Weekend ABCs - B is for Baking & the Buff

(Yesterday & today's photos and styling are courtesy of Wade, as I don't think he can stand my grainy cell phone pictures any longer.  Thanks sunshine!)

This weekend kicked off the Summer 2008 To Do List Extravaganza.  I had planned on checking off baking a cake.  No need to rush into the more difficult items like going skinny dipping or taking an outdoor shower.  No, no.  I'd take it nice and easy.  Like in the kitchen ... where I thought I knew what I was doing but before I found it was going to be NINETY SEVEN degrees this weekend.

Thankfully Wade and Jimmy have air conditioning.  And flour.  And butter.  And sugar.  And pretty much everything else you need to bake a cake.  Going over to their house is like going back to your parents' to do laundry and raid their stocked cabinets.  That is, if your parents are two gay men who encourage you to drink vast quantities of lemon drops and then get naked in their boss' pool.  And let's face it, whose aren't?

So there I was, curled up on Wade & Jimmy's comfy couch in their refrigerated basement, happily polishing off my first lemon drop of the evening when Wade casually mentioned to Jimmy "I thought I'd take her up to Terry's house so she could swim in his pool."  My head cocked to the side like Fisher's does when I ask her if she wants to go to the dog park.  

Terry is Jimmy's boss and unknowingly allows me to live vicariously through his extravagant lifestyle.  He has a private plane, three houses and entertains people at his house like, oh, Al Gore.  He has no idea who I am, despite the fact that I've met him a few times.  But I don't mind.  Just please keep allowing me to come to private, open bar, Pink Martini concerts on downtown Portland rooftops where I can hang out with the former Governor of Oregon and an editor at The Oregonian and we'll call it even.

So Terry's house, and conveniently for me, pool were wide open this weekend as he was on the east coast somewhere having dinner with ... no joke ... Anderson Cooper and Michelle Obama.  Wade and I headed up to the West Hills where I made him promise repeatedly that NO ONE would be there except for us, that he was to stay LOCKED in one of the bedrooms until I told him it was safe to come out and made him swear to me that the pool was NOT visible by any neighbors.  

I got a tour of the mansion that in addition to its gorgeous entrance and well decorated living rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms, boasts a theater, gym, GIFT closet and remote control toilet.   Don't ask.  By the time we made it out to the pool, I was not only ready to take my clothes off, but to go ahead and just put them in the guest room closet and send for the rest of my things.

Wade buried himself in the house somewhere.  I did a quick surveillance of the yard and determined there were no gawkers before I got down to the business of buff.  I cracked up the entire time.  Here I thought I'd be making a cake, but instead was getting naked in a stranger's back yard.  I had wanted to make this summer memorable, right?  As I ducked my head under the water, swam a few quick laps and floated around taking in the view of a gorgeous, warm Portland evening, I'd say, mission accomplished.

Oh yeah, and that cake?  A delicious cherry and lemon tea cake with vanilla sugar courtesy of Epicurious, half of which stuck to the bottom of the pan because I didn't bake it long enough.  Did I let that bother me?  No, I had other things to worry about.  Like what Jimmy said when we walked back into the house after my dip a la skinny.

"Honey, I forgot to mention the 24 hour surveillance cameras.  But I'm SURE no one looks at them."

Gulp.