Not as easy as it looks

To do something the proper gay way (I'm calmer now and can concentrate on grammar), one must fling oneself into the project with obsessive, particular, singleminded focus. To do any less is just to order your wedding cake from Cub Foods and call it a day. The GayWay can however, be taken a bit too far. The pinnacle (or nadir, depending on your perspective) of my domestic precision came many years ago, when I decided that if Martha could make a perfect cranberry wreath, I could, too.


What I didn't realize at the time was that Martha had many servants to poke each cranberry with a toothpick and jab them into the wreath form. I know now that as each serf bled out, she simply stacked him in a shallow grave and called for the next one to be untied and set to work. Faced with a shortage of slave labor, I was forced to do this little holiday project all on my own. Countless hours later (I'd guess about 40-50), bleeding and cranberry-stained fingers stiff with pain, and I had a wreath every bit as beautiful as Martha's. This was pre-digital camera days, so I don't have a photo to prove it, but I think you can trust me on this. I also spent an entire day driving all over town to review every possible option for the perfect ribbon before deciding the first one I saw was best.

I have calmed down a LOT since then. Really. For instance, yesterday was picnic day with friends, and I am in charge of the pressed sandwich (more about that later). As you can see from the photo below, I really press the hell out of the sandwich. But, if you look closely—though not so closely to notice all the folded laundry on the dining room table—you'll see that I made an almost fatal error with the pressing of the sandwich. It didn't, in the end, affect the deliciousness, but I was very, very lucky. A special GayWay cheer to the reader who first identifies the problem. And yes, those are cookies cooling in the background as well. It was a very busy afternoon.