And they bring the boxes too, I bet

What exactly do I have to "witness" to be part of the witness protection program, anyway? Can I just be annoyed by the goings-on around me? Can I claim emotional distress due to the burden of having to pack up my cube by April 30 and be done with it?

'Course I'm only asking for the relocation assistance. I don't want to disappear from my friends and family and certainly need to see status updates too often to change my name. I've got 84 friends now; I can't start all over again! (I know you all have more, and yes, you're very special. But do you KNOW them? Have you had them over for dinner? Have you sent them Pringles in the mail? Yeah. That's what I thought.)

Also, I have a great petsitter. Never underestimate the importance of a woman who cleans the litter boxes right and will pill a cat.

I'm assuming the government has expert packers and movers on hand, guys and gals who will wear dark glasses and that curly thing that runs to their ear that is either for easy phone reception or an homage to Orthodox Jews; really, it's win-win either way. I get discreet, swift packing and, if anything gets broken, a free ride on the space shuttle. I saw that in the Constitution the other day. Or maybe an Epcot brochure.

I'm looking forward to this packing help is my point. These are the kind of people who you know are crazy good at Tetris, so I should be able to win their eternal trust and fidelity and local restaurant knowledge with some Wii Fit balance games. I'll just move 2-3 hours northwest of here, and if they want me to spy on kindly old Mrs. Davenport in return, well, I can hide in the flowers with the best of them. Especially if she's partial to bright pink.

I went away and didn't tell you

Because I didn't want you stealing my stuff.

So just some quick fill-you-ins while I simmer some real posts (we can all hope; Lords of Kobol, we can all hope).

• I was laid off by Cornell 2 weeks ago today. This was 3 days before my trip to Florida with my Mom.
• Fathom started straining to pee and even peed some blood 2 days before I left.
  
• I went to Florida with my Mom. For 8 days. Saw most of my wonderful old Orlando friends.
• I turned 40.
• BSG's final episode aired.

I'm OK with the layoff, so far anyway. Easy enough to say while I'm still sitting at my desk and getting a paycheck (I can work through April 30 if I want. I get 3 weeks' severance after that, and health insurance for a year).

Now I can dance a little monkey dance back to Western NY.

This is the kind of magic and hootenanny you missed out on
by not being in the Magic Kingdom last Friday

What's that? A cake recipe? Why, yes, I happen to have one right here.

Dana asked me the other day to re-give her my Mom's recipe for Texas sheet cake. I had determined to post it as a note on Facebook when I got -- The Upgrade (and well after others did. I think this means FB likes me better than you). The tabs don't work from my Mac, and the Note option is gone from the other little row of iconny bits. So, to satisfy the part of me that was already reveling in accolades over the most wonderful cake of all time, here's the recipe.

It's a super moist, really wonderful cake that always wins over a crowd or makes someone happy on their birthday. Here you can see it in its "love cake" form; in the wild, it's a big rectangle. I've started making it with white whole wheat flour to make it a wee bit healthier, and I know there are lighter versions out there. But this came to me from my Mom and her family, and I've been having it since I was wee, so I stick to the original pretty closely, because That's My Cake. I feel like it's my Mom doing the cooking when I make her recipes.

TEXAS SHEET CAKE
Why Texas sheet cake? I think it killed a man once just for snoring.

The recipe calls for a 9x15 jelly roll pan. I have found that a dark colored one works better than a lighter one. Weird. But true. While the cake is baking, make the frosting.

CAKE
DRY:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
½ cup sour cream (or ½ cup milk with enough vinegar to sour, maybe a teaspoon)
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

WET:
2 sticks margarine/butter
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 cup water

1. preheat oven to 350.
2. combine dry ingredients in large mixing bowl.
3. combine wet in saucepan on stove. Bring to boil.
4. add wet ingredients to dry, mixing thoroughly. Pour into greased jelly roll pan.
5. bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until knife slipped into center comes out clean. Set on cooling racks.


FROSTING
Pour one 1-lb box of powdered sugar into mixing bowl.

Heat over low:
1 stick margarine/butter
4 tablespoons milk
4 tablespoons cocoa powder

Heat till butter melts; mix.

Add to powdered sugar.
Mix well.

Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Mix well.
Frosting should drop slowly from spoon -- plop, even: not a river, but not sludge either.

Frost the cake while still warm. You’ll want it cool enough that it doesn’t come apart when you spread the frosting. Doing it while still warm lets the frosting sink into the cake and makes it that much more moist.

I should probably get the potato chips out of my hair now.

"Put the mask over your own face before your child's," I kept hearing as I fed the cats first while my own blood sugar tanked, my breathing shallow. If I pass out from the lack of oxygen, can they reach the masks? They are (a) jumpers and (2) entranced by dangly things. So really, wouldn't they have a better chance than some wobbly headed hominid who's crying because his mommy went all floppy?

If I pass out on the floor, I guarantee that will be the straw that finally makes them sprout thumbs.

It won't be like that X-Files. They don't know how to bite like that. You should see them trying to eat turkey.

This is not them trying to eat turkey

Tiny little post about Tiny little Lost quasi-spoiler

Would someone please spare me Kate from here on? When was the last time she actually meant anything to the plot, for real, for true? And this ridiculous love triangle. If I were a spitter I’d spit on it and sock it in the groin. If Sawyer even WANTS to leave Juliet for her now, I am so done with him. That'll learn him.

The only thing I like about it anymore is the term “S/Kater,” which maybe I also hate at the same time; who can tell anymore.

In other news, the cats would LOVE a pendulum. Maybe not one so hitty, though.

Having found petroleum near the Hydra,

the gentlemen of the island begin a new plastics industry.

There was very little worth reading here. Some might say nothing. Now I have to go buy cat food.

P.S. Don't get me started on the "word" app. I growl every time I hear it.

PBS'd

Entered in this contest.
Tough decision, they take so many good shots. Really the contest should just be among them and their many beautiful ways.

Is it any wonder I'm not in jail?

The more I think about it, the more relieved I am that I survived 8th grade with my eternal soul still intact and on the right side of the line, considering all the bands that we knew for certain to be devil worshippers, with hardcore evidence against them. For instance!

1. AC/DC. Name = Anti-Christ, Devil's Child. Duh.
2. Led Zeppelin. CODA meant something. I'll tell you if I remember what.
3. The Eagles. "There have been no spirits here since 1969," where "spirits" = Jesus, said Dawn Uglik. She gave us the lowdown on ALL this stuff. She had a sister.
4. Styx. Der.
5. Supertramp. I ... ask Dawn.

At some point I think my BF's sister tried to tell me that ELO were devil worshippers too. This I refused to believe because I already liked them so much, and really, followers of the horned one are not so much for singing about holding on tight to one's dreams (and especially! not in French). Time was the first concept album I'd ever heard. And come on. The guys from the soundtrack to Xanadu? Like Olivia Newton-John would've stood for that.

Lucky for us all we found holy respite and distraction instead in the tight pants of Loverboy, Billy Squire, Foreigner, and Journey.

Lucky for us all.

Dawn loved Mike Reno.