We didn't start the fire

Yesterday was my 42nd birthday. I was looking forward to posting on twitter and maybe even facebook, "Today I am the answer," referencing Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

But given the combination of a global pandemic and rioting in my home country, it seemed a tad gauche.

It's absolutely surreal watching what's going on in the US right now. I watched a protest in Salt Lake City (SALT LAKE CITY!) over the murder of George Floyd and other acts of police violence against Black people. It was...unpleasant. I'm not sure what people wanted from the demonstrations, but the response of police was disturbing. It seemed like the police were saying, "we are the ones with the power here."

It doesn't seem right.

The level of violence, and the constant undercurrent of violence was disturbing, too. Watching it all unfold on a street I used to ride the bus down to get to school, and in front of a library I loved visiting when I lived in Salt Lake filled me with a sense of dread, and yet I couldn't look away.

I finally made a birthday cake to celebrate Derrick's and my birthdays, and we ate it tonight. His birthday is in April, but with Covid-19 happening I just couldn't pull myself together to bake a cake. The kids were still home at that point as well, so it's not like I had time around homeschooling. He asked for a pineapple coconut cake with orange buttercream frosting, which I was also a bit nervous about making. The previous times I've made it we were in the US and I had slightly different ingredients on hand--cake mixes and orange juice concentrate mostly. I tried a new recipe--the pinacolada cake from smitten kitchen with pineapple curd filling and orange buttercream frosting just made with normal orange juice. It turned out okay. The cake's a bit heavy, but it tasted nice, especially with the pineapple curd filling to really boost the flavor of the cake.