30/52 - Lena’s Six Layer Honey Cloud Cake

First, yes, it was supposed to be an EIGHT-layer cake. But I ran out of dough at layer six.

In case you are wondering what the hell I am talking about (likely not the first time), this cake and the associated recipe are drawn from Kate Quinn’s new book, The Briar Club (https://www.amazon.com/Briar-Club-Novel-Kate-Quinn/dp/0063244748). It’s a great read, like her other books. (Truth be told, I LISTENED to it. Saskia Maarleveld is terrific with the voices – in the same league with Harry Potter’s Jim Dale.)

The setting for the book is a boarding house in 1950s Washington, DC, during the McCarthy era (Joseph, not Kevin). Despite living in the DC area for the better part of 45 years, one bit of detail that I didn't know was that Foggy Bottom was apparently a bit of a sketchy place during this time, positioned near, but not in the same league, as the more posh nearby Georgetown. I can't imagine the Zillow listing for the Briarwood House now.

The book has many intersecting plot lines tied to the boarders that I won't go into for fear of creating a spoiler. One plot line involves a member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), which struck a chord given the exalted status held by the movie League of Their Own in our family viewing history.

I even met two real-life characters from the movie at the Hall of Fame ceremonies in Cooperstown a few years back when I joined my nefarious brother-in-law Bill and nephew Dan in sneaking into the sixth row next to the president of the Red Sox.

I also recently discovered that Alex's first wife, Dell, was a real-life professional baseball player (first baseman) with the Arthur Murray Girls, an East Coast version of the AAGPBL.

But both of these stories will be posted another day.

Returning to Lena's cake and Kate's book, read or listen to it. You'll enjoy it.

A central theme of the book is home, where we find it, and with whom. In the notes at the end, Kate talks about how COVID-19 impacted the evolution of the story. This got me thinking about our experience during COVID and how it impacted our decision to pull up stakes and leave the area we had known as home for over 40 years.

In some ways, "COVID Time" proceeded in slow motion, with long periods of sameness ("Which British detective series do you want to binge NOW?) interspersed with bursts of fear (“Is Erin safe working at a hospital in NYC?”) and bursts of desperation (“I wonder if we could get the vaccine if we drive four hours to Roanoke?”).

And walks. Many walks. At a safe social distance, of course. But even the walks often seemed to be in slow motion. “Safe” pods among friends to maintain some semblance of everyday life inevitably shrank to family connections. As much as MG and I love to hang together, our "family" pod was just us.

COVID also seemed like a ticking clock, with the ticks and the tocks coming faster and faster. Sal was living in a (somewhat) independent living apartment, restricted to her room, and beginning at 89 to wind down amidst a rising tsunami of health problems. We were conscious every day that her time would not stretch out forever. Sal needed more care. We only wanted to move her once, and we knew that eventually Raleigh-Durham would be our next stop. A place for her opened up much more quickly than we anticipated in early 2022. Step one in finalizing a decision.

Step two, Erin, Spencer, and Arlo decided to move to Richmond from Hoboken. Despite the absence of anyone other than ourselves knocking about in the Herndon house, one argument for staying put in DC was that the Erin/Spence/Arlo combo was four hours away, equidistant from the Joey/Jackie/Lucy/Alex combo in NC. But all of that went away with the Richmond plans. And 2.5 hours DC to Richmond along the completely unpredictable I-95 Torture Trail is vastly different than 2.5 hours RDU to Richmond along I-85, an utterly predictable route ideally suited for brainless and/or driverless cars. Step two.

For Lucy and Alex, time seemed to be accelerating each day. As softball, swimming, school, and complicated work schedules intersected, the odds of arranging impromptu weekend visits lengthened. It became clear that if we wanted to spend time with them, the future lay in connecting with their schedules rather than the other way around. We also wondered about the questions that any grandparent asks as those cute babies get older. “How long will Lucy and Alex want to hang with us?” “How much longer will they view visits with their grandparents as a treat rather than an obligation?” Granted, we are cool grandparents. But still. Step three.

The decision to leave the DC area and get closer to at least one of the kids/grandkids was inevitable, but COVID certainly accelerated the decision. This was a good thing, given our propensity to procrastinate on any decision. As we sat rattling around in our big Herndon house, binge-ing Netflix and Libby Kindle books and missing family, it became clear that time was a wasting. No matter how much we might miss Herndon, we wouldn't get time back with grandkids and family.

So, in April 2022, amid the craziest housing boom in anyone's memory - and with the specter of rising interest rates threatening to burst the bubble at any moment - we decided to "drive around" Raleigh-Durham and "see what neighborhoods were like." We wandered into a new neighborhood - well, not a neighborhood, but rather a quasi-street that would become a neighborhood at some point. We noticed we were precisely 9.5 miles from June/Bill/Sal and 9.5 miles from Joey/Jackie/Lucy/Alex. Without much deliberation, we assumed this was a sign from above. We put a contract in on the house for early 2023 delivery, hoping and praying that it would all work out.

It is probably fortunate that Bluey’s The Sign had yet to air at this particular juncture. I finally watched it this morning after Alex warned MG that it would be "too emotional" for me. Watching Bandit, Chilli, Bluey, and Bingo wander around their empty house likely would have been too much for us two years ago. We loved living in Herndon and loved our friends there.

A central COVID-driven theme of The Briar Club was that we constantly search for family. Sometimes, it takes something like COVID to make you recognize this need. And as tempting as it would have been to rip up the for-sale sign on Philmont Drive, once we did so, there would have been a difference from the happy ending in The Sign.

Joey, Will, and Erin would not have come back. The house would still have been empty.

It was time.