Yesterday an email from Bill Bernath

had a series of photos of

a very scary hiking trail

in a mountainous area of China.

The trail itself is barely more than

footholds or planks, and chains bolted

into the rock face as “handrails,”

with sheer dropoffs of thousands of feet.

I forwarded the email

to a number of people,

then I replied to Bill,

who had added a brief note to me.

I said just three words: “piece of cake.”

Mati Kiin was one of the people

I had forwarded the email to.

Mati wrote back, mentioning

some scary hiking he had done,

but which was a “cake walk”

compared to this Chinese trail.

Chuckling, I replied to Mati,

noting that recurrence of “cake.”

Later yesterday I was wrestling with

a New York Times crossword puzzle.

I had filled in most of it

But was still stuck on quite a few words.

The last one I filled in

before throwing in the towel

was an eight letter word for “sure thing”

with the last two letters being “L” and “K.”

It occurred to me that “CAKEWALK”

would fit and might be appropriate,

so I figured what the heck.

Then I checked the answers

And that turned out to be correct.

Today I got a birthday card

from my insurance agent.

The picture is of a cake

lounging in a hammock

and the text inside says

“Cake it easy on your birthday!”…