Jumping on the Cupcake Bandwagon: more, Please!

With the last bits of chocolate frosting from my more cupcake melting in my mouth, I have to admit that I’m not as cynical about cupcakes as I once was. Now, I’m a big fan of cupcakes—I mean, really, who isn’t—but this whole cupcake craze, well, it just seemed a bit excessive. Honestly, I was appalled that couples started using cupcakes in place of wedding cakes at weddings (I've gotten over it, but am still just a bit too traditional for something like that). And the number of cupcake shops, well, they seemed to be very popular on TV shows and movies a few years back, but I didn’t realize that there were so many shops dedicated to these miniature cakes until I moved to the city.

Thanks to my foodie co-workers, cupcakes made their way into the office, and even into the occasional afternoon “snack run.” more made its way in when a dozen cupcakes were delivered to our office after Elizabeth won some kind of contest, and I have to admit that they were scrumptious (especially the Lemon Meringue). Sugar Bliss is the closest cupcake shop to the office, so Christina and I sometimes escape the office in the afternoon to go on a quick cupcake run (though their cupcakes aren't quite more's). Actually paying four to six bucks for a cupcake still felt a bit, dare I say, preposterous to me, though, which is why I only do it once in awhile. Free gourmet cupcakes, though? Now that I can handle.

Again, thanks to Elizabeth, I found out that more does this advertising on Facebook where you can tag yourself in their cupcake pictures and get a free cupcake. You have to be quick about it, though, before the picture hits the maximum number of tags. I managed to tag myself just minutes after becoming a fan of the page this week, so today I made my first trip to more today to claim my reward.
It’s a good thing that the cupcakes are pricey enough to be a special treat only, because the shop is dangerously close to my apartment. If it were a bit more economical, I might gain some noticeable poundage. They do the minimalist décor thing, and the cupcakes are set up on glass shelves where not a crumb is visible. The glass case is right in front of your face, rather than down below in a typical pastry display case, which is pretty smart and extremely luring.

A line snaked out the door when I arrived, and I waited patiently for my free cupcake. The girl behind the counter looked a little relieved when I said I’d come to claim my free cupcake, because, well, that’s a lot easier than someone hand-picking two-dozen cupcakes. When I left the shop, the line was even longer. I tucked my box in my purse, and walked home a tad gingerly, making certain not to jostle or smash my treat.

Arriving home, I put my cupcake (it was the more signature cupcake—chocolate with a white cream in the center) in the refrigerator to save for later. Needless to say, later has come and gone, and I can still taste it. Absolutely delicious. Worth $4? For sure. Even better because it was free? You bet!

Rooftop Reverie

I’m sitting up on the rooftop deck (and yes, that song “Up on the Roof” is running through my head). It’s April 1, 83 degrees outside, and no, that’s no April Fool’s joke. It’s the first true taste of summer, and as soon as I was home from work, I was up on the deck.

The wind is a bit awful up here, though. I thought I’d try to capture a little Vitamin D before the sun went down, to try and blast out the rest of this throat infection (strep, how I loathe you). But the sunshine that beckoned all day through the windows of the 64th floor, and bathed my arms as Christina and I made a cupcake run at 1:30 (yes, that’s right, we made a Sugar Bliss run—mmm), has since retreated behind the clouds.

It’s still warm, though—luxuriously warm—and the views are amazing. Here I sit, smack dab in the middle of a cityscape. (How I will miss this when I move.) In the pockets between high rises, I can see quainter neighborhoods off to the west. And the beautiful lake to the east—she’s all shades of green, aqua, and blue today.

[Here's Bill disturbing my thoughts. It’s always a bit awkward when you’re a thousand miles away in your reverie, just writing, and someone you know snaps you back to reality with a simple hello. I always wonder if I look like I’m a thousand miles away, as I imagine I do, which should be your cue to just keep moving. Anyhow, Bill never fails to say hello when he sees me. So, we chat for a few minutes. He’s on spring break and I can tell that he’s been outside all day—the early spring sunshine having tinged his shaved head a light shade of pink. Bill’s a nice guy, but I’m relieved when he heads back inside without his usual invitation to grab a drink later.]

It’s on days like this, up on the rooftop in downtown Chicago feeling like I’m where I’ve always wanted to be that I start to wonder where, exactly, I will end up. Right now, I want nothing more than to be right here. Even as I struggle the constant struggle to find myself, and wonder where my life will take me, and what may be waiting beyond Chicago, I can’t help but sense opportunity here. And to feel that it’s the place for me, despite my struggle to keep up with the rat race (how often I feel trapped in the spinning wheel), and to enjoy the city on a strict budget. My conscience keeps telling me to relax and be patient, that I need to give it time. I have such big plans for myself, and somehow, I want it all to happen for me right now. I guess all I can know is that Chicago is right for me in this time and space. I really do feel that I belong here now. I hope that I will belong here for much, much longer, but sometimes it seems so impractical, so expensive...

Anyhow, weird where the mind goes during an hour on up on the roof. The wind is dying down now. My freshly cut bangs aren’t flailing quite so helplessly in the breeze.