Poppy delivers red hot news items. Or not.

A wonderfully lackluster Valentine's Day was had by all--thanks for asking.

But hey--did I mention that my husband baked a huge--and I'm talking monstrously gigantic--Valentine's Day cake? It was a Red Devil's Cake with butter cream icing and a different, but equally fattening butter cream filling. Everything was tinted bright red. And it was huge. If you take two square layers, fill and stack and turn them to make a diamond, and then add two round cake layers, filled and stacked, then cut in half and cemented to the top two sides of the diamond, then frost the whole behemoth with red icing, guess what? You will have produced the biggest heart shaped cake in the world. I mean, this thing was so big that scientists were ready to announce the discovery of a tenth planet.

And no, I'm not exaggerating. That cake has its own gravitational pull. It really isis almost a planet. A fattening one.

(Like I needed the calories, dear. But it was thoughtful.)

OK, so that's St. Valentine's Day. On Thursday we went to a book signing. Our friends J. and B. are friends with the author of Well Bred and Dead




so they had a book signing at their extremely lovely Gold Coast apartment. This was particularly appropriate because the book is about Chicagoans of the Gold Coast variety. The funny thing was that the book was to a certain extent a roman a clef, and some of the clefs were there, drinking champagne and eating little sandwiches. And they didn't know they were clefs, but I did. So that was highly amusing. Either that, or I was just drunk. Again.

On Friday the children had the day off from school. Naturally I was less than thrilled with being trapped inside with the children who don't want to get dressed or go anywhere or do anything other than go play GameCube or some imaginary game off in their own worlds. Worlds to which I, apparently, lack a visa. Pardon me, but didn't we just do that? Isn't that what Christmas vacation was about? I mean, I had a massive case of deja vu all day. On the other hand, being stuck at home--and basically ignored, except for the occasional demand for food--is a great way to get the basement cleaned up and in general, tidy the house until it was pretty much unrecognizable.


On Saturday night my dear friend L. threw herself a dinner party for her birthday. I thought I'd get her a gift certificate, so I went into a salon we both like and picked out a manicure/pedicure package and threw in a 60 minute massage as a lagniappe. Then I figured I'd get a manicure/pedicure and shampoo/blow out myself.
This meant I presented an unusually well-groomed appearance at L.'s birthday party that night. Then I got drunk, of course. But I wasn't a sloppy drunk. I was an extremely well-groomed drunk. The lesson we learn from this? You might not want to party with me. You might not want to sit at my end of the dining room table. But you want me to buy you presents.

Then today. Church. I was there for hours, and so were my dazzling red fingernails (because yes! I've decided that sheer pinky-beige colors are JUST TOO BORING and it's time for color! Whee! and a happy belated St. Valentine's Day to me.) Where I clasped my hands in prayer, and prayed for (among other things) deliverance from my hangover, freedom from chipped nail polish, general forgiveness of my general sins, and then more specific forgiveness of my more particular sins--gluttony came to mind right away--followed by vanity--and then, because I'm generous that way, I prayed for forgiveness of your sins, too, Internet.

Which brings us to the present moment. So here's your update: I still have red nails. And you, Internet, still have a coal-black heart. You and your Viagra ads and pervy web sites and attempts to bilk African governments out of millions of $US. Not to mention how many of you don't link to my blog.