wha-hoo! cake and josh rouse!

wonder of wonders, i went to another concert alone last night. i reached a point about two years ago where i said, "screw this. if i can't find anyone join me at a great show, i'm going alone!" i don't see it as depressing or anything. i can sing along and piss off strangers. i have no problem with that. (i WAS supposed to have someone with me...but that didn't happen and i couldn't sell the other ticket...so i lost some cash.)

last night was josh rouse at the birchmere. he rocks. he cracked some jokes and was in a general happy mood. they played some of my favs, too. i met him last year at an XM recording session. here's a pic from that....
i cut my coworker out because he was so far away anyway.

then i came home and continued work on the cake for the super secret going away party today.
here are the cakes, cooling.

then i trimmed them and put cherry filling in the middle. had a little accident and the top piece broke. i think i fixed it up, though.

i did a "prep" layer of frosting, put the cake in the fridge to firm up a bit, then a finishing layer of frosting so it wound up looking much better than i thought it would.

and for the beach scene...

i found this spray-on cake color at the craft store, so i used it for the sand. then yellow sugar crystals and blue edible glitter. (if you notice, i put the cake on four pieces of wax paper as i decorated. then all you have to do is slide the pieces out and you have a clean cake bottom and clean cake tray. it doesn't really look that messy. in fact, it's pretty sleek looking.)

then i put it in the box and fridge for the night with some tooth picks here and there to keep the box from getting TOO close to the cake, took it in on the metro this morning, and was surprised that it's actually in pretty decent shape now. it's in the fridge here, and i'll just have to do a bit of touch up later this afternoon. another department member is in charge of beverages and we will be making a mojito-inspired limeade and mint beverage. sure, we'd love some liquor in the middle of the day here, but that mystery bottle of scotch in the lunchroom is gone...

on another subject, i think i'm going to trim this and make a slide. going to order a whole new batch of them this weekend so if my PRINTER EVER COMES i'll be ready.