Rave Review's Coconut Cake

I found this recipe online. It looks the same and sounds the same...

Ingredients

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
• 1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 1/3 cups water
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups flaked coconut
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups flaked coconut
• 2 teaspoons milk
• 3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 8 or 9 inch round cake pans.
2. Blend the cake mix, pudding mix, water, eggs and oil in a large mixing bowl. Beat at medium speed for 4 minutes. Stir in 2 cups of the coconut and the chopped walnuts. Pour the batter into the prepared pans.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 35 minutes. Let cakes cool in pans for 15 minutes then remove and finish cooling on rack.
4. To Make Frosting: Melt the butter or margarine in a skillet. Add the 2 cups flaked coconut and stir constantly over low heat until golden brown. Spread coconut on absorbent paper to cool.
5. Cream the remaining 2 tablespoons butter or margarine with the cream cheese. Add the milk and confectioners' sugar alternately, beating well. Add the vanilla and stir in 1 3/4 cups of the toasted coconut.
6. To Assemble Cake: Spread tops of cooled cake layers with some of the frosting. Stack them and then frost the sides of the cake. Sprinkle Cake with the remaining toasted coconut.

The Best Birthday Cake Ever...

...aside from the Raven Coconut Cake that my mom used to make for me every year when I was a kid was not even my cake. My friend Dave was having a birthday and Gail, his wife, was out of town so I bought one of those small Walmart Birthday Cakes and took it over to their house.

Shaun, their son, and I went into his room and put 48 birthday candles in the cake. There was barely room for them on top of the cake. Then we hollered for Whitney, Shaun's sister, and we proceeded to light the cake. By the time we were 3/4 through lighting the candles it was obvious that we had a major problem on our hands! While I finished lighting the candles, Whitney and Shaun were busy moving all flammables out of the way of that flaming torch of a birthday cake! At the same time we were all screaming for Dave to get in there before the room went up in flames!

When Dave got to the bedroom he yelled out in complete disbelief and shock. He jumped in and started blowing out the candles, with help from all of us, and he actually had to beat the candles and cake a little to put out the conflagration! There were actually a few seconds when we wondered if we would be able to put out that fire! However we did manage to put out the fire and while everyone was laughing I was chipping the candle wax off the top of the cake because all the candles has melted down to little nubs on top of the cake.

As bad as it looked though, THE CAKE TASTED GREAT!

I Have Witnessed a Man Walking On Water...

actually he was running on water.

When I lived in Florida I was homesick a good bit of the time. One day I received a collect phone call from someone I did not know but I accepted it anyway because I knew from the accent it was somebody from home and I was curious. It turned out that my brother had sent a driver from WV to Florida and told him to call me when he got to West Palm. Unfortunately my brother neglected to inform me that he had done this. (which was completely in character)

Another funny thing about the situation is that Danny (the caller) called me collect even though he was only 3 miles from my house. I went and picked Danny up and he was at my house for 2 weeks before my brother bothered to show up to get him. Danny was as country as a West Virginia country boy could be and Bobby and I enjoyed showing him around Florida. He was like a big kid.

One day we took him to the beach. At first he refused to put on swim trunks, insisting that he wear his cutoffs and his hunting boots to the beach. After we got there he decided that he should have worn the swim trunks which was OK because I knew he would change his mind and I packed him a pair.

After changing in the brush he joined Bobby and I in the ocean. It took him awhile to get the nerve to come out past the foam on the beach. Gradually he made his way out to where Bobby and I were just past the breaking waves. Once he started to get comfortable Bobby and I decided to play the old "SHARK!!!" game. You know the one, the one where you scream, "SHARK!!!" and start swimming for shore as fast as you can.

Poor Danny's reaction was priceless! He turned 30 shades of pale and I swear to you that he actually sprang out of the water and literally ran across the surface to actually beat Bobby and I to shore. It was great!!!

A BIG Fish Story

One time my brother and I went deep sea fishing with my dad in Jacksonville, Fl. About an hour after we went out my dad hooked a giant fish called an amberjack. It was so big that the captain of the boat made everybody else pull their hooks in so daddy could reel it in. It took him over an hour of wrestling with that fish to get it on the boat.

I was 10 years old. That fish was over 3 foot long and when I would tell people about it, I would tell people that it was THIIIIS BIG, and extend both my arms to their full length. Which was the truth.

What I didn't understand until I was older, that my dad LOVED to tell the story about the big one he reeled in and he would always have me at the appropriate time tell his friends exactly how big that fish was. Even as an adult I would still tell people that the fish was THIIIIS BIG and extend my arms. It didn't matter that I had doubled in size since the big fishing trip. I still used the same action to describe that fish, which of course made the fish look bigger and bigger. Therefore my dad could talk about the fish and use me to demonstrate how big that sucker was and still not be lying.

I did not figure this out until recently.

Here is a juicy little tidbit about that day. My brother and I were both excruciatingly seasick. I managed not to throw up though. Billy, on the other hand, puked over the side of the boat all day. That night when we went home he must have eaten some pickled tomatoes because I went into the bathroom in the middle of the night and there was a half of a pickled tomato on the toilet seat that he had thrown up. It was a sight that I will never forget.

My Invention Is a Success

I enjoy relaxing by the fountain here where I live at Lee Terrace. There was one big problem with it that I seemed to have solved this year after much contemplation over the course of the year.

Once or twice a week I was fishing out either a dead bird or an occasional squirrel. It seems the little critters were going in to get a drink and then they had no way out so they would drown. (this is a common problem with swimming pools and pets as well)

I had to think of a way to solve the problem while creating a solution that was aesthetically pleasing as well. I finally decided that all we had to do was put a couple of cinderblocks in the fountain and paint them to match the bottom.

IT HAS WORKED WONDERFULLY!

Since I put the cinderblocks in the fountain I have not fished out not one dead animal. Even better I have observed the squirrels and the cardinals using the little island as a base to get a drink. For a grand total of $3.50 I solved the problem.

Actually there is only one block in there. I had 3 but on my way home from the hardware store some asshole ran a red light and pulled out right in front of me. I had to slam on my breaks which caused the cinderblocks to go flying forward in the bed of my truck. The resulting crash caused two of them to break into unusable pieces.

Fortunately one has done the job.

The Difference Between Lonliness and Being Alone

I live most of my life alone. I enjoy it. I do what I what, when I want and how I want. Most importantly I don't do what I don't want.

I watch a TV show or see a reference in the media to people eating alone in restaurants and other activities and these people are always portrayed as lonely, pitiful individuals craving something more. I frankly do not understand the concept. I have no problem doing anything that I want to do.

I always said that I didn't want children. I hear the media commenting about views like this as something new. Most of the girls I was close friends growing up with do not have children and the ones that do were mostly accidents. We all enjoy children as long as we can give them back when we are finished enjoying them. We have all the love and none of the responsibility which is the best of both worlds as far as I'm concerned.

I listen to my friends complain endlessly about their husbands and children and they never do anything about changing the situation. Of course they also say they love them and wouldn't take anything for them too. Personally I was happily married and I hated to see my marriage end. I don't remember complaining about my husband while married either, but then again we were also best friends.

People think I should be lonely but I'm not. On the rare occasions that I do feel a pang of loneliness I just get out of the house and go see someone that I would like to see. I feel kind of guilty that I don't feel lonely but I certainly am not feeling guilty enough to do anything about it.

"Hooked on phonics ruined my life!!!!"

When my niece, Becca, was around 12 years old, everywhere I would take her she would bug me for quarters for the payphone(remember those days). It was so bad that she was driving me crazy with it but being the indulgent aunt that I was I was handing her quarters right and left.

One day when I took her home her mom asked me if Becca had been using the payphone when she was with me. I, of course told her yes and that she was driving me crazy begging for quarters.

LISA ROLLED HER EYES.

I knew then that we(meaning Becca and me) were in big trouble. Lisa told me that the people from HOOKED ON PHONICS had called. Apparently Becca had been calling them incessantly, screaming " hooked on phonics ruined my life" and then hanging up the phone. She had done it so much that when she had finally done it on a phone that could be traced they called Lisa and threatened to prosecute Becca if there wasn't an immediate stop to the phone calls.

I apologized explaining that I had thought that Becca had just discovered what a wonderful tool a phone was like all 12 year old girls did. I thought that she had been calling her little friends all this time. It had NEVER occurred to me that I should listen in on the calls to see whom she was actually calling.

Personally I thought the whole thing was hilarious. Becca did stop calling so there was not a problem anymore. I am sure that when she reads this she will chime in with the exact quote that she used to these people. Anyway that is just a typical story of the kind of precocious child that my niece was.