Cake is for Wussies

Yesterday was Mark's birthday, and we spent Friday night at the beach with my mom to celebrate. Our Fourth of July celebration consisted of pizza, beer, and front row seats to a tented, catered party in the yard next door complete with lobster, a campfire and patriotic songs. By nine o'clock, the festivities were in full swing with loud and terrifically off-key renditions of "Dinah Blow Your Horn" and "Glory, Glory Halleluiah." Groan. Double groan. I couldn't drink enough to drown out the horror.

No fireworks this year. Patriots in New England? HA!. See, we have Piping Plovers on our beaches. Piping Plovers are endangered. Fireworks bring crowds. Crowds frighten Piping Plovers. So the towns have decided that a twenty-minute fireworks display ON A BARGE, IN THE OCEAN will equal the extinction of the piping plover due to the crowds that will converge on the beach. Now, don't get me wrong. I am all for conservation and saving a cute little bird who is on it's last legs on the planet. Seriously. I don't want that to sound glib and insincere. Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge supporter of environmental and wildlife causes. What I don't like is the bullshit that's fed to everyone by the towns. If protecting the Piping Plover were really the top priority, they would be closing the beaches permanently, all day, every day. But they don't do that. There are crowds by the thousands on the beaches every single day, with unleashed dogs and unruly children - both serious dangers to the Piping Plover. But, alas, these hordes of people are the Wealthy from Away, bringing their coveted recession-proof bank books with them to their McMansions on the coast, so we can't possibly keep them from going to the beach now, can we? So cut the bull. If you're going to save the Plover, save the Plover. Don't just use it as a crutch to get out of spending a little cash on your country's Independence Day celebration. Many thanks to the raucous few who braved being taken down by the two-wheeled beach cops on their expensive Gary Fisher mountain bikes (frivolously bought with taxpayer money) by smuggling some top-shelf Chinese contraband into the state and providing some semblance of a display on the beach. You are the true patriots!

There. That feels better. Sorry for the tirade - it's been annoying me. AND I've completely gotten off the subject. Mark's birthday. Well, he decided he didn't want a traditional birthday cake this year - he wanted a giant whoopie pie. An enormous, FIVE POUND whoopie pie. Apparently, cake is for wussies. And, apparently, whoopie pies do not count as cake. They are not called whoopie cakes. They are whoopie pies. Pie is not the same as cake. I about died when it arrived and we took it out of the box. Here's a peek at how ginormous this thing actually was.

We ordered it from a company right here in Maine that makes these "little" gems, so if you're interested it's www.wickedwhoopie.com. It's pretty insane, but they're insanely good. And insanely bad - for your waistline and overall health, anyway...  YUM. Sometimes it's SO good to be bad. 

And yes, Hurricane Bodie is still going strong. My house is an obstacle course of dismembered and disembodied toys, chewed up shoes, shredded magazines and the like. At the moment, every last toy that was in his toy basket is strewn all over the floor, the basket is tipped on it's side, and he's SLEEPING (thankfully) behind it. Here are a couple of new photos of the little beast!

Kota is doing well, too. Sort of. He is still doing everything in his power to avoid Bodie. Avoid, ignore, dismiss, whatever you want to call it. It's like putting your fingers in  your ears, closing your eyes, saying "la la la la" and praying that when you open your eyes whatever was there is gone and was only a horrifying figment of your imagination. Sorry, Kota. We love you, we really do...