Eating rotten wood, leaves, and mushrooms

Ivy is having a birthday sleepover with 5 friends (she wanted more but we had to limit it due to limited sleeping spaces!). They are staying in Le Catamaran and having a great time, from all the thumping and giggling we're hearing.

She helped me make the darling cake: a wood stump with toadstools, oyster mushrooms growing on the side of the log, and ivy leaves. We tried all sorts of things to dye the white chocolate for the leaves green and nothing worked: oil dyes, powdered dyes, matcha powder, even painting the leaves with oil-based food coloring. So in the end, we left them white.

Eric is at an academic conference in Los Angeles, just for the weekend. We were really stressed that he would be detained at the border despite being a legal permanent resident. The current administration is terrifying those who are immigrants, even those who, like Eric, have been in the US for over 30 years.