Festivus, for the rest of us.

Happy holidays, everyone. See you in 2011, Year of the Rabbit. Thanks for a great 2010.

xo

wm

and now, from Lakeitha, Paula Deen and the City of St. Louis, the best damn cake:

GOOEY BUTTER CAKE

Servings: 6 to 8 servings

Prep Time: 30 min

Cook Time: 40 min

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

Cake:
1 18 1/4-ounce package yellow cake mix
1 egg
8 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 16-ounce box powdered sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the cake mix, egg, and butter and mix well with an electric mixer. Pat the mixture into the bottom of a lightly greased 13 by 9-inch baking pan. Prepare Filling

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the eggs, vanilla, and butter and beat together.

Next, add the powdered sugar and mix well. Spread over cake batter and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Make sure not to overbake as the center should be a little gooey.

Bon appetit!

wm

“‘You are sad,’ the Knight said in an anxious tone: ‘Let me sing you a song to comfort you.’
‘Is it very long?’ Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.
‘It’s long,’ said the Knight, ‘but very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it — either it brings the tears into their eyes, or else — ‘
‘Or else what?’ said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
‘Or else it doesn’t, you know.'”

— Lewis Carroll

More on libraries.

just kidding. it’s re-run day, i’m late for work!

“That Spirit of Christmas”

all u need is love

Lemon Bundt Cake

“Sisters” and… how can I resist…

Christmas at the Grotto

OK, i cannot do my usual links. u know why? because this keyboard and mouse suck is why. Right now i am at the word HELLO!! and all that shows up on the screen is “Right now.” I kid you not. I am such a good typist i am fixing my errors EVEN THO THEY ARE INVISIBLE ON THE CUSSIN’ PAGE.

i am going to try to tell u what i am reading: “the Everything Buddhism Book.” (because i can be Unitarian Universalist/ Marxist feminist AND zen buddhist, see? they all go well together. (oh! computer is speeding up. as i’m typing these words i can actually see each word. Am no longer 10 words behind on the screen.) (stupidass computers.) (did i mention that i’m married to a software engineer? NO EXCUSE for this kind of technical deficiency over here, okay? Maybe the fancy Mac doesn’t have these problems, but poor, pitiful Linux machine sure does.)

but i digress.

if R were here she’d yell FOCUS! at me right now. she’s around attorneys too much, i don’t hold it against her. (ps no i haven’t had anything to drink, thank u, just like this naturally.)

also reading “The Man Who Loved Books Too Much” and “Women Who Think Too Much.” IT IS A TOO MUCH KIND OF WEEK.

four more days til holiday break, thank you, thank you and good night. computer has gone stupid again. What are you reading right now? Hmm. Really? What are you wearing? JUST KIDDING.

FOCUS.

buh-bye.

wm

i love this post so much i want to pet it.

“Lady in the back row says she loves my hair.”

“Tension”
By Billy Collins

“Never use the word suddenly just to create tension.”
— Writing Fiction

“Suddenly, you were planting some yellow petunias
outside in the garden,
and suddenly I was in the study
looking up the word oligarchy for the thirty-seventh time.

When suddenly, without warning,
you planted the last petunia in the flat,
and I suddenly closed the dictionary
now that I was reminded of that vile form of governance.

A moment later, we found ourselves
standing suddenly in the kitchen
where you suddenly opened a can of cat food
and I just as suddenly watched you doing that.

I observed a window of leafy activity
and beyond that, a bird perched on the edge
of the stone birdbath
when suddenly you announced you were leaving

to pick up a few things at the market
and I stunned you by impulsively
pointing out that we were getting low on butter
and another case of wine would not be a bad idea.

Who could tell what the next moment would hold?
another drip from the faucet?
another little spasm of the second hand?
Would the painting of a bowl of pears continue

to hang on the wall from that nail?
Would the heavy anthologies remain on the shelves?
Would the stove hold its position?
Suddenly, it was anyone’s guess.

The sun rose ever higher in the sky.
The state capitals remained motionless on the wall map
when suddenly I found myself lying on a couch
where I closed my eyes and without any warning

began to picture the Andes, of all places,
and a path that led over the mountains to another country
with strange customs and eye-catching hats,
each one suddenly fringed with colorful little tassels.”

and..

“OH, MY GOD”
by Billy Collins

“Not only in church
and nightly by their bedsides
do young girls pray these days

Even at the pedestrian mall
outbursts of praise
spring unbidden from their glossy lips.”

Reading this week:

Great show. Julianna Margulies, Archie Panjabi (who plays Kalinda), Big (Chris Noth), Josh Charles, Alan Cumming, Scott Porter (Jason Street from “Friday Night Lights”) and… some of the actors from “The Wire,” too, man, i am happy with this show. Watching from the beginning of season one, and tivo’ing season two and watching that, too.

it’s raining so hard right now in my neighborhood that everything’s flooding. i had to ford a couple of rivers to get home, and my clothes were soaked by the time we walked through the front door. I don’t mind the rain in Oregon, mostly, but when it’s dark at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and everyone’s driving twice as fast as they should, and you have the windshield wipers on swish-swish-swish superfast, well. It gets a little intense. Then when the winds start, and the trees start coming down, or when the ground is so soaked they just get uprooted… it’s creepy. A big tree by my work split in half and is gone now, nothing left but logs in the front yard.

OK, let’s lighten it up.

Here’s a poem for you. (Substitute “winter” for “spring.”)

Spring Rain
Marchette Chute

My hair is wet, my feet are wet,
I couldn’t be much wetter.
I fell into a river once
But this is even better.”

How about some cooky recipes? Chewy Chocolate Cookies? Peppermint Candy Canes? Sugar Cookies? Stone Jar Molasses Cookies? Rainbow Walnut Slice and Apricot Pastries? MMMMMMMMMMM. (Still not baking. This is the first holiday season ever when i haven’t baked.) I always think of my late friend, the dear, dear Terry Olson, whenever I post recipes. Fewer recipes/more politics was his motto.

did i mention that i like library work so much? it’s good. here’s a funny YouTube video, you’ll like it, i promise:

not much of it around here. traffic, that is. because i don’t feel like baring all anymore, that’s right. and i never really bared it all to begin with — no cute pix of the kids, no “tell-all” marriage stuff, no trips to the Nervous Hospital, none of that.

want to know what brings ’em in? they’re searching for:

chocolate volcano cake
sex
i hate volunteering in class
rockstar mommy sez goodbye
live nude girls unite
Mayor Sam Adams
i’m freezing my baguettes off
geedee chickens and their mamas
lice here questions?

omg. why do i blog, again? cuz i forget. have a great great awesome night, y’all. all 3 of you.

— wm

ps if i was searching for Broccoli Casserole? I would land here and i would be happy. (love you bossy.)