t-cakes and toes

i have a sister-in-law named tami kate. that is the name her parents gave her. i prefer to call her t-cakes. that is the name i gave her. no disrespect to big kim and gaylin, but i think t-cakes has a very nice ring to it. but who am i to name other people's children for them? i'll do it as a favor if someone wants me to and i owe them one, but it's really not something i'd be comfortable doing for a living. that's a lot of pressure. it took us 3 days and the threat of leaving the hospital with a nameless child before we came up with a crazy name like colston. i don't think i'd sleep if i had to do that for a living.

with t-cakes though, the name came so naturally to me... it was if it were inspired. so then maybe if i were some kind of name giving oracle like that with everyone, i could probably do it day in and day out. sadly, i am not. in the case of t-cakes, though, i'm not sure why it fits so well since other than the t, there is no particular connection between the name t-cakes and tami kate. sure there are some phonetic similarities and it's just kind of fun to say, but t-cakes doesn't really have an affinity for cakes or anything... i mean, i'm sure she likes them as much as the next gal, but it's not like she's a poster child for hostes or anything. but really, does a person's name actually have to be representative of something that person is interested in or similar to? if that were the case, i would have named her t-shoes and that just doesn't roll off the tongue like t-cakes does.

here's the thing, yesterday was t-cakes' birthday. i think t-cakes is in her mid-twenties or thereabouts since she's now served a mission, gone to a study abroad in jerusalem, gotten married and had a kid. based on all that, deductive reasoning tells me she's got be at least 24 (just to be safe, let's say she's 25). funny thing is, 3 of those 4 events i just listed all happened during the year leading up to her 25th birthday... the latter three: jerusalem, marriage and a kid (and yes, they did occur in that order).

in other words, it's been a pretty busy year for t-cakes. that being the case, i can't help but wish her a happy twenty-somethingth birthday upon completing what may prove to be one of the most eventful years of her life. hopefully you enjoyed your twenty-somethingth birthday and had twenty-something candles to blow out on multiple cakes shaped like ts (get it? t-cakes!).

carrying on...

no discussion about t-cakes would be complete without mentioning her toes. in my mind, t-cake's toes may be one of her defining characteristics. sure she's smart, pretty, accomplished, hard working and very likable, but who isn't these days? anyone can be any of those things with the advent of the internet... i think university of phoenix is now offering a happy smiley charisma degree you can hang on your wall just to prove that you're special, thing is it's really not all that special at all. cool toes, on the other hand, aren't just something you can get by sitting through some covey seminars, reading a book about del carnegie, or paying some unaccredited university for a piece of paper to hang on your wall (yes, i know u of p is accredited and i'm not saying there's anything wrong with on-line universities or on-line blogs and the like).

t-cakes may be a little bashful about her toes, but she has no reason to be... and it's not all of her toes, it's just her pinky toes on both feet. the other toes are just average, nothing to write home about. her pinky toes, however, don't touch the ground... ever. i don't think t-cakes pinky toes have ever felt the surface of anything. it blows my mind. there kind of just there for looks,they must be 'cause i can't for the life of me figure out what functional purpose they serve. here's why that's cool: first, t-cakes only needs four toes on each foot to maintain what seems to be pretty good balance (she was a cheerleader in high-school and that requires some agility). second, when her feet get wet and she walks on the cement, her pinky toes don't leave any kind of watermark on the cement at all since they don't touch the ground. it's wild.

maybe i'm so impressed with t-cakes' toes because i've always been a little self-conscious about mine. i have always thought that i've got some whacky toes. the second toe on my right foot is longer than any of my other toes and it dog tails out to the right. i'm kind of a mutant... like an x-men, except that i'm still trying to figure out how my mutant power will catch professor x's attention such that he'll ask me to join the team. i used to be kind of embarrassed of my toes and, as a result, have been somewhat thankful that we don't live in a society that places a lot of weight on one's toes (figuratively speaking, of course).

i realize there are a bunch of foot fetish freaks out there, but i think they are more the exception than the rule. that being said, i was recently in a setting where i was able to observe my feet/toes in comparison to several other dudes' feet. it wasn't any formal kind of thing, i just happened to be shoeless with a few other guys who were also shoeless... don't worry about it... thing is, i'd have to say my feet/toes were the best looking ones in the group. thus, i was feeling pretty good about my feet... so good, that i think i've overcome any reservations i had about my feet. in the spirit of full disclosure, though, i will mention that one of the guy's toenails appeared as though they hadn't been clipped in about a year. so, i guess it's all relative. how does that happen? one year? seriously, someone help the man out, please.

in closing, i just want to tell you, t-cakes, to wear as many open toed shoes as you possibly can since you have nothing to be ashamed of (i'm sure you have plenty of options... of shoes to wear, not other things to be ashamed of). let those pinky toes shine for all the world to see and the ground to never feel. and, of course, thank you for being such a great sister-in-law and thank you for all the help you've given to the blogmaster and the rest of the cooperfive. may all your birthdays complete a year as momentous as this last one has been for you, except for the getting married part... and you may want to hold off on having a kid every year... and an annual trip to jerusalem may be a little rough on the budget, so space that stuff out. other than that, don't change a thing.