My 60th Dragon Birthday - More Cakes Than Anybody

I'm a Dragon, in the Chinese calendar. This is my 60th year.  I had the most fabulous birthday anyone could wish for.  Well, I did.

Firs of all, I had a cake that frosted itself, when Wendy Emlinger sent me this fabulous birthday card.

Best Reuben ever.

Then we toured Seattle's Fremont neighborhood and had lunch at Homegrown restaurant. An accidental choice, made for the elegant and soothing decor. But the food was a revelation. The best Reuben sandwich I'd ever had (and I had a truck-driver dad who used to drive me about to taste pies and Reubens in rural Washington), combined with an arugala-hazelnut-almost-too-many-figs salad. Goodness.

Roberta Gregory took me to the King Tut Exhibit in Seattle, and we discovered that an ancient prince had accidentally speared his beloved - and no doubt sacred - hunting cat. This was very sad, and we read it in words and pictures on the cat's sarcophagus. Ancient drawn books coming alive. Well, you look at it and tell us that's a cat's tail - usually carved so smoothly and elegantly by the Egyptian sculptors - and not a rigid lance head. We felt so sorry for the cat and the prince.

Afterwards we discovered Morfey's Cakes, and the adorable and sprightly (sprite-like?) baker, Erin Blanchard. Morfrey should be filming her for their site. She's completely excited by her art. While I didn't taste any of it - I am 60, after all, and now it's about the eyes - in this case it was truly about the eyes.  Ooh la la.

Erin Blanchard and The Blue Cake.. 

The cake tower - with Rainbow Cake.

Too - many - cakes.

The gray cake. The Eifel tower atop it had melted in the heat.

Only pretending to taste. Om imaginary nom.

Someplace in the course of the day we did truly tasty coffee at the wonderful El Diablo Coffee Company.

We ended up at the Oddfellow's Hall restaurant, where Maggie Bloodstone shared the icy top sip of all her champagne flutes with me. Marvelous.

Finally, Ron Austin sent me the link to part of his amazing international comics-author series. Right when I needed it for an interview.