first melt down

So, it's officially 4 weeks until the wedding and I have just had my first of what I can hope will not be many meltdowns. We're talking crying so hard I can hardly breathe, shaking, and wanting to scream so loud my vocal chords rip... and all over? the stupid cake...

long story short, we were going to order it weeks ago, someone promised to take care of it and that fell through, I was out of town all this past week for training and just got the chance to get out this morning to take care of it. actually, I called Publix earlier in the week to set an appointment to come in. The lady on the phone was the sweet old lady type who told me "honey, you don't need an appointment, just come on up when you want to and we'll take care of you". This surprised me. I even asked "even if you want to do a tasting too?" "oh sure sweetie, just come up and we have everything ready already". so this morning we head out there around 9am, figuring it can't be too busy yet. And at first they were cooperative, somewhat.

Here is the deal with Publix... there is no sit down meeting to discuss. You stand at that little podium with the 'big' book that you would go to when you want to order a birthday cake for your three year old. No chairs or stools or anything. I'm figuring this could be a somewhat long process, and you are asking me to stand in the middle of the aisle, block traffic, and I can't even sit down??? Then they come out with this form and just start asking you straight off of it, showing no personal interest in you at all. Which cake (from the book) do you want? I flip through and find the closest to what we are looking for but telling her, like this but no decorations, just a plain cake (we're going to decorate it ourselves with fresh fruit and such). she jots something down on the mystery form... How many people do you want to serve? probably around 50. She does some calculation and tells me 'ok' and moves on, never once telling me if she's got us down for 2 or 3 tiers or what size those are either. I'm looking to P for assistance but he's too busy trying to call people to find out which Publix is the closest to the wedding site, even though they did tell us we could come back/call and let them know later. moving on, what kind of cake? ok, here is where the issues start... we already let her know we actually want the fondant. she already asked us if we had tasted it before and I said no, but we'd like to- meaning, we're wanting to taste a few things before making a final decision. I look to P again but he's no help. I tell her we had been talking about a vanilla cake but with different fillings for the different layers, maybe raspberry on one. We also were thinking about strawberry filling, which is listed and was recommended to me by someone at the head office, but she told us that they won't make wedding cakes with strawberry because it slides or something... what?!?! Finally, I plan out ask her if she could let us taste some, she wasn't at all going to make a suggestion. she starts to head back to get some ready when P finally pops into the picture and catches up with things. he wants to try another filling too and request the canolli cream. ok, she comes back 10 mins later (while we're standing around waiting) with four small pieces of cake, thrown together in a mess, two with raspberry and two with canolli, both on vanilla. While she was getting it together, P starts scolding me for saying just vanilla cake. guess he wasn't very focused on any of our previous talks. he wants to see a whole list of all the cakes and fillings and pick some combinations. no big deal, we flip to the front of the book and start looking together. we try to cake and it was ok, although she hardly put enough raspberry on mine for me to even taste it so I'm not sure if I like it or not. P asks if we could put together a few other combinations to try. baker: "Today? listen I'm really busy, maybe if you came back another time but we've got a ton of orders to fill right now" P "Well, when is the best time to come up?" b:"during the week, monday thru thursday, the bakers are usually her until 4 or 5." great... so that means I have to get more time off from work when I've already almost got all my leave alloted to the actually wedding. then she has the gall to tell us "just make sure you have an appointment". we're both pissed off by now and that didn't help. I did call and try to make an appointment at that very same store and I was told that they didn't even take appointments, that I couldn't make one! I tried to give them a heads up but they refused it.

So, we run a few more errands and get home. P wants me to call another Publix in the area and explain what happened and see if they can do our order today. See, you are supposed to have your order placed atleast 4 weeks in advance with Publix. We try to get together a list of combinations we want to try so they can get it ready before we get up there. There is argument because P doesnt understand that you don't get to pick a different flavor for each layer in the tier but for each tier. He's coming up with some wacko combinations and its stressing me out. He has a million questions he wants me to ask for him. I tell him he should just call himself then. He blows up and I refuse call. Finally, a while later, I get the phone and call to see if they can even help us out. The lady on the phone was so nice. I asked if it was possible to come up and do a quick cake testing and order our wedding cake. She says there is no way on a Saturday, they're too busy. And that is when I started to bawl. It all just got to me. Through my tears I explained to her what had happened this morning and how I tried to make an appointment and they didnt let me and then they got perturbed that we didnt have an appointment, and that we are running out of time because someone promised us a cake and didnt follow through and blah blah blah... I can tell she was freaking out that I was crying over this and I was getting to the point that I could barely talk. After a little silence she tells me that the baker should be in early tomorrow and she should be able to help us. I thank her, hang up and stop holding back. I want to take my wrath out on someone and Ps the only one here... plus its partially his fault. It was horrible. I really didn't yell at him all that much, but I guess I must have said just one thing that pissed him off.

Now its a few hours later. Once I apologized to him and told him I don't even know what I said, let alone remember, he started trying to comfort me and calm me down. Then he started to piss me off again and I had to go hide away in my cave (the room with all my crafting stuff) and take a nap for apparently the last two hours. But I feel better now. I think he's still pissed off at me, but I have stuff to start doing. Tomorrow is my bridal shower and this house is a mess! Plus errands... some much needed distractions....

Oh, I got another SP11 gift from my pal sometime last week. I'll have to take a picture and post about it soon, but it's great!

for the record

I LOVE the new Tostitos creamy spinach dip.... especially when dipping the new puffed club crackers in it... yumm-o!

Cabernet Sauvignon isn't that bad either... could you believe I've only drank half the bottle? :)