Pottery in action: chocolate Vegan cupcakes w/ icing!

(no butter or dairy or eggs here, nope, just a ton of chocolate and sugar, on plates by Gary Rith)
So, as was announced everywhere, it was the missus' birthday yesterday, and as she says so often, 'I'm not 50 yet'. YET. Looking real good at 48. Our realtor asked us 2 years ago 'so, are you gonna settle down and have some kids now?' to which there was a large amount of hooting and hollering.
I was, I think, a good birthday elf. I do most of the house cleaning and such, but I did her share too. I gave her a twelve pack of my favorite beers.
That's a joke. I gave her the bling she saw at the store and coveted. We saw it one dayat the store, I pretended I din't like it, then I ran back the next day and bought it. The lady at the counter agreed with me: I had played it cool. We are fond of purple, so let's just say that 3 amethysts were involved. I also baked some rather astounding chocolate cupcakes. Weekend birthdays are the most fun!
Alright, onto dreams. I had my dream of beach volleyball all night (see random beach volleyball pic from yesterday) except there was no beach and no skill. I dreamt my dad wanted me to play basketball in high school, but on my way to the gym I saw a coach trying to get volleyball going, and so I jumped into that. Me and a dozen other incompetent boys then spent hours (can you imagine I waste my dream time on this?) and I mean the whole night, trying but failing to play volleyball.