Royce Rising

Well folks, it’s done. I promised to deliver this process in excruciating detail, and so will not disappoint as I unveil my little project.

Let us begin with Petting Zoo. Apparently her palate does not stop at gingerbread. Here you see her in her native environment snacking on neon green shredded coconut. I cut her off immediately after exploiting her digitally as I didn’t fancy the idea of cleaning up green cat yak from front hallway runner (her carpet of choice when it comes to regurgitation).

When we last left off, I had roofs and landscaping ahead of me. All of the peaked roofs were decorated using “tiles” made out of three kinds of gum wrapped over pretzel sticks. Inspiration for this came while sitting in a staff meeting looking out the window at the roof of a similar Romanesque Revival style building at that school across town. It took over 500 hundred “tiles” to cover the peaked roofs.

Of all the structural elements that had me in a quagmire, the pyramids for the tower roofs were the worst. They say there are two kinds of people—algebra people and geometry people. Unfortunately for this project, I am definitely the former. And that’s why we love the Internet. After some quick and dirty research I learned about the golden triangle. Now, ratios I can understand. I built slightly undersized models out of paper and then crafted the gingerbread pieces over them. The rise is definitely too high if you compare it to the real building (as is the pitch on the roofs of the wings). It's the thought that counts. Right?

The top of the building called for some creative license. Through all my searching, I was never able to find a real picture of Royce's roof. So, I improvised.

Then it was time to landscape. There are some home baking techniques that span the generations. Dying shredded coconut green and using it for grass has to be one of them. To this day, my husband talks about his favorite birthday cake—a re-created baseball diamond his mom made from scratch. The grass? Green coconut. Why mess with perfection? I also used sugar wafers for the walkways and spearmint gumdroppy leaves for the hedges. I had planned to make trees but realized that they would just obscure the building.

And this brings us to the big picture. I’m not completely convinced it even looks like Royce Hall anymore. In fact, once the roofs went on, it began to look quite a bit like a Spanish hacienda. Eh. BUT it’s standing, it’s big, get within 10 feet of it and all you can smell is cinnamon AND every single bit is completely and totally edible. Just ask Petting Zoo.

Alas, my work here is not done. This weekend we will attempt to take a decent picture of it and transport it to my husband's offices in Pauly Pavillion at UCLA.

Best of the Best

When not icing circles of chewing gum tiles on to pretzel sticks, I’ve been reading scholarship applications for UCLA’s Distinguished Senior Award.

Man, I am impressed.

This group isn’t going to change the world; they already are.

Always Wear Sunscreen

Remember the Baz Lurhman “Wear Sunscreen” song/speech dealio that was popular around graduation time in 1999? There is a great piece in it that goes:

“Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.”

Let’s set aside just how appropriate this is when applied to our current economic conditions (because why talk about something important?) and instead apply it to the project at hand. I’ve anticipated stuff would come up along the way. You know, burnt dough, crooked walls, a national shortage of red food dye. And in fact, most of these things have happened. Of course, as is so articulately said above, it’s what we don’t anticipate that gets us. In my case it seems to be a plague of vermin. Well, one vermin. Who happens to be domestic. And have a taste for gingerbread. There is a reason Bella the Cat is nicknamed Petting Zoo. Yes, she actually ate the tips of both of the towers.

Now that we’ve had our fun, let’s get down to business. This weekend was sort of a coming of age for Project Royce. It didn’t run away or get caught up in drugs or anything (well, there was the violence with the cat), but, it did come out the end of the weekend an entirely different beast than going in.

The sunscreen speech says to "do one thing every day that scares you." And so, I mapped out the board and started building.

Then the kitchen kind of exploded. There was brick-tinted icing everywhere. Everywhere! I love that part of the project where it looks like it a tornado has just swept through town and nothing is going to work out (can you see who is in the upper left hand corner just waiting for her chance to snack).

Amongst the chaos, these were a couple of my favorite details. I finally figured out how make stained glass (add in the crushed candy only for the last five minutes). The wreath is one of two that will hang from the two front towers (you can't see here because I'm bad at taking pictures, but the stars are blue, yellow and white).

Just for reference, this is what the real deal looks like:

And while we are referencing, this is what the model looked like:

...and this is what my version looks like:

Front:


Side (please ignore Rosarita, she's helping hold up the building while it dries).


And now comes the hard part: roofing. As careful as I was about right angles, building the different roofs is going to be a challenge. And then there is the landscaping. And the keeping away of the cat. And the wearing of sunscreen...

Angels on the Head of a Pin

Me, a pair of tweezers and a day of pre-election coverage on NPR.

Futbol

Halloween brings out the weird in people. Case in point: The Pork-Off (yeah, yeah, it isn’t what you think). Sometime earlier this fall in a department I used to work for, someone decided it would be fun to have a pork-themed potluck on Halloween. There is more to the story than that, but really, some things are better left to the imagination. The participation rule was that everything proffered at the potluck had have some sort of pig-product as an ingredient.

I brought dessert.