cake

I'm still not even halfway through the load of cake I bought Friday afternoon on my way home from work. Tired as I was after an hour of playing indoor football, relentlessly rushing up and down the short wood-paneled floor and desperately gaping for air whenever anyone was kind enough to score a goal or lob the ball into the net separating our pitch from the adjacent climbing wall, I took the bus home and left my bike at Imperial.

On the bus, I alternately cursed my laziness and bewailed my age. When I got bored with this, I opened The Buddha of Suburbia, my latest acquisition at the Oxfam store. The novel's protagonist, a born and raised Englishman of Indian descent, is young, full of dreams but devoid of ambitions, and clueless of his prospects. He observes, with biting wit and a boldness and clarity of language that I haven't seen in print in a long time, his disintegrating family, the misery that is his education, and the friends and romances that sustain him. The book reads almost as if it had been written by Holden Caulfield after a visit to 70s England. It is a total blast. The author, Hanif Kureishi, lives in Shepherd's Bush.

When I got off the bus, at Shepherd's Bush Green, I remembered I needed something to eat. Anger was developing in my guts, a peasants' rebellion fueled by hunger and despair. I bought fresh pasta at the Sainsbury's and tomato-mascarpone sauce that was on sale, and two heavily discounted cakes.

The next day, a leisurely Saturday that didn't start until late because my bed delivered infinitely more comfort than the grim day outside the window promised, would have been my grandmother's eighty-sixth birthday. She passed away two-and-a-half years ago, for no good reason and through no fault of her own. She would have loved to carry on. Her plans and enthusiasm for life were unlimited, so much that she seems alive and near me whenever I close my eyes and remember her.

I had bought the two cakes to celebrate her birthday. Somewhere in the depth of my overflowing kitchen cabinet, I found a few oddly colored candles, twists of blue and white, which I lit after sticking them in the thick chocolate coating of the first cake. The damn thing was so rich I could only manage one small piece for breakfast and another for tea later in the day. My gran would have surely helped me with delight...

On Sunday, I enjoyed a few more small pieces, but now, on Monday night, there's still a bit left of the first cake, and the second remains untouched. I'm not worried, though. On Wednesday, my mom will get here to spend a week in the best city of all, her fourth stay in what has become her favorite holiday haunt. While the excitement of being in London is still running hot in her blood, I'll cut up the second cake, brew some coffee and bring out the last sips of the good tequila that's sadly running out, and we'll have a little celebration. Family is good.