfboard, but I blurred it out, for the sake of confidentiality.)

The bottom tier is chocolate mocha cake with vanilla buttercream icing covered in red marshmallow fondant. Its filling is vanilla creme with mini chocolate chips.

Below is an early assembly photo. the column in the middle is to help hold the tall tier atop it.

Speaking of Birthday Dreams, despite the fact we've been donating cakes to them for a year now, this weekend we finally attended a (long overdue) volunteer orientation. 

It gave us a chance to learn more about how Birthday Dreams does what they do, and we were able to ask a few questions we've been wondering about for awhile now. 

After the orientation, we stopped by a nearby Jo-Ann store. As luck would have it, they were hosting a mini decorate-a-cookie or brownie table. The kids were all over that. CJ was still sporting his Birthday Dreams apron.