In an attempt to avoid the singing

I made my own birthday cake (which to me can only be Florence’s orange cake). I actually made 2. First I snobbishly made a yellow cake using a recipe (rather than a boxed cake mix) from Sally’s Baking Addiction. However, instead of using buttermilk as the recipe suggests, I used orange juice as one does when one is making it like Florence made it (not that she ever made any cake without a mix). I’m not a scientist so I’m not sure what chemical reaction didn’t happen here but I ended up with 2 layers of cake that when put one on top of the other, was so sunken I could have used it as a soup tureen, or a foot bath, if I had smaller feet.

So I ran back to the store and got a yellow cake mix. Why fool with perfection?

I thought that having made my own birthday cake I’d escape having to listen to people singing happy birthday at me. I did not.

I took the weird cake (it tasted fine) and cut it into pieces for later use in bread pudding or some damn thing.

I left my heart in Nice

Oh my god it’s a lovely city. It’s like many of the tiny touristy places that people love, St Paul de Vence, Eze, Aix but it’s a real city with real people not just tarted up for the tourists. I could live here. Once the tram is done. Right now the city is torn up with construction and getting around was kind of a misery. But once that’s done, I’m in. Currently I plan to spend my 70th birthday there. You can mark that on your calendar.