Life is Pain, Princess, Eat Cake

I seem to keep coming back to the fatalist's view of the world, and rejecting it. I had a conversation with a friend at work the other day, where she informed me that early on, her teachers taught her that life sucks, and then you die. You can't win, she told me. Only the one guy wins. Everyone else? She shrugged. 

Life does suck. Sometimes. For a while. But when it does? You look for the beauty. And you don't allegorize life as a race with only one winner. Everyone's goal post should look different, and in the end, we all pass them, unless we lie down and die quit. When life hands you a kitchen full of dirty dishes in spite of a week of broken promises about doing them, you scream a little in frustration, and you bake a cake you hadn't planned to. Because something in life should be sweet. And then you spend three hours cleaning and washing and by the time it's bedtime, life is better. It was painful, but the end result is a win. 

It's not always possible to bounce back that quickly, I know. I couldn't have done this the night before. I know I couldn't - I tried. It's not like the dishes magically appeared while I was at work. But I only have so much strength, not only physically but mentally. When I was tired I leaned against the sink and managed to wash up a drainer full of dishes, then had to quit. But that small act, piled on a good night's sleep, enabled me to muster the will to go on. And the next day I powered through it instead of curling up and whimpering. Life is pain, but when you push past the anger at what's been done to you, you discover that you hold the keys to your own success. You don't have to reach for someone else's goals. Just what makes you happy.

any flat space in the house is covered with the most random possible collection of objects. Sigh.

And if that is spice cake, add two whole grated carrots, then swirl in cheesecake filling before baking at 350F for 30 minutes in a 9x13 pan, then winning is tasty. Don't forget to add a whole cup of chopped walnuts because the people who didn't do dishes won't eat anything with nuts in, and they can just suffer until they learn that making their own rewards is more fulfilling than waiting for Mom to fix the problems every time. Also, because Mom is not a monster, there are packages of leftovers from dinner in the fridge for the miscreants. 

The First Reader was appreciative of my cranky baking. But what was I going to do? Lose my temper, rant, rave, and storm which would accomplish nothing? Or channel my frustration into productive (also delicious) routes that meant I got to wake up to a shiny clean sink? That works much better for me. Oh, it's not that the kitchen is clean. But it is cleaner, and the weekend is coming which means I can finish the cleaning job in somewhat more leisurely fashion and have time for the garden. It's about priorities. I don't want to be rich. Never have. I just want to have gremlins who will do the dishes for me! 

In the meantime, I had strawberry shortcake with strawberries picked fresh from my own garden. Fresh shrimp from the visit to North Carolina, broiled after marinading. Corn on the cob and buttered noodles with roasted garlic marinara sauce on it. And I still stepped on the scale to see a small downward trend this morning. Two hours of vigorous housecleaning plus baking does count as exercise after all! There will be days where life hurts. There always are. But they don't last forever, and if you choose to change them into something beautiful, that's up to you. Eat cake. When life hands you lemons, make lemon meringue. My life? Gave me strawberries. I could cry over them, or I could make cheesecake swirl shortcakes.