The service was today. It was nice. What do you say to describe a funeral service? It was “okay.” It was “no one punched anyone in the nose, isn’t that cool?” “No one cursed at anyone else, righteous!” It was a good service. The ministers did not do the whole thing of, “She was a believer/she wanted you to believe/you are all heathen assholes/repent now or you won’t see her in heaven.”

I don’t like funerals or weddings or baby showers or birthday parties. I want to be a good sport. Supportive. A “partier.” But I just do not like the social things. Also my baby cousin Wacky Cousin 2.0 was cracking me up, and cracking the kids up, and Hockey God was instructing us, Don’t laugh you’ll only encourage him… but I am sorry.

Internets, I had to encourage him. I had to laugh.

He is two. He has blond, curly hair, and huge blue eyes, and was wearing a darling little sweater with patches on the elbows. He is outgoing and he is a nutbar. So when he yelled, “I’m going out the window!” followed by “I just pooped!!!” (which was extra funny because he hadn’t actually pooped he was faking us out, whew, wiping tears from eyes…) (Two-year-old humor, It Rocks.)

My kids were enchanted with him. “He is funny. Isn’t he funny? Then he did the chicken dance with us!” (Why does he know the chicken dance? Because he inherited their Chicken Dance Elmo, that’s why. I wondered where it went. To Wacky Cousin 2.0’s house, that’s where!)

I’m just being flip right now because you know why, I think. Here, I’ll put it in my son’s words:

“She was old and she was ready to die but you weren’t ready for her to go.”

No, I wasn’t. So I will keep on trying to let go, but right now, all I’m thinking about is the time we were spending the weekend with her, me, my sis, my cousin Travis in Corbett, up in the Columbia Gorge where they used to live. I found a recipe in Family Circle or Country Woman or one of her mags, and it included a recipe for the most deluxe chocolate cake I had ever seen. I asked Grandma, Can you make that?

She was all, Sure, run up to the store and get me the stuff. (This little country store my sister and cousins and I loved, right up the road.) So we did. And she baked it. And it was perfect.

That was when I knew: Baking = love.

I miss my Grandma and no, I was not ready for that fancy casket and the hymns and the slide show. No, I was not ready for that at all.

So I’m just going to pretend it was a dream. And because I can’t find a clip from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, where she goes all hysterical laughing at Chuckles the Clown’s funeral and can’t stop laughing, I leave you with this, the opening to my dad and mom’s favorite show…

Wacky Girl made a delicious homemade coconut cake yesterday, in honor of Dear Granny. We didn’t use her recipe though, we made a Starlight Yellow Cake, instead. WG knows how to use the mixer now, she’s happy. Is already asking for a Kitchen Aid. She stirred in coconut, and we frosted it by breaking apart a big Hershey’s bar, and pressing the pieces onto the cake while it was still warm. The pieces didn’t melt fast enough, so we popped it back into the cooling oven for a couple of minutes. Success — and it tasted like a Mounds bar.

That’s how my Dear Granny used to frost cakes. In either a froth of raw egg whites, or by pressing a Hershey’s Kiss onto an oversized cupcake, or by lining up rows of chocolate squares on a still-warm cake. It’s more of a glaze, really. It’s perfect, and no need for powdered sugar.

Until earlier this evening, when I was googling Wacky Mommy Needs (needs cake, clearly) I was not aware that there is such a creation as a Wacky Cake. Did you know that? Did you know that children like it?

Wacky Cake II

Servings: 12

“Children like this cake.”

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup water
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup milk

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9 inch square pan.
2. Sift together the flour, 1 cup of the sugar, 1/4 cup of the cocoa, the soda, and the salt. Stir in the vinegar, oil, water, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until smooth. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 35 minutes. Let cake cool. Then spread chocolate icing over top.
4. To Make Chocolate Icing: Combine 1 cup of the sugar, 1/4 cup of the cocoa, the milk, and the butter or margarine. Boil for 1 minute. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla and continue stirring until partially cool. Spread over cake.

Here is the best recipe — my Dear Granny would make this every year for my birthday:

COCONUT CAKE
First get a coconut from the store. (Don’t buy one unless you can shake it and hear the milk inside.) Take scissors or a screwdriver. There are three little eyes at the end of the coconut. Make a hole in it with the scissors or screwdriver. Make a hole and drain the milk out.

Then hit it with a hammer and get the shell off. Take a knife, gouge down in there and get all the pieces of coconut and get them out of the shell. Get all the brown off. You can grate it — that’s how Mama used to do it, but it’s hard on your fingers. I run it through the blender — that flakes the coconut up. Or if you got a food processor you can run it through that. Then I add a couple of tablespoons of sugar on the coconut to sweeten it up.

(You can freeze the coconut, too — it freezes well.)

Then, get a Betty Crocker white cake mix. For the liquid in there — I think it calls for milk — use part coconut milk. Save part of the coconut milk for the frosting. Use egg whites, not whole eggs, or else you’ll have a yellow cake.

You put the oven on 350 degrees. Put your cake in there to bake. It takes about 35 minutes or something like that. It will tell you on the box.

You take one of your pans, a small one, you put a cup of sugar, and pour some coconut milk over the sugar. Cook it until you put a spoon in there and it will kind of clump. Then you have three egg whites, beaten pretty stiff, in the mixer. Turn the mixer on high. As it’s mixing, pour the sugar and coconut milk mixture over the egg whites. It should be pretty thick by then.

Ice your cake with that, then sprinkle coconut all over the top of the cake. That’s it.

(love you, Grandma. nancy)

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

from the Wikipedia page:

“Coleridge claimed that the poem was inspired by an opium-induced dream (implicit in the poem’s subtitle A Vision in a Dream) but that the composition was interrupted by a person from Porlock. Some have speculated that the vivid imagery of the poem stems from a waking hallucination, most likely opium-induced. Additionally a quotation from William Bartram[1] is believed to have been a source of the poem. There is widespread speculation on the poem’s meaning, some suggesting the author is merely portraying his vision while others insist on a theme or purpose. Others believe it is a poem stressing the beauty of creation, and some read sexual allusions throughout.

Inspiration for this poem also comes from Marco Polo’s description of Shangdu and Kublai Khan from his book Il Milione, which was included in Samuel Purchas’ Pilgrimage, Vol. XI, 231.”

I had a nightmare last night that my Grandma was in Purgatory. She was sitting in a chair, alone, dressed nicely, her make-up on. We talked for a second, but she was distracted. Wouldn’t make eye contact. It’s not what I imagined Purgatory to look like — it was more like a train station. Cold. Sterile. She seemed steady, but a little nervous. Ready to be on her way. I woke up scared and ice cold. This has been harder than I thought it would be. I’m doing what I always do when I lose someone — I’m pretending she’s still here.

The neighbor’s big tree came partially down this weekend — dropped a branch in their driveway, and another branch (and most of the tree’s canopy) in our side yard. It filled up our side yard, with all the foliage. Couldn’t get to front gate or through yard because of it.

We had the strangest storm — it came on fast and dark, tons of rain and hail. All of the pink blossoms from the cherry and plum trees, swirling around like snow. Then it got darker and trees and limbs started falling. Thank God the kids weren’t outside when it happened — we had just been outside a little earlier. Also thank God it didn’t crash through the windows, smash through the roof, do more damage to the fence than it did. (Only a few boards damaged.) I heard a huge riiiiiiiiiiip, creeeeeeeeak, and then crash. It was too scary. I think it was my grandma, raging.

wm

my cousin just called a little bit ago, Nancy this is the call.

my Grandma is gone.

“Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pet peeve: When someone says, I’m only playing devil’s advocate, only they are screaming it at you and not taking time to even attempt to hear where you’re coming from. No, you’re not “pretending” to give me someone else’s opinion, as some cat-and-mouse “devil’s advocate” thing (more…)

What is up over here, you ask? Too, too, too much.

* I’m dancing. The Mii me is, that is. Wii Fit is really fun, y’all weren’t kidding.
* Also enjoying the hula hoopin’
* I think this is Portland’s longest season ever for the cherry and plum blossoms on the trees. Usually the rain knocks them down straightaway, but they’ve had a good run this year.
* I keep opening my e-mail, Facebook and Twitter hoping… what, exactly? That someone will have left me a plate of appetizers or something? It’s not like that, it’s the computer. Facebook is giving me eyestrain.
* What I would have on the platter, were a platter of appetizers to suddenly appear: phyllo pastry with melted cheese, like at Alexis Greek Restaurant; roasted asparagus; meatballs; carrots, celery sticks and grape tomatoes, with some of the kooky dip my cousin K makes — you know what it is? BBQ sauce mixed with Thousand Island. I kid you not. It is delicious; also… a variety of olives; fresh, cut-up fruit — pineapple, cherries, strawberries (to dip in chocolate and powdered sugar)
* Yes, I had dinner. I’m just staying up too late and getting hungry again.
* This is why I need to go to bed earlier.
* I’m not writing about any family stuff. I do not want to bum you out, Internets. Just light a candle for us is what I’m requesting. Thank you.
* Also not writing about Internet Drama. The Internet Drama can kiss my foot.
* Doesn’t the ocean sound nice? I’d like to be at the ocean right now.
* I don’t like the Wii Fit game where you balance on the tightrope, that is scary to me. But the others are all fun.
* We just watched more hockey — Anaheim Ducks took their series (over San Jose Sharks); Chicago (go!) beat Calgary.
* What is new with you?

wm, out.

Yeah, we’re watching a lot of play-off games over here for the Stanley Cup. Swear to God if the Rangers don’t win this game (they’re down now — score is 5-2, Washington, in the last four minutes of the third period aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Dubi, Dubi, Dubi… And their coach is in the frickin’ penalty box for the whole game)… (why? you ask? Why is their coach in the penalty box — not even box. Room. He’s in the penalty room — well. Because a fan spit on the bench personnel and went all homophobic, and the coach squirted water in his face. Then threw a water bottle at him or something, so what? If someone is being all homophobic and spitting at you, don’t you have the right to throw something at them? Especially if it’s a corn dog, or a water bottle? I would say so.)

Hockey God, happy as hell: “You don’t see that in basketball. They don’t even carry sticks in basketball.” (Yeah, we’re watching the Blazers later, Rip City guys, c’mon…)

Anyway. Final score: Washington Capitals, 5, Rangers 3. Harsh toke of a game. See ya for game 7. (Edited at 9 p.m. to say — another harsh toke. My Blazers lost.)

My Pens wrapped it up yesterday, though, so I’m happy about that. Here are my two favoritest ads from the season…

“As Dorothy Zbornak, Arthur seemed as caustic and domineering as Maude. She was unconcerned about the similarity of the two roles. ‘Look — I’m 5-feet-9, I have a deep voice and I have a way with a line,’ she told an interviewer. ‘What can I do about it? I can’t stay home waiting for something different. I think it’s a total waste of energy worrying about typecasting.'”

— quoted in The New York Times, 4/25/09