Podcasts, parentcasts and kinderkuchen

So I downloaded Skype last night (I always wait for the lawsuit before looking into new software). Bietz found a way to use GarageBand for the editing of multiple tracks, which boils down to each person doing their own and someone editing them together. Whatever. Unfortunately I won’t be around for the next couple of nights, but maybe we can test this on Thursday then record something next week.

Otherwise I spent a lot of time last night coordinating for the upcoming parent meeting this Wednesday. I used to do a meeting for new parents and then a Bump meeting, but the Bump parents told me they needed it done all at once, and who am I to argue? When you think about it, Bump is the number one thing the parents do, and they do it together, so it should take priority. My schlepping their kids all over creation weekend after weekend, while of some note, is rather passive for the parents. All they have to do is worry that we haven’t gone off a cliff or something. When one remembers back to the day when we did this without cell phones… The line for the one phone at Cringing Latino? Unbelievable.

The biggest drama at the RR over the weekend, which I didn’t report yesterday, was the Case of the Missing Babycake. If you’ve never been to the RR you don’t know how much Cruz publicizes all the amenities (well, if you know O’C, maybe you do know). Chief among these is the participation of Babycakes, the name of which alone is enough to turn the average stomach. If you look at the series of photos of the RR over the years, which is officially known as “Photo of O’C (and others)” you will see the growing girth that can only be attributed to said BCs. Last year, when the awards were given out, a special award went to the BC chef. (If you’ve never gotten a trophy for anything, my advice is to stand next to O’C for half an hour. I promise you you’ll get something you can put on your mantel.) So to put it mildly, one looked to the arrival of the armored truck from Babycakes with nothing less than the same enthusiasm with which one might greet Howard the Duck Part 2, The Quack is Back.

So, the last round of the day ended, and we all marched over to the dinner, stomachs growling, a chorus of “Babycakes, Babycakes,” on our lips like mutinying sailors chanting the captain’s name right before they flog him. And lo and behold, as that Haze woman might say, there’s the Babycakes lady (disappointingly not clutching her trophy from last year, however) with a Babycake for everyone…who debated.

Everyone who debated?

The order was screwed up. No BCs for the coaches/judges.

At this point, O’C got the chef’s home address so that he could go over there personally and take back the trophy. Meanwhile, the Panivore, studying the assembled pastries, decided that they were “too interesting,” meaning that she wasn’t going to eat hers, surprise, surprise. So, ever one to rise to the occasion, I ate if for her. A lemon tart that is, O’C tells me, the eponymous Babycake.

Whoa! That was one good tart (a statement heard often on the Vassar campus).

Anyhow, rather than give up her trophy, the chef returned Sunday morning with another box of pastries, sans tarts. I had no difficulty introducing myself to a chocolate decadence during the round in which they argued mostly about the footnotes. Whatever. You’ve got footnotes, I’ve got a Babycake. I’m happier than you’ll ever be.

Next year, by the way, O’C promises not only Babycakes for all, but even a bottle of water that the students can pass around between rounds. It just keeps getting better and better.