ADD Post: Cooking and Ranting...ooh, and a Lizard..and Cake.

I feel it...
do you?

Fall cometh.

Even bears like fall....

I love Fall (I want to call it Autumn publicly, but the kids told me it sounds stupid, so fine..). Fall is beautiful and amazeballs. 

Even though my hay fever makes me attempt to sneeze out a kidney for many weeks.

It's a ridiculous 100 degrees in Wyoming today, which makes one think there could be something to that global warming, El nino business, no matter what causes it. All we really know is that it has been one hot summer and everyone is ready for what fall is bound to bring:

Cooler temperatures!

Kids back to school!

Cooking!

Politics?

Um, wait a minute. Did I just say politics? No, no, no, that won't do at all. Politics doesn't let you turn off the smelly and damp air conditioning. It doesn't let you send your brood off into the bright sun to learn stuffs while you drink tea and lurk on Facebook. And it definitely doesn't include white flour or buttah.

The political climate sucks. Neither of the POTUS candidates are good, and some aspects of each are downright frightening. There is a lot of spin and rhetoric swirling around, some by me. Some while I am cooking. I have opinions, yo. It's a layer.

I own a small TV we bought when we were first married (13"?) that sits in the kitchen. Modern cable has made it possible to get a whole lotta channels and I use them to watch morning news, bad re-runs and Chris Matthews rounding up sex perverts on Dateline while I cook or clean. Or rant. Or all of the above.

I have been doing a lot of Donna Reed style cooking lately, trying to prevent my addled brain from driving like a robot to buy dinner in a sack in between our many practices. Special Agent goes to hide in the backyard when he sees me in an apron over the weekend, yelling at the TV while bagging up prepared batches of smell-good meals I didn't let anyone eat immediately, and shakes his head when he rolls through as I am pouring chicken stock into muffin tins to freeze while grumbling.. 'WHY we CA-ARE who other people MARRY and WH-YY people who purport to support FA-REEDOM want to decide MYYY political party for me. .." Special Agent knows this cooking behavior leads to home-cooked, tasty food, but that it will only appear occasionally between our days of multiple practices, evening meetings and food delivered by teenagers in a piece-of-shit car. The ranting part on the other hand is kind of continual. So, he hides out.

Me, talking to Conservatives..

Sometimes I get the kids on the bandwagon of the cooking and the ranting. Someday we are all going to a march. As soon as my conservative state gets one worth marching in. And, we will tailgate prior with good eats. I have some things in the freezer that will be perfect. 

I have made this TWICE this week, after everyone liked it so well the first time. The second time I made it into muffins, so I can pretend it is....breakfast? A healthy-ish snack (fruit and olive oil are healthy, you know), or if we are running late and just need to snatch and grab sustenance for a few hours.

Do you *think* Donna Reed ever succumbed to dessert as a healthy snack??
No, no, you're right. Probably not. Fail.

Here is the Olive Oil Cake with Grapes

I had champagne grapes from Bountiful Baskets, which were small and sweet, just like me. It made it more blueberry muffin looking. The second batch was made with orange zest and pecans substitutions, because that is what I had on hand, yo. Sue me.

P.S. Because I am also the best mom, evah.....I made a deal with the boy that he could get a lizard if he got a touchdown at football. Have a goal, right? Wrong. The kid has made quite a few now and thinks he needs a lizard for EACH TOUCHDOWN. And, no. After dropping two bills on a bearded dragon and her accouterments, we are going to be a ONE lizard family. 

And two dogs. 
And two cats. 
(We had a an aquatic frog, but he died a violent death. A suspected frog-i-cide
Suspect: The cat.)

This definitely flew in the face of my 'nothing-else-that-poops-is-living-here' rule, but look how happy he is? (The boy, not the lizard. Elly, the wonderful lizard of Oz is female. We think. I am NOT checking.)

See her posing for the camera? A natural...

Finn wears her around on his shirt, which is cute now, but will not land him dates if it is still happening at 15. Don't tell the kids, but sometimes when they aren't here...I hold her too. The cats would like to hold her in their teeth.

True story: I went in the other day and she was on a toy motorcycle the boy had put in for fun. Swear it. I ran to get the camera, but no. Staging it felt wrong, so no lizard motorcycle pic for you. 

But she does blog...