Shake and Bake

Shake: "the movement of my head whenever I think about this neighborhood"
Bake: "to cook with dry heat in an oven"

Baked goods first became relevant in GL when Lizzy gave Gina (crackhead neighbor who tried to befriend us from literally our first day in the apartment) some surplus brownies early in our tenure in GL. Since then Gina has occasionally brought us some very unappetizing baked goods. She typically brings them when Lizzy is home. Lizzy will throw them away, and I won't know anything about them until Gina asks me several days later if I enjoyed them. I'll praise them profusely until she leaves me alone. Unfortunately she can be overly persistent. On Sunday we saw Gina get dropped off by a 12 passenger van, and a few minutes later we had an interaction that went something like this:

• Gina knocks on the door. Usually I make Lizzy answer the door because she likes the crazy much more than I do, but I answered it.
• Gina: "Where's your buddy?" (Yes, I *always* refer to my wife as my "buddy.")
• Me: "She's right here."
• Gina: "Do you (speaking past me to Lizzy in the living room) want some cake?"
• Me: "No thanks. We already had cake earlier today at a baby shower." (This was mostly true.)
• Gina: "I made chocolate and that other kind...what's it called...pineapple upside down cake."
• Me: "No thanks. We already ate cake today."
• Gina: "Are you sure? I can give you some. I was up (blah blah blah) church retreat, and I made cake."
• Me: "No thanks, Gina. We don't want any more cake today."
• Gina: "Okay, well, let me know if you want some cake."
• Me: "Okay, thanks, Gina."

I prefer to engage all of the neighbors as little as possible. Lizzy enjoys the drama and interaction. She baked some delicious dessert Monday night that she planned to take to her class on Tuesday. Instead, she took some to Gina, which encourages Gina to bring us more baked goods in the future...and the cycle continues.