In ancient Rome, a "triumph" was a huge military procession, an honor awarded to a victorious general.

Yesterday I did little, but then I babysat! And the babysitting was good, oh it was good. It was lucrative, which is one of the important qualities that a babysitting gig must have in order to be considered "good." Other qualities include:

~ no meltdowns
~ laughter
~ bed on time
~ at least one silly childish game
~ I Spy
~ playing in the backyard
~ ice cream
~ a story at bedtime
~ at least one inexplicably naked child
~ babysitter falls asleep before the parents get home

Also, I made many monies. Over $12 an hour. And I was there for over 5 and a half hours, so yay! I am richer by some!

Today was an out day. We went to a concert of the Beatles in Santa Barbara. It was a collaboration between the Santa Barbara Choral Society and State Street Ballet. It had some piece composed by George Martin, and a series of love songs by the Beatles with a little ballet narrative. The ballet was fantastic. The music... mediocre. The chorus wasn't as together as they could be, which is unfortunate for a concert. And the soloist was ABYSMAL. But the ballet was amazing!

It was a fun outing; we drove down in a big bus with people from our church, at least half of whom were little old ladies wearing festive red shirts and/or hats. Then on the way back, everyone opened wine, and we passed around chocolates, because we are Episcopalians in wine country having fun, that is why. When we got home, I made my mother's birthday dinner and birthday cake, which was postponed a few days from her actual birthday on Thursday.

Also, today was Valentine's Day, so Danny got the Obertones five freshmen to serenade me over Skype in the dining hall while I was still sitting in my bed. It was hilarious, and wonderful, and really, really sweet. I cried a tear of happy. And then Danny got his gift, which was a package from Gibson's: chocolate-covered bacon and a ramen cup! How disgustingly perfect we are for each other. Gross. Ew. Chocolate bacon and long-distance public love songs. Sick.

Dinner was tomato-cream pasta with almond-crusted seared scallops. It was delicious, but the bechamel sauce didn't thicken right. It was infuriatingly runny, even if it still tasted fine. The scallops were possibly the best I've ever made. The cake... ah, the cake. It was this recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/you-are-owed-chocolate-cake/

My mom wanted chocolate (she always does) but she wanted something decidedly cakey. No fudgy flourless torte, no dense brick of chocolate dessert, she wanted a rich but cakey CAKE. So I decided on this recipe, which is, and I quote, "not so much a solid baked good but gigantic dewy crumbs loosely aligned in a disc-like format." It was delicious, but so moist and crumbly that it was very difficult to get out of the pans, even greased and floured like they were. It definitely fell apart, but mostly stayed in a cake shape, so I could ice it. Which I did! With Kahlua buttercream and designs in a rich, rich coffee and dark chocolate ganache. I piped little vertical lines all around the edge. It was so cute, it looked like a really short, fat fluted column. Adorable!

Also delicious. Despite its falling-apart-ness (and its overflowing-the-pan-and-spilling-on-the-oven-ness, which I forgot to mention), it was utterly delectable, and once iced, it looked fine. My father called it a "triumph." It was too rich for me to finish my slice, though, for sure.

Now we are watching a movie called Passchendaele. It's good. Written, directed by, and starring Paul Gross, whom I adore, it's a war movie, which is actually kind of depressing. But it is good!

Tomorrow is a holiday. I'm going to start calling the places I dropped my resume at so they know I'm interested enough to follow up. And then I think I'll begin preparing to make macarons. I will! I will make them! They will probably fail, but I'll learn something, I'm sure.