"Eat the Cake, Please, People."

I have been wracking my brain this evening trying to think of something to say about travel. After all, this is Travel Tuesday, and since I didn't follow through on Movie Monday, I wanted to at least get Tuesday right. But here I am rather late in the evening, and I have no travel pointers to speak of. 

I am, however, about 26.5 hours away from 2009, and so I was also thinking about topics we could touch on to celebrate the end of 2008. Yeah. No clue on that one, either.

As luck would have it, though, I just flipped on the TV and "Ace of Cakes" is on the Food Network. I don't know if you watch the show, but it's a "reality" show which focuses on a cake decorating shop in Baltimore. I used to live in Baltimore, and I love watching the show for the glimpses of Baltimore and its surroundings as much as I enjoy watching the cakes get made. 

Well, just after I turned it on, I heard Mary Alice (the office ringmaster) commenting on some people who were unwilling to cut into their three-foot-tall cupola cake. Mary Alice's response was "It's a cake. Eat the cake, please, people. Just eat the cake."

So... Here are my thoughts on all of this:

1) Travel Tuesday: If you want a slightly-skewed (but fun) view of Baltimore, check out "Ace of Cakes." If you want a view of Charm City Cakes while on a trip to Baltimore, head for Remington Avenue in Hampden (it's a Baltimore neighborhood) and look for the building which is always featured on the show--but don't expect to drop in and hang out with anyone from the show, since this is their place of work. 

2) Reflections on 2008/2009: I've spent a lot of this year searching for a new job. But I've also spent time doing some fairly serious gardening. And taking the time to travel. And enjoying friends and family. And writing these blog posts. And trying to figure out what is really important to me (in life, in work, in a meal, and just in general). And, well, I'm kind of hoping that next year I not only make a resolution or two, but I also find some resolution to a few of my "situations."

No matter what, I hope to take Mary Alice's words to heart (even though she may not have meant them to be taken to heart). I hope to remember, above all, to "Eat the Cake" and not just ogle it from a distance. 

(And if it also happens to be a white cake with buttercream frosting, well, that would just be the... ummm... the icing on the... well... you know.)