It's downhill from now on...

I was going to post a picture of the kitty-litter cake I made for my pumpkin carving party, but the picture wasn't so hot. But trust me, it looks enough like the real thing that I have never actually eaten it. But now Halloween is over. It's the perfect holiday - no presents, not much decorating, no cooking marathon. Just walking the streets in funny clothes soliciting goodies. My son was a pill-crazed doctor with red-paint splattered scrubs, and looked totally cute. And garnered about 9 pounds of candy with not a single Almond Joy, which was to be 'my' candy as he doesn't like coconut.

I think Mr. Goodbar is a very weird name for a candy bar. Which came first - the movie or the candy? In any case, I have a major sugar hangover from eating all those teeny weeny candy bars that together make up 3 or 4 regular size ones. I want to detox!

I was telling my neighbor that I liked Halloween because it reminded me of Hogmanay, which is like Halloween for grown-ups. It's a Scottish New Year celebration where you carry around a bottle of booze and walk around and drink from other people's bottles and if you fancy each other, have a snog. It's the perfect way to celebrate when you're twenty-something and your hormones outweigh your germ phobia, without getting into too much trouble.

I read the excerpt from Maureen Dowd's book, Are Men Necessary in the New York Times. Usually I really like her, but I just thought this piece was so silly - high achieving smart women are missing out on love and kids because they're too intimidating, and younger women are rejecting feminism. Err, but who on earth would want a man who values compliance over intelligence, and what about the fact that women can actually take care of themselves these days, and don't have to end up in loveless marriages because being single is untenable? Plus the silly militant-Birkenstock-wearing feminist vs. pretty, groomed man-catchers dichotomy is annoying. And it's pretty insulting to men as well, as if all men want a Barbie doll with an IQ at least 30 points below theirs. Anyway, I don't know why there's so much angst about being a single, middle-aged woman, because, to be honest with you, I think only about a third of all marriages are at all enviable and the rest range from boring to abusive.

Kitty Litter Cake
1 spice cake mix
1 large packet vanilla pudding
1 package vanilla sandwich cookies
Green and blue food coloring
1 bag large Tootsie Rolls
Bake the cake as directed on the box. Mix the vanilla pudding as directed on the box and crumble in the cake. Spoon into a foil sheet cake pan lined with a wastebasket liner. Crush the cookies until they are fairly well crushed, and color with about a half bottle each of green and blue food coloring. Sprinkle the crumbs over the top of the cake, keeping back about half a cup. Unwrap 7 or 8 Tootsie Rolls. Melt in the microwave and shape into cat poo shapes - about 8 seconds for a firm poop, 15 seconds for diarrhea. Roll poops in reserved crumbs and arrange in an organic manner on the cake (half-buried, hanging over the edge). Serve on a newspaper with crumbs scattered around and a brand spanking new cat litter scoop. A few mini-turds on the newspaper is a nice touch.