Chocolate Sink hole

Yesterdays cake adventure?  Oy, vey...let's just say it tastes great.  It just doesn't look so swell.  The problem is, I went with a chocolate cake mix instead of a yellow one--like that should make any difference.  I don't think so.  Where it said add vanilla pudding mix, I added chocolate, of course.  Any sane person would.  I followed all of the other directions to the letter...I think it just need longer to cook.  That's my story anyway.

My oven is notoriously nuclear so with a thick metal bundt pan, I went under time, checked it, it wasn't done, went longer, and it sure looked done to me (and my toothpick).  What I didn't know is, one side was more done than the other, so a small cave in occurred when I tried to get it out of the pan.  What the hell?  My solution for any less than glam looking baking failure is, slap some vanilla (or any) ice cream on top, and pretend it's supposed to look that way.  Who cares anyway as long as it tastes good.  I sure don't and they won't know if you don't tell 'um. 

I am just back from visiting my dying friend with stage 4 cancer who is in a skilled nursing facility way the heck out by the VA Hospital.  Good Lord...I haven't been that close to the VA (just down the block) since I was a junior in Nursing school.  It is w-a-y past the Zoo and the upshot is.... now I really want to go to the Zoo, but that's another story.  It was great to see my friend although she is fading at a pretty fast clip.  Four of us went and delivered a CD my friend wanted (from a fifth friend who couldn't join us) but had been there Sunday.  It was Paul Simon's Graceland and it took all four of us to finally get it going on her CD player, a fact not lost on any of us.  Technical we are not but we sure laughed a lot.  First we had to pry the damn CD thing open, get it loaded, find the right track-- not realizing it had more than the two trays we could see.  Seriously?  Four almost sixty somethings and it took all of us, to finally blast my friend right out of the bed but we did leave her grinning from ear to ear, with the remote in her hand.   Sometimes it's just the little things that mean so much.

Driving back, I was reflecting on what we had shared during the visit and what she had told us.  Boy, howdy...it was the most meaningful forty five minutes I've spent in a long time.  And was I ever grateful that when the time was up, I was healthy and could walk out the door, hop in my car, and head home.  Jeepers.  I have so much to be grateful for.  Even if my cake did cave in.