Yesterday, my family celebrated my niece, Sophia's, second birthday.  As usual, my sister made a beautiful party, themed around candy apples. 

Sophia had a wonderful time, especially since she was visited by both a face-painting clown and her very favorite TV character, Dora the Explorer.

For those of you who don't know Dora, she is a Latina girl who travels around and goes on adventures with her sidekick, Boots the monkey.  These travels are conveniently tracked by Noggin television.  Sophia is in love with Dora. 

So, when "Dora" (actually, the same young lady who was the face painting clown earlier in the party) appears, she is rushed by knee-high fans.  Photos are taken.  Hugs are given.  A special birthday memory.

My sister also procured a Dora-shaped pinata.  Unlike the typical pinata I remember from my childhood, where the thing is assaulted by blindfolded bat-wielding children, this pinata has several ribbons at it's feet which, when pulled, releases bits of candy until the final ribbon removes the entire floor of the housing, spilling candy all over the floor.

This worked beautifully.  The children pulled the strings and the candy fell out.  However, the design flaw in Dora is that her neck is too narrow to allow the candy to flow out of the head cavity.  No matter how hard we tried, we could not shake loose the candy.

The dilemma:  sacrifice the candy in Dora's head, or sacrifice her head?

What would you have done?

On a parallel but not related note:  Has anybody heard the phrase "going to the candy store" as a metaphor for sex?   I heard it for the first time yesterday. 

The boy is eighteen and about to graduate from High School.  He is a wiry kid with pale blue eyes and a touch of fire in his hair.  The school is urban  and in the Mid-Atlantic United States.

Graduation means freedom and it means to them, the boy and his friend, privilege.  To leap from tall buildings.  To wage war.  These adventurers today become guerilla warriors. The iron dumpster behind the donut shop is their arms dealer.  Three dozen, assorted are their weapons.

Whose car they use the boy cannot remember today.  But it is loud.  Pastries holstered, the team loose themselves on the grey landscape.  Their missiles possess a unique combination of aerodynamics and Young's modulus.  This, along with the presence of pedestrian targets, will amount to adolescent bliss.

Anger from the sixteen year-old girls whom they attack with glazed.  Indifference from the two old men struck by bavarian cream.  They simply continue their chess match.  Surprise from the businessman hit repeatedly with toasted coconut.  One woman drops her groceries after assault with a cinammon crueller.

The afternoon is warm and sticky as those days tend to be when boys are about to graduate from High School.  Hands sweet with glaze and powdered sugar, the boys retreat home.  Relatives kiss them.  A mortar board balances on the boy's head.

That day behind him, the boy goes on to see the world.  He is again a student, then a traveller, then a potter.  He falls in love.  Becomes a father.

Still, there is a spice in his clear eyes.  It comes out one afternoon at lunch with his long lost donut drive-by partner.  They recreate the day over fusilli e rappini.  The assassins make throwing gestures, discuss 28 year-old donut ballistics and laugh.  The boy's young son climbs on a kitchen chair.  The boy's wife and I exchange the glances that only the women who know these boys can.

This boy lives just outside of New York City and, along with his wife, is a college professor.  One June day not long ago, the boy sips coffee outside of a coffee shop in Times Square.  He reads the newspaper.  Then, impact:  left shoulder.  A familiar giggle and the roar of a motor follows.  A puff of smoke.

Direct hit.  Jelly donut.  Powdered.