Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Shooting Guns, Baking Cupcakes

January 11, 2012 by Beth

So it appears that I did, in fact, turn 35 today. And the world did not, in fact, end. Surprising, I know. And I suppose you are all wondering how I celebrated the big day. Well, first off was Bethmas Eve dinner. Since I live in the boonies and I didn’t want to drive all the way to Vancouver (where all my favourite restaurants are) given how limited my time is these days and how much driving to Vancouver I’m doing this month1, I had to decide on somewhere out this way. There’s a good Greek restaurant near my place, but we’ve been there a few time recently and I didn’t feel like going to the brew pub, and that’s pretty much all I know for restaurants out here. So I decided to try The Keg. Everyone keeps telling me that it’s really good and my sister assured me that it’s good “even though it’s a chain restaurant”2, so it was off to the Keg for a peppercorn encrusted steak and garlic mashed potatoes. I have to admit – pretty delicious! And since it was my birthday3, I got a free dessert! Already, my birthday was starting off awesome and it wasn’t even my birthday yet!

Now, for my actual birthday, there were two things that I wanted to do. And, as I mentioned, both of these things were on my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. And those things were:

17. visit a shooting range and shoot a gun!
92. make Dark & Stormy cupcakes

Shooting Guns

Just before Christmas, there was a Social Shopper4 deal for the shooting range in PoCo that I keep hearing about on the radio5. The deal was pretty good – $29 got you on the range and you got a 9mm gun and 50 rounds of ammo to do some shooting6 and knowing that this item was on my 101 list, I convinced Devon to get this deal with me. So after a glorious morning of sleeping in (something I won’t get to do on any other day in this entire month!) and lounging around drinking coffee, we were off to PoCo for some shooting! After signing a waiver saying that “hey, shooting ranges are dangerous!” and that my heirs can’t sue the shooting range if I get injured or die7, we got our ear muffs and safety glasses and headed into the range. The instructor told us all the rules8, showed up how to work the guns and then we got to do some shooting! The instructor had to watch us each shoot a round individually, to make sure we were doing it right, and then we could both shoot the rest of our bullets while the instructor watched. I made Devon go first, because I’m a big chicken, and I have to say it was kinda scary to watch. You always hear that it is surprising how much recoil there is on a gun when you shoot it but, holy crap, it’s a surprising how my recoil there is on a gun when you shoot it! Also, the bullet casing fly every which way – bouncing off the wall, off you, off the instructor – just everywhere! Once I tried it myself, though, it wasn’t so bad – you can feel that the recoil is big, but it somehow doesn’t look as big when you are shooting as when you are watching someone else shoot. And I didn’t see where any of my casings flew, because I was intently staring at my target. Why did I need to stare so intently at my target? Because, naturally, I chose a zombie target!

Me and the target I used for the first time I ever shot a gun! I feel much more prepared for the upcoming zombie apocalypse.

I practised aiming for the head because, as everyone knows, you’ve got to destroy the brain when it comes to zombies. Headshots. Double tap. It’s elementary stuff.

My target on the left, Devon’s on the right. Out of the 50 rounds, I got 30 hits and he got 27. Not bad for a first go!

Baking Cupcakes

After we finished at the shooting range, it was back to my place for some lunch and to bake some cupcakes. You see, I long ago discovered this recipe for Dark N’ Stormy cupcakes, based on the Caribbean drink of the same name. The drink is a delicious concoction of lime juice, ginger beer, and black rum. The cupcake has a bottom layer that is essentially a gingerbread-flavoured cupcake9, a top layer that is a rum and lemon rind flavoured white cupcake, and then the whole thing  is topped with a rum cream cheese icing and some candied ginger on top10

Cupcake verdict: Delicious!

In the evening, Devon went off to Irish Gaelic class, and my friend Kim came over for tea and cupcakes! She also graciously helped me take down my Christmas tree, which I hadn’t yet had time to do this month and figured that I wouldn’t have time to do it until sometime next week if I didn’t get it done tonight. And now, I’m finishing up this blog posting and then heading to bed! Because apparently shooting guns and baking cupcakes is tiring work!

Happy Bethmas, everyone!

1. For the record, it’s 14 trips to Vancouver in the 31 days of January [↩]
2. As she knows how much I dislike most chain restaurants. I mean, there are a few good ones – I like White Spot veggies burgers, for example, and recently tried Red Robin and found that their burgers don’t taste like chain restaurant at all. [↩]
3. Well, birthday eve, but who’s counting? [↩]
4. i.e., Groupon-type thingy [↩]
5. Yes, apparently I am a slave to advertising, apparently. [↩]
6. In comparison, the range fee – i.e., just stepping on the range – costs $30! [↩]
7. Which would be a very sucky way to spend one’s birthday [↩]
8. Very sensible things like “always point the gun towards the range” and “don’t put your finger on the trigger except when you are all set up and ready to shoot.” [↩]
9. Molasses, sugar, fresh ginger, cloves, etc. [↩]
10. It’s also supposed to have a rum sauce poured over the cupcake before you ice it, but being brilliant such as I am, Devon made the rum sauce while the cupcakes were baking, and then he had to go off to Irish Gaelic class, so we quickly iced a warm cupcake for him to take, sans rum sauce. And then I let the cupcakes cool and then iced them, completely forgetting to poke holes in the cupcakes and pour the rum sauce on! So I just drizzled rum sauce on before I ate it and that saved the day! [↩]

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