Life is the Flower for Which Love is the Honey -Victor Hugo

Background 

1. Jews eat honey cake on Rosh Hashanah (New Year)
2. Jewish New Year season is now
3. My book editors said not to use numbers unless the sequence is important, but I am having trouble breaking the habit

Honey Cake
I use my oldest cookbook which I think was written before I was even born called Second Helpings. Second Helpings gives vague cooking suggestions. For example, a casserole recipe might be something like: brown the onion, add the beef, cook till done, put in oven, warm when your husband gets home from his long day at the office.
I like the recipes because I find them forgiving, in other words you don't have to be exact (although possibly you may need a husband so please govern yourselves accordingly)
The honey cake recipe is simple and then it says, pour into 10 inch tube pan, which in my mind was a loaf pan although the two are not the same at all.
I pour the batter into a loaf pan.
There is too much batter so I pour it into a second loaf pan.
There is not enough batter to properly bake in second pan.
I am annoyed with Second Helpings until I realize that I mis-read the instructions and anyway I don't have a 10in tube pan.
I do however have two smaller tube pans that may have been Jell-O molds in a former life if you can picture what I'm talking about.
They are either  inherited from my great-grandmother or snagged at a Minnesotan garage sale (?)
Pour batter from loaf pans into Jell-O pans and put in oven.
Wash non-performing loaf pans by hand because dishwasher is still broken.
While drying pans notice burning smell coming from oven.
One of the Jell-O molds has a hairline fracture which is causing honey cake batter to drip out ever so slowly and form smaller-than-a-dime sized burning droplets on the bottom of the oven.
This is not good.
Re-take out re-washed loaf pan that a minute ago was looking insufficient but now is the answer to all my hopes and dreams.
Honey cake has already started to bake around the edges of the fractured Jell-O pan however I believe it is too risky to leave cake in there and wrapping it in tin foil I think will even form a greater mess.
Re-pour batter into loaf pan.
Now have one honey cake baking in Jell-O pan and one in loaf pan.
House smells divine, take cakes out of oven, leave them to cool.
Take sharp knife around edges of Jell-O pan to loosen cake, flip on to plate and -
Honey cake completely disintegrates. Part sticks to pan. Part crumbles. Part falls onto plate.
It looks like it has been baked by a swarm of bees with too much time on their hands and absolutely no expertise in the kitchen.

What Happens Next
I take a pic of the sad, broken honey cake and post it online. I wrap the good honey cake and put in freezer.
I re-wash the pans.
14 year old daughter T is leaving to basketball tournament in the US and asks if she can pack the "cake" up for car snacks. Seems like a happy ending for this pile of crumbs. Sure.

And Also
A few days later I get a message from a Mom that I like but I don't know that well.
She says that she really appreciated me posting a pic of my pathetic cake. She says that they were having a rough holiday season over at hers, and when she saw my cake falling apart she felt a little less alone. She felt like she could get through the holidays without everything being so picture perfect. She said my poor little disintegrated honey cake gave her hope.

What Went Through My Mind

1. I feel like holiday happiness is a lot of pressure to put on one little honey cake so I'm glad mine came through
2. I thought it was interesting and brave of this Mom to reach out to me and thank me for being a failure in the kitchen being honest about how the, er, cake was crumbling over here
3. All she saw was the finished, messy product, she didn't know (until now, if she's reading this) that it had actually been a more complex and difficult process involving fractured pans, a broken dishwasher and the smell of burning honey coming from my oven. 
4. So, it was even worse than I had let on, and the disintegrated finished honey cake was actually the least of it.
5. Which is something I think we should all keep in mind when watching each other's social media. Sure, it's true, but there may be more to the story.
6. And also when someone does something that helps or inspires you, reach out to them. It makes everyone's New Year a little sweeter

Best wishes to you and your families from me and mine.