where phallic cakes come from

Jenn and I had a super exhausting day that began at 10:30 and ended twelve hours later. We took the Skytrain downtown in hopes of finding penis paraphernalia for Kristi's bachelorette party. Not knowing exactly where all the sex shops are in Vancouver, we knew it was going to be an interesting day...

Minutes before Jenn picked me up, I had left Tommy a FB msg asking him which Starbucks he worked at downtown. I recall him mentioning it to me before, but couldn't find it in my emails or on my FB wall. So I left him a msg with minutes to go, knowing that I probably wouldn't find out in time to visit him anyway.

So Jenn and I took the bus (!) to the Skytrain, got on, sat down, and saw Tommy standing in front of us. It was pretty crazy. We got to catching up and chatting and he pointed us down Commercial Drive for this super-comprehensive sex shop that I had heard about a long time ago. We were supposed to head up Commercial for a "10-15 minute walk", but roughly 25 minutes later, I had to call Alex to find the directions because we still weren't there!! Finally when we got there, we realized that "Womyn's Wear" is what one might imagine as an "upscale" sex shop. You know, the type of store that has "empowerment" written all over it, and you can see that every toy/empowerment tool was carefully chosen for their store to maintain that image. Loosely translated, there was no way we were going to find penis straws, penis ice cube makers, etc. etc. at this lovely store.

However, the nice lady there got out a tourist map (!) and showed us Davie Street, at which point I recalled I saw a couple of "Love Nest"-y stores there the last time I went there for lunch with Allie P. So off we went running for the one bus that went down Commercial Drive that just happened to pass us then, and back on the Skytrain with literally a minute to spare before our passes expired. We got to Burrard, decided that we were ravenous then, and went into Kamei for some sushi. I had been craving Kamei since the previous day when I was downtown with Julia looking at laptops, so I was thrilled when they said there was no line! I had a delicious fancy roll and a nice cold beer, and Jenn had a huge Bento box before we were on our way again.

At last, when we approached Davie Street and saw the rainbow signs there, we breathed a sigh of relief. The first shop we went into, we were so happy to see all the sex toys and plastic lingerie hanging there that we gladly scooped up the penis straws in all five available colours. The straws, btw, are a new thing to me and I cannot imagine any drink that passes through those straws are allowed to taste good. There was also a wind-up penis that would jump around the table. After leaving the shop (they had a small selection because it's wedding season), we decided to check out another just in case. This one was much better stocked, so Jenn also picked up multi-coloured penis candles and something else. Then we were finally done.

But wait, we haven't even gotten to the best part - the cake!

We took the Skytrain back, got off in New Westminster to pick up an inebriated Brian amongst a couple dozen construction dudes at the bar (and his car) and drove home. Had to make a pit stop at T&T to pick up a jelly roll cake (chocolate with cream filling) for the, er, shaft, and Zellers for some more bachelorette party stuff.

After dinner, we got to work. We had to cut out the balls from loaf pans because we couldn't find little round cakes that were the perfect size. Then we compared the balls to the jelly roll and realized the proportions weren't working, so had to trim the jelly roll down. Then came the biggest debate of all - the head. How, what size, circumcision/not, etc. were all factored in, with our resident expert Brian at our aid. He had to draw us a couple of diagrams, too, to ensure that we really understood what he meant.

During this time, we also perfected the flesh colour with food colouring - 2 parts yellow and 1 part red should do the trick, with perhaps a bit more yellow if the red is too strong.

Finally, icing the cake took forever, because the jelly roll is a fairly moist cake in order to be rolled up without breaking. Also, the icing liked to slip off the cake because it was such a hot day. Once iced, we completed the look with chocolate shavings as the hairs, and a silver dragee at the tip. Sorry, I hope I haven't ruined chocolate shavings and fancy dragees for everyone reading this.

And that, took us until 10:30pm at night!