frances cake, take 10: the is it caramel or carmel? edition

i stalked emily on the internet for a little while before we met in real life (i also stalked her sister, katie, on the internet before later stalking her through the grocery store), and we recently completed that ever-tricky 2D to 3D transition with frances cake. we had, of course, seen each other at concerts, craft nights, parties and other cool-people events (both of us being incredibly cool people), but the whole point of frances cake is that i get to have cool people all to myself. and so, me, emily and an autumn-appropriate carmel cake it was.

i peppered emily with questions about her job (account manager at a studio that designs packaging and logos for video games. i think. did i get it right?) and her remarkably close band of siblings (as one of two siblings, large family dynamics are endlessly fascinating to me). then we laid like slugs on the couch and talked and talked about the weird social interactions of single life, something i actually think about a lot. the bottom line is, in single-and-mormon-land (and maybe non-mormon-land as well, but i don't know anything about that mythical place) this whole business of being social can be a tricky one, and the internet doesn't help. like when you sign onto facebook (i love you! i hate you!) and see pictures of a party or spontaneous gathering of some kind to which you were not invited but other people you know were and then you get your feelings hurt until you realize that's dumb because you don't really like half the people who were there anyway and you wouldn't invite them to a party or spontaneous gathering either. you know? it can actually be really hard to decide how to spend your time and with who, unfettered by all these (usually false) notions about who and what is cool. it was, if i do say so myself, a most interesting and illuminating conversation.

and then marc came home and we started talking about boobs. just for a minute, though.

and then emily and i forced ourselves off the couch to tackle the frosting recipe. do to some inadequate vetting on my part, the recipe was a little more complicated than the usual frances cake fare. luckily, emily knew what it meant to have something "softball" so we managed it successfully. it was sort of magic frosting that turned hard as soon as it was spread, like that magic shell stuff for ice cream, only infinitely more delicious.





the frosting also spurred a highly important and intellectual discussion of whether it's carmel or caramel or both. does anyone have expertise in this? because i would love to hear it. my contention, unfounded on anything, is that carmel is attached to something else, like it's frosting or sauce or something, while caramel is a stand-alone thing. like, you can say "i am going to eat a caramel" but not "a carmel." who's with me?

then emily gave me her famous late autumn mix cd (which i am listening to right now, as a matter of fact) and then we decided that frances cake had really sealed the deal and we could now be the kind of friends who go to a random movie in the middle of the week. in other words, it's go time. which is a good time indeed.