Stuff

Seems a mountain lion was killed just across the Missouri River from me yesterday.  You can read about it HERE.   I've read lots of reports of sightings all across Missouri, and have heard locals saying they've seen them hereabouts for years.  
As I was mixing up a chocolate cake for Cliff today, I thought back to when I was a kid, recalling that my mom didn't own an electric mixer until after we moved to the city.  When she stirred up a cake, she would count the strokes with the spoon; usually three hundred, I believe.   
Now in case you're wondering why I'm baking a chocolate cake for a man who just started a diet, I'll tell you: it's a diet cake.  Anybody can make one:  You take a cake mix you bought for 99 cents and make it just like the package tells you, putting it in a 9" by 13" pan.  When it's cool, do not frost it.  Cut it into twelve pieces, then halve each of those.  You now have twenty-four pieces of chocolate cake, each one containing eighty-five calories.  Cupcakes would work, but that seems like more trouble to me.  
There are only two of us, so to keep the cake from getting stale before it's consumed, I wrap each piece in plastic wrap and freeze.  Once frozen, I put the pieces into a gallon freezer bag, and voila!  Cliff has cake for a long time to come.  
See, my husband doesn't feel as though he's had a proper meal unless he's had dessert.  Over the years, I've paid ridiculous prices for all sorts of diet, low-fat, or low-carb desserts.  It finally occurred to me that half a normal serving of cake (without icing) beats any special diet thing you can buy in the store:  less sodium, fat, and calories than any of them, and better tasting than most, too.  
I'm still dealing with whatever creeping crud has befallen me.  I chose not to go to the doctor because chances are it's a virus like a cold or the flu; we all know that antibiotics do not do a thing for a virus.    If it turns into sinusitis, I'll go.  If it lasts over a week, I'll go.  It isn't like I have a job to go to, or little children to take care of.  I don't have to do anything right now but baby myself and cook something simple for Cliff to eat.  Cliff has very wisely kept himself out at the shop or in the pasture gathering wood during daylight hours because, yes, I am a grouch.  You wanna make something of it?