February 17, 2010

• Fudge!

  
  

  It was early December of 1998, my first holiday season with Ken (We began living together on July 4, 1998).
  
  We had just adopted two cats from the pound, Edison (“Evil Ed”) and Hikaru (“Ru”). (I don’t write much about those two guys; sadly, we didn’t have them for very long.) Ed was overweight and shaped like a football; he was mostly white and had a gray “beard”. Ru was all gray and looked almost blue; he was large, but not overweight. Ru was almost sickeningly sweet and Evil Ed was called Evil for good reasons.
  
  Ken and I bought an artificial tree and put it together; we agreed that evening to throw a small party for the holidays. We were happy and it seemed appropriate to share it all with our friends.
  
  We sent out invitations. Ken decked out the apartment with all kinds of Christmas decorations. Our friends were bringing the booze. I was making all of the food. A week before the party, I spent every evening in the tiny kitchen, baking cookies, cakes, pies and cooking anything else for the party that could be done ahead of time.
  
  The night before the party, I had everything under control. I would have very little to do the day of our get-together. I had time to spare.
  
  I hadn’t made fudge in a few years (I used to make my grandmother’s recipe every year at Christmastime). I thought it would be nice, since I had the extra time, to make some fudge to give to our guests in goodie-bags.
  
  I fed the cats and put them in the bedroom (to keep them – and their fur – out of the food). I washed up and began to make the fudge:
  

  Stir, stir, stir. Melt, melt, melt.
  Stir, stir, stir. Check candy thermometer.
  Remove from heat. Add butter and vanilla.
  Stir, stir, stir. Pour into pan.
  Tada!

  
  I placed the pan on our little dinette table to cool. Just as I did that, the phone rang. I picked it up in the kitchen. It was my mom.
  
  Whatcha doing, Honey?
  
  “I’m making fudge, mom. What’s up?”
  
  Just wanted to ask, what do you think Ken wants for Christmas?
  
  “Oh, I don’t know…” I turned around.
  
  You still there?
  
  “Huh? Yeah… Mom? Let me call you right back…”
  
  Okay. I’ll be here…
  
  I hung up slowly. My mouth was hanging open. Evil Ed and I were staring at one another. That was nothing new; Ed liked staring contests. Only this time, he was staring at me as he sat in the center of my pan of fudge.
  
  Blink.
  
  I actually took my glasses off, cleaned them and put them back on. Yup. He’s in the fudge. 
  
  “Well…” I said finally, hands on my hips. “What the fuck, Ed?”
  
  He was purring. Staring at me. Sitting still… in a big pan of warm fudge.
  
  I didn’t want to scare him; we’d just cleaned the carpet and sofas for our party. I didn’t want fudge all over everything.
  
  I approached him slowly, and once close enough, I grabbed him around the middle and lifted. The center of the pan looked like a chocolate volcano.
  
  I expected Evil Ed to bite me (he’d been declawed and bit people all of the time), but he didn’t. Even when I rushed him into the bathroom and scrubbed his paws, tail and fudgy, furry butt with a warm washcloth, he purred.
  
  I moved him back into the bedroom (that’s when I realised that I had not shut the door all the way earlier) and moved the fudge pan to the kitchen counter. I called my mother back and then I called Ken at work to tell him what had happened.
  
  Feeling that Ken didn’t quite believe me, I left the volcano fudge pan on the kitchen counter. I wanted Ken to see it before I threw it out.
  
  When Ken came home, he looked at the pan and then looked over at Ed, who was perched on the arm of a sofa, staring. Ken chuckled and said, “Well… What the fuck, Ed?”
  
  I said, “So. You want some fudge?”
  
  

  • 9:34 pm
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