Flotsam, jetsam

Maybe I'm addled because I started work at 5 AM this morning (new normal, for a bit anyway), but I have been giddy-happy for the past several hours. I can't really settle into anything, so I decided to make some cupcakes. Sourcream gingerbread, with some diced candied ginger and chocolate chips tossed in. Possibly I'll walk a few around to neighborhood folk, since I haven't been especially neighborly for a bit. The cake batter is silky and rich. I may have eaten a lot of it. I may not even care about the finished cakes themselves. Sadly, some batter was lost in the sampling; luckily I noticed it hanging out on my left shoe, so I won't be wandering outside of my house like some unkempt baker zombie.

But the day: outside of packed office work, enjoyable, due to lovely little moments. Even as it feels silly/inconsequential to linger over or read anything into them, I love how it's the silly little details that can add up to a sense of contentedness. To wit:

• Dearheart emailed me because she saw tamarind ice cream in a Mexican grocery near her new digs and thought of me. Cool! I love tamarind, not sure how it is with ice cream. The confection comes in a tube, however -- can we feel confident this is truely dairy based? Tubed ice cream:: ice cream as Cheez whiz::cheese?
• A good friend called, just as I was eyeing the phone. She was strolling around her block, with her sparkly new baby girl, so I got to catch up with her. Baby meeting imminent!
• I got into the Liberty Local show at the Ann Arbor Art Center -- a new little fair in mid-October. 
• Thai shrimp curry twice today! Looooove coconut milk curries and can muster a handful of respectable Indian curries, but haven't taught myself any Thai. Need to get a good lemongrass vibe going.
• Good Mom quote, though from the worrisome occasion of her falling against the bathtub ledge, hurting her back and giving herself a goose egg at the base of her head: "I'm doing okay. Otherwise, I'd be doing worse." She's healing well.
• The kitchen shears have returned! I took them to the cemetery. Don't know why THAT would have confused me.
• Thesaurus provides the following words for addlepated: muddleheaded, adlebrained, puddingheaded. Assignment: in your next work meeting, work two varations into the conversation. One should be delivered in a self-deprecating manner; the other hotly, confrontationally. 

And lastly, an unfortunate cupcake update. The cupcakes do not feel up to entertaining. They have ghastly sunken craters in their middles and hardened outer edges. They hunker grimly in the tin until prized away with a knife; they are resentful in their separation. The only way to serve them would be to cut out the centers and lay them in a bowl; top with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge. That would certainly work. But I can not serve them on their own. Now I am glad I ate so much batter.