The Birthday Cake Kerfuffle

First of all, I LOVE the word “kerfuffle”.  I use it as much as possible, so even though the event I am about to relate affected only myself in the long run, I am still going to call it a “kerfuffle”.  Because I can.

With all the crazy weather we’ve had around here and my poor track record with migraines in the last few weeks, I made a very simple plan for Wild Man’s birthday cake.  He is quite interested in the Blue Angels and is probably going to get to see them perform this summer on his trip across the US.  His only cake specification was that it be a chocolate cake with vanilla (NOT buttercream) icing and that it be a 2 layer round cake.

I went ahead and made the cake Friday night.  I also frosted it with vanilla icing from a can that Wild Man had picked at the grocery store.  Things were going well.  Next, I went to Wild Man’s Paper Airplane A Day Calendar which he thought was cool, but doesn’t actually use.  I found the pattern and instruction pages for the F/A-18 Hornet in blue, just like the planes used by the Blue Angels.  Plans were in motion.  I prayed fervently for no migraine and went to bed.

All looked to be going well Saturday morning.  I had a mild headache that seemed to be under control with my meds.  The party attendees arrived on time.  PWM loaded up Wild Man, Rosie Girl, and the three other boys into the van to go to Chuck E. Cheese for a few hours of pizza and games, leaving me at home to finish up the cake decoration and gift wrapping.  My confidence level was high.

I had a few minutes of panic when I couldn’t find the pattern and instruction pages, but I eventually located them.  The next task was to copy the pattern so that I could make several planes or have a back-up if I made a mistake.  I went to our new copier/scanner/printer and realized I might be in trouble – too many buttons and I had never used any of them.  I followed my nose, though, and put the paper in the autofeed tray, pushed the color copy button, and, lo and behold, a color copy was made.

This may have been my downfall.  I think the copy machine success made me cocky.  After I successfully made three (three!!) copies of the pattern, I sat down at the table and went to folding.  Thirty minutes later, all I had was a pile of paper on the table.  Pardon my arrogance, but I have two bachelor’s degrees and a doctorate degree and I could not fold a blasted paper airplane!!  How could this be?!  I gave it one last try, but finally decided that my 12 years of higher education were for naught because that paper airplane was just not happening!

After some Facebook venting (and thank you FB friends for not immediately chiding me for my silliness), I went to Plan B which involved a foam toy airplane of my son’s on top of the cake with decorations around it.  Mind you, the foam plane appears to be an F-14, which is also a Navy plane, but it is clearly not an F/A-18, nor is it blue.  Nonetheless, I made some blue icing, did some very basic decorations (because I was now running out of time), threw the gifts in some gift bags, and had the kitchen clean before the birthday boy made it back from Chuck E. Cheese.

All’s well that ends well, even with a paper airplane kerfuffle!!  And now, I’m going to get some well-deserved rest!!

(And this cake had sure better not show up on Cake Wrecks!!)