Baby Elephant Walk

A few days before I was scheduled to fly out to Prague, via a layover in beautiful Rome, while I was deep in the proverbial professional trenches preparing for my meeting and working long hours, the filmmaker's mother offered the two of us a proposition: she had been, a number of weeks prior, tasked with the making festive elephant shaped sugar pink and chocolate candy lollipops for a colleague's retirement celebration, it was now the night before the affair, and she had other, less tedious plans with her sister, visiting town for the evening. She offered, in return for the filmmaker and myself bearing the burden, to treat us to a night about the town.

Rather foolishly, wanting to enjoy the last few moments of sun for the day, the filmmaker and I decided to go out and about for a summer drink, before embarking on our journey of melting, without burning, pouring, drying, and waiting, and waiting some more, to transform the soft disc shaped candies into also soft elephants on a stick, complete with ears, trunk, and legs. After realizing the packet instructions recommended utilizing a microwave, and after learning how long was too long in the make-shift double boiler before the candies congealed to a gelatinous muck, ruining our would-be first batch, we slowly and successfully formed four elephants. It is important to note, at this point in the tale, that we had a lonely single mold, able to set four elephants at once; in order for each party attendee to have at least one lollipop, we would need about thirty-six or so, the precise number at this moment escapes me. Feeling absolutely exhaust and guilty, I slipped away from the steaming stove to the seductively sultry feel of my cotton sheets and my soft mattress; within seconds, I was dozing, ambling silently to the land of dreams, where Queen Mab reigns.

My filmmaker persevered, boiling, melting, without scalding, pouring, scraping, sculpting, drying, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, until about four in the morning. Surely, the effort was appreciated, as the elephant lollipops turned out to be absolutely darling, and while I cannot attest to the taste of the massively manufactured sucrose-induced candy gum, I know that I have the sweetest beau around.