Salty Sweet Thoughts

The point of this picture is not that my son has a friend and its name is Bowling Pin.


The point here is the ground. It's wet. After weeks upon weeks upon weeks of living in a dry heat that was turning everyone into human jerky, it finally rained. Hallelujah.

When it rains, the lines at Starbucks tend to be long. While I was waiting, I remembered that Faux Trixie http://fauxtrixie.blogspot.com/ had spoken of Starbucks salted caramel hot chocolate. I decided to give one a try because I love sugar and salt together. Remember when you were younger and people would ask you the hard questions about life like what you wanted to be when you grew up and whether you were a sugar or salt person? That last question was always so hard. I like to dip my Ruffles in Nutella. Am I a sugar or salt person? I just don't know.
Lately, thanks to the recent salted caramel culinary craze, you can be both. Last year, at about this time, I emailed the lady that owns the local cupcake shop and said that if she made salted caramel cupcakes, I would buy them. She emailed back and said that it was a great idea and that if I came in she would give me one on the house. That flavor ended up being a staple of the store and, according to one of their salespeople, one of their top selling flavors.

I have met cupcake lady several times before, including the day I went in to introduce myself as the person that wanted the salted caramel cupcakes. Yesterday she was in line right next to me at Starbucks. I said "Hi!," and she just looked away. I wonder if she is afraid that I want royalties. I don't. I just want her to be happier. She runs a cupcake store for goodness sake. Not incidentally, hers was one of the first blogs that I ever read and was part of the inspiration for this. Isn't it crazy when you finally meet someone you think that you are going to love and it turns out cold and weird? Anyway, that wasn't the case for my son and his bowling pin. When he finally got it, it was all that he hoped it would be.