Catching Up And Formulating a Plan

As you might suspect, I haven’t much wanted to leave my home over the past couple days.  We’ve been hanging around with Peanut and trying to catch up on routine stuff.  I’ve only been out once and that was to the grocery.  Gene has been out a couple times--he went with me to the grocery and yesterday afternoon he went for a short hike at Beaman Park.  We haven’t even opened our door today.

So far, everything is going well with my folks.  My dad continues to improve slowly and apparently my mom has everything under control at the house.  While I was there, I did a lot of cooking and my aunt brought in six casseroles and a huge pot of soup.  All that food went into the freezer so all my mom has to do is heat and eat.  She can still do her own cooking, but she gets tired very easily.  With the extra work of caring for my Dad, she’ll enjoy not having to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

With things going as well as they are, we are looking for a departure day of Saturday.  A memorial service for my uncle who passed away a couple weeks ago is scheduled for Saturday afternoon.  After that is over, we’re thinking we may drive a hundred miles just so our distance won’t be so far the following day to Perry, Georgia.  If that works out, we can actually see ourselves in Bushnell, Florida on Monday afternoon.  We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve spent considerable time catching up with the blogs I follow.  Seems like everybody is getting a very good start to the new year.  As I read one of Judy’s posts at Travels with Emma, I was reminded of a few King Cake parties I’ve been to.  Once upon a time, in a life which seems far, far away, my teaching friends and I had a little book club.  Like most book clubs, we’d select a book to read and then get together to discuss what we’d read, drink wine, and eat junk food.  Eventually, we gave up the reading and just got together to drink and eat.  Someone in our group had heard about King Cakes, but we were really too far away from southern Louisiana to hardly notice Mardi Gras.

One year our little group decided to order a King Cake and that got us started on an annual King Cake Party event.  We ordered our first King Cake and it came complete with the Baby Jesus (henceforth known as the BJ).  We didn’t like the taste of the cake so much and decided from then on to make our own.  The person getting the BJ in their piece of cake got to host the party the following year and make the cake.  We also decided there were several “kings” to be honored--Elvis, for example, King Tut, BB King, King Kong, the Lion King.  The host announced the “king” and everybody dressed accordingly.  It was a hoot.  Thanks, Judy, for setting in motion all those fantastic memories.

Rick and Paulette have been out hiking and his post the other day about a short section on the PCT brought back a host of memories of some good hikes we’ve done on that trail in the Lake Tahoe area as well as near Mt Rainier.  It reminded me also that I haven’t selected the Appalachian Trail thru-hikers to follow this year.  Many thru-hikers post their journals on Trail Journals and each year I like to select six or eight to follow.  I usually pick out some older hikers.  Their journals are more interesting to me than the younger set.  We’re also getting very anxious to get back on the trail ourselves.  We’re looking forward to doing some hiking on the Florida Trail this winter.

Peanut seems to have enjoyed us being close at hand for the past couple days.  Gene taught him a new trick while I was away.  Peanut has discovered the heating pad.  Gene put it on the bed one morning and turned it on.  It’s hard to get that cat up from there now.  Would you say he’s is SPOILED?

That’s enough rambling for today.  Thanks for tagging along.

Annual King Cake Party

Some years ago (15, 16, 17 something like that) a small group of my fellow-teachers and I decided we would start a book club.  That worked out great and we got together about every other month to discuss the book we were reading and, of course, eat.  One winter a couple of three years after we started the book club, somebody had the idea of having a King Cake party.

King Cakes have been around for a long time in many different countries, but our focus was on Mardi Gras and the New Orleans tradition of the King Cake.  This is a cake in which a small plastic figure--the King, or “baby Jesus”, hidden inside is served to guests.  The lucky guest receiving the “baby Jesus” in their serving got the prize.  King Cake parties are held during Mardi Gras. That sounded like fun.

That first year we went all out and ordered a genuine King Cake from a bakery in New Orleans.  Kathy hosted the party that year and prepared a delicious authentic Cajun style meal.  We cut the King Cake with the rule that whoever got the “baby Jesus” would host the party the following year.  That first party was a blast and we loved every minute of it.

Now, if you are a teacher or have a friend or family member who is, you will know that teachers are generally very creative and will often make up their own rules.  Although we kept the “BJ” as he came to be called, gave him a bath and stored him in a safe place to await the next Mardi Gras season (we even sent him through school mail a few times until we decided it might be unconstitutional), our “kings” began to change.  We’ve had several kings over these few years (14, 15, 16 something like that).  Elvis was king, and King Tut, King Kong, BB King, and King of the Jungle just to name a few.  We soon did away with ordering the traditional cake and made our own, often in the shape which represented the named king.   Of course, we always dressed up (some may think we’ve dressed down).

This year “Bling is King” and the party is tonight at the home of my former team mate, Karen.  Since I have been away from Nashville for the past several years, I have been unable to attend the festivities and I miss being there.  This year, when my invitation came in the mail I determined to be there in spirit.

I made my own king cake, sans the BJ, and have dug around for some antique bling.  The party starts at 6 PM and I am calling in to say “hi” to all my friends.  It won’t be the same as being there, but it will be a whole lot better than not participating at all.