To make the cake you have to sift the dry ingredients, which include cocoa powder, and then combine in an alternating fashion with the wet ingredients…that contain buttermilk. Thankfully, the frosting is an old-fashioned butter cream: lots of powdered sugar and butter.

My sister-in-law, Susie, made it for my brother years ago. She got the recipe from my mom and spent hours making it. When he sat down to eat it, he scraped the frosting off the top and declared that he really only liked the cake for the frosting. Susie was steamed as she could have bought a cake in a box and slapped the home-made frosting on top. He would have enjoyed it all the same. Sort of like childbirth…it doesn’t matter how you get there…the ending is just as sweet.

I did eventually come up with answers to those questions and in the process reconnected with  my favorite Journalism Professor and with my friend Jim, an old colleague from CNN.  I use the term old with hesitation: old in that we have known each other for almost 20 years but certainly not old in years! 

 Jim, who now works for abc News/Good Morning America tells me he is not sure how it happened but we have become the old people in the business.   And he’s not kidding.  The reporters he works with are in their 20′s and early 30′s.  How is that possible?  How did we get here?   

I consult my friend T., who had a long successful career in advertising, and she tells me it’s all in how you position it.  So I prefer to use the term “well seasoned.”  Like a seasoned cast iron skillet, we might be showing our age but we are sturdy and dependable!

While I was in the hospital, my friend Kim dropped off some movies and one night I watched Eat, Pray, Love for the second time.  I was struck by the author’s time spent in Italy discovering “il bel far niente,” which means, “the beauty of doing nothing,”  and how this is so counterintuitive to any mom’s schedule I have ever seen.

My first opportunity to put into practice was the day I got home from the hospital.  I found the house was exactly in the condition I left it: a mess.  I have a hard time walking by the mess without trying to fix it.  If I’m going to be lying around I sure don’t want to stare at all the stuff that needs to be done.  T calls to make sure I am following the doctor’s orders.  When I tell her I don’t think she understands the state of my house, she tries to assure me by telling me everyone lives this way- except when company is coming.

And then I get more back-up: a divine intervention.  Pastor Thom texts me to make sure I am doing “nada,” the word for nothing in Spanish.  Then he says that I better be doing nothing or he is going to have to come over and preach!  Actually I think it may be good for the family if he came over to preach.

So now I have had a few weeks to rest and settle into the art of doing nothing.  Yes, I am still feeding the family and doing the laundry, but in between I am trying to do something pleasurable for me. Whether it’s talking to a friend, writing or reading a book,  I have to say I’m getting used to it.  

Babe-o’s then told me that she loved me “up to the highest heaven.”  That gave me the warm fuzzies until I asked her if that meant that she loved me more than candy corn.  Not so much.

Not sure about your house, but at mine when I am sick it goes something like this:  I say I am not feeling well and keep doing all the things I usually do.  Then I say I am really not feeling well and am going to lay down.  Then I say I can’t take it anymore and someone will offer to toss me a couple of aspirin before asking, “What’s for dinner?”  After eight hours of this the ambulance pulled up at our house at 1:30 monday morning.   So as not to wake the kids or alarm anyone, my husband went back inside to go to sleep.  Six hours later, mom is back home making lunches and getting kids ready for school. 

Flash forward to Tuesday:  Mom is back in the hospital and calls home  to request some clean underwear.  Husband drops off grocery bag with underwear and warm socks.    Later that day I ask my good friend Kim, who was my roommate in Guatemala, to toss me that bag.  I reached in and pulled out a thong.  Since this style of underwear does not scream “comfort,”  I decide that one of  two things has occurred: either my husband is totally clueless in the undergarment department or we are at the bottom of our clean laundry supply.  The answer lies somewhere in between…but Kim and I laughed until we cried.

We will give it a try tomorrow however, when we celebrate my husband’s birthday at Benihana.  We will have a perfectly nice time and we might think for a second that we should go out to dinner more often.  And then we will come to our senses and save it for special occasions.

So while I was sifting through the files, my husband poked his nose in and told me that I really do not need to save my tax return from 1991.   I resisted the urge to tape his mouth shut with my fancy label maker and instead told him that I do indeed.  You see, it was my very first tax return and at the time I could not be prouder of that fact that I was earning $15,000 a year and could afford my own apartment in Atlanta.  But I am learning that whatever system works for you, is a good one!

Maybe it was the hairnet squeezing the blood supply to my brain, but I have never laughed so hard.  I’m learning that much like writing, serving feeds my soul in a way that Fritos don’t.  Although, a little salt and fat is sometimes called for.   Thankfully, I was put to work slicing ham and not put in charge of steaming it.  Fran and Mary had that job and their pores were treated to a pork facial!  After being bossed around in the kitchen we were put on “the line” to serve it.  We dished up 185 plates in 60 minutes.  I thought I might need rotator cuff surgery after spooning piles of pasta.   And for some reason, whenever plastic sanitary gloves are required and no scratching is allowed, I suddenly start to itch all over!  

So many people came through those doors.  Young, old, men, women and children, some who looked like my own…it was very humbling.  One of the two paid staff members gave a blessing before the meals were served and reminded everyone that “this is not Burger King and you don’t get it your way!”  Funny, my Dad used to say that.  I think I’ll start to use it in my own kitchen.

Babe-o’s was the beneficiary of this wheelchair earlier in the week. The nurse reported that she was hanging off the top of the slide and twisted her ankle when she dropped to the ground. They never should have shown her the wheelchair. It is bad enough that she has been visiting the nurse once a day in the hopes that they will send her home…now she just might get a free ride.

I have a loaf of zucchini quick bread baking in the oven which I will top with a glaze of  fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar when it is cool.  I am thinking this will be ready at six-fifteen when my son rolls out of bed to shower and catch his bus. I also made a tasty zucchini orzo pasta salad with feta cheese and toasted pine nuts tossed with lemon vinaigrette which I will eat for lunch.  

You see, I planted a vegetable garden for the first time this year.  Not since the kids were babies have I been so excited to watch something grow!  Since I no longer live in southern California, I am now being paid in zucchini for every time I yelled,  “I’m in the garden,”  when the kids were screaming for me from the house.  Bless my friend Liz who warned me to only put one zucchini plant in the garden as they turn into monsters, much like toddlers. 

Thankfully, the bread is from the  Cooking Light 2001 collection of recipes so my weight won’t suffer along with my sleep.