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Mortality: I Now Have It

Achilles' Heel.  Soft spot. Kryptonite.  Dragon's Underbelly.

I have a chink in my armor, and it is called Cake Decorating.

I don't mean the general icing and frosting of cakes and tortes (as reported earlier this month).  I mean this kind of stuff...



This right here is the laborious and meticulous work for all the cake decorating lovers out there.  It requires the precision and patience of a surgeon...and I'm ashamed to say I'm often not any of those things.

It depends, of course, on what I'm doing.  If I'm writing or planning a dinner, I'm precise and meticulous to the very core of my being. 

And patient, no.  I can't think of a situation in which patience comes naturally to me.

Wait.  2004.  The birth of my third child.  I was almost two weeks days past Elliot's due date, and I opted not to induce labor with drugs (like I had with the previous two).  That was the last time I remember being patient.

After the last two days in which I've practiced the above handiwork, I am humbled, awed, and reverent of cake artisans who do endless amounts of shell, reverse shell, rope, rosette, and zigzag borders for us devouring consumers.

And I am mortal.  I am not good at everything.  Everything does not come easy to me.  Out of a class of 14, I was one of the last three students who finally got the okay to start the "final board" (the one you see above).  Everyone else had passed the muster and moved on to rosebud and sweetpeas.

And it hurt, people.  A nice, smarting slap to the ol' ego.  But, in the words of John (Cougar) Mellencamp...it hurt so good.  It did.  I'm humbled.  I have my weaknesses.  It's good to know it.  Because, like Socrates said, all we know is that we don't know anything.

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