I am crying over here, people

But it's crying in a good way. That's what happens when I read Overheard in the Office when I'm tired and punchy.

12PM Back Up -- the Direction of the Earth's Axis?

Supervisor: We can't say 'Summer Solutions' on this brochure, because it might confuse people in California because it's summer all the time there. Any ideas of how to reword this?
Staffer: It's not summer all the time in California. It's summer during summer time.
Supervisor: But it's warm all year round, so how do they know it's summer? We need a way to explain that these things are only intended for the summer.
Staffer: But they still know what summer is, even if it's still warm during the other seasons.
Supervisor: I'm not sure about that...
Staffer: Summer isn't about temperature, it's about the direction of Earth's axis. Summer is always in June, July, and August. It always starts with the solstice in June.
Supervisor: I don't know anything about solstices and all that. Let's just reword this.
Staffer: But California still has a summer. I'm telling you, they know what summer is.
Supervisor: I don't know. They might get confused.
Staffer: Confused about what?
Supervisor: Confused about when summer is. Like, it's summer right now, 'cause it's been warm lately.
Staffer: No... April is in the spring.

Delaware

Overheard by: rofl in cube next door

via Overheard in the Office, Jun 13, 2007

Mr. Elinoire will be your guest blogger for today

Approximately one thousand of your earth years ago...

A small neighborhood boy appeared at the door of the house where Mr. Elinoire grew up, bearing a cake tin he had been tasked by his mother to deliver. Said container contained (that being what containers do), a chocolate cake with green frosting. This cake was a present from the child's mother to Mr. Elinoire's family, the reason for which has been lost to the mists of time (along with the name of the child).

The young boy, having delivered his charge to Mr. Elinoire's mother, hung around the door for a few moments before announcing, "You know, I really like chocolate cake," adding a few moments later, "especially chocolate cake with green frosting." No doubt he is now a highly-paid marketing executive somewhere, but this early attempt to turn events in his favor met with utter failure. It is not recorded whether his campaign was met with admonishment, derisive laughter, or mere indifference, but, in any case, he went upon his way cakeless.

And then hands were waved in the air, and this event was transmogrified from a story into a meme, and thence into a family predilection for the question "what kind of cake would you like for your birthday?" to be answered "chocolate cake with green frosting (of course)." So now you know.

Just like regular cake, only, well, you know.

New York was the first place we stopped during our recent trip. I had originally thought we might do various touristy NYC things, but once we arrived and were settled into our friends' lovely Brooklyn brownstone, we quickly realized that what we really wanted to do was take it easy, hang out with our friends, and maybe go on a few walks. On our first day we visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Our friend Katia, who was graciously showing us her city, took pity on us when it was clear we'd need caffeine in order to continue. (I plead jetlag, despite the mere 3-hour time difference between the West and East Coasts. I'm sure it had nothing to do with getting approximately 15 hours sleep over the four days before leaving for New York. Nothing at all.) We stopped at a coffee place across the street from the scary-strict Brooklyn Co-op (where Mr. Elinoire and I, as non-members, were NOT allowed to buy anything so you'd better believe we didn't even THINK about it) and as we were ordering, I noticed a case of cupcakes.

(Mmm, cupcakes. Just like regular cake, only you usually get more frosting and you aren't morally obligated to share with anyone, which is usually not the case with an entire cake. Not that I'd ever attempt to eat an entire cake by myself because I am far, far too virtuous.)

Mr. Elinoire chose a reasonably-sized black and white-topped cupcake but I went for the larger cappuccino cupcake with the mini milk chocolate chips on the top.



We walked a little further and then sat at the base of a statue at the edge of Prospect Park and dug in. And that was when I discovered that 1. my ginormous cupcake had extra frosting in the middle, and 2. no way was I going to be able to finish it on my own. Luckily Katia and Mr. Elinoire were willing to help. Wasn't that nice of them?



Our trip fell between my birthday, which we celebrated with Chinese food before we left, and Mr. Elinoire's, which we celebrated with Italian food about two weeks after we got home. His family has an odd* chocolate-cake-with-green-frosting tradition that I have occasionally incorporated into the birthday cakes I make for him. This year's version was my own little homage to the Brooklyn Cappuccino Cupcake. Here is a birthday cupcake from the outside:



I made the cake from a mix (shhh) but used very strong coffee instead of water for a richer taste. The frosting is pre-made (shhh again) vanilla with green food coloring, and then grated bits of (genuine Swiss!) chocolate on the top. Each cake has coffee whipped cream** in the center. They were a big hit, if I do say so myself.



Plus? Tonight? After I took the pictures of the Last of the Birthday Cupcakes? Sylvie found the just-out-of-the-dryer load in the little laundry basket and decided to do her own imitation of a New York City cupcake. Awww.



*To be fair, it's not any odder than my family's tradition of dropping lines from this fabulous work into normal conversation.

**This was the first time I'd made "stabilized" whipped cream and I was very pleased with the result. I just added about a third of an envelope of plain dry gelatin to the cream, sugar, and veryveryVERYstrong*** coffee mixture and whipped it up.

***As in "so strong it would make any child who bit into the cupcake expecting frosting and chocolate cake and instead found the equivalent of a double latte inside cry because yuck! coffee!"

The trick is to leave the last bit of the word unspoken...

Mr. Elinoire gamely listened to many, many hours of French lessons on CD before we left for our trip. Some evenings he would come home and greet me with "Bonjour Madame. Est-ce que vous voudriez boire quelque chose? Du vin ou de la bière?," which was adorable, if slightly disconcerting.* (I think the less formal version of "you" is appropriate once you've done each other's laundry.)

But, well, there are a lot of words in the French language, and you can only remember so many, you know?



But you know what? He loved France! Okay, okay, he didn't actually use a lot of his newly acquired vocabulary, but Mr. Elinoire was like a lexiconically-enabled vacuum cleaner. He understood so much of la langue française by the time we left that I could only snark about him in French if I spoke really quickly.** Our friend Nathalie even taught him to talk to French cows.***



Here are three words Mr. Elinoire enjoys saying the way French people do: blog ("blugg"), wifi (weefee), and iPod (ee-puhd).

* Also? Mr. Elinoire doesn't drink wine or beer... so he only knew how order things he doesn't like. Note the past tense "knew" in that sentence. He has since learned how to request not one but two different beverages: sirop de pamplemousse (grapefruit syrup) and café au lait.

**I kid. I would never snark about him to his face. Give me some credit.

***Apparently French cows**** don't moo like their American counterparts -- they meugle. Imagine Mr. Elinoire saying "meuh" conversationally out the window while passing random fields and voila! a window into our vacation experience. If you need more, here is an MP3 of a French cow, courtesy of www.randonneur.net.

****Swiss cows really do wear cow bells, in case you were wondering. This is what it sounds like if you step out of the car next to a lush green Swiss valley. And yes, I know we're talking about France, not Switzerland, but hey, cow-related thought.