Nestling

It’s Monday. My son woke up this morning and said, “I hate Mondays.” His bedhead hair was all matted in the back and he shivered a little before crawling into the recliner with the remote and a blanket, his morning routine. He said, “I hate them because you have to remember things on Mondays.”

I’m hanging on to my Sunday feeling as long as I can. It was a day to savor. I had been to a party the night before so had drunk wine and stayed up late. But I wasn’t hungover like you get from drinking, say, four dirty martinis, the kind of hangover that tastes metallic and feels dry-boned, where your knee sockets and your old silver fillings ache and you can’t stand yourself. And not at all like the bad mornings where you’re not hungover from liquor but hungover from bad living, too much Halloween candy from your son’s stash (the stash so OCD-stored that it’s been grouped in like-type categories on his bedroom rug: snickers here, milky ways there, kit kats and starbursts in piles over there), with no exercise and barely any sunlight. My mom used to watch The Jack LaLanne Show and once he stood in front of this big clear glass bowl and dumped black coffee, a full ashtray of cigarette butts, and some donuts into it, and looked into the camera and said, “Now ladies, this is what you’ve been doing to your bodies. No wonder you feel so bad.”

No, instead I was full of the feelings of comfort, like the pleasure of pulling on your thick blue Michigan sweatshirt with nothing else between it and your warm and rested skin. Your comfort clothes could be like the long skirts Talia Shire wears in Rocky or the velveteen sweatsuit Bill Murray sports in Lost in Translation, but whatever it is it’s got to be better than these Monday work clothes (unless you’re like many of my friends and work from home for a living).

I got to read the entire Sunday paper on the couch (even the ads for round-trip flights in the Travel section) while we all rooted for Brett Favre, whose performance was enough to make you get up a cheer for him. My daughter text-messaged me from college with, “Hey mom! Thanks for friday night It was really fun! Have a good Sunday! Love you!” I’m full of memories of other nestling times: driving on the highway late at night, enveloped by the dark and the soft rush of the highway and the sleepiness of the family; lying on our bellies over the front of my parents’ pontoon, making little wakes in the passing water with sticks and such while the adults talked behind us; singing my children to bed after their night baths, my voice high and tender, theirs sleepy and sweet. (I know so few songs that I sang “Edelweiss” to my son over and over for at least a year and when he finally got to see The Sound of Music he shouted out, “That’s my song! That’s MY song!”)

And then I made a cake. I recommend you top off a perfect Sunday (or start a hard week) with a cake as simple as this one. It’s one of the first recipes I was given as a new college graduate. You should have all the ingredients you need except maybe the chopped dates and chocolate chips but you might even be able to pick those up at SuperAmerica, certainly Aldi's. I like using dark chocolate chips. It bakes for just 30 minutes and you’ll have enough for a bedtime snack tonight and plenty for a big piece with milk right when you get home from work each day this week, feeling all crampy and grumpy from your tight clothes and your lack of sunlight. Well, change into the velveteen suit first, then cut yourself a slice.


Chocolate Chip Cake

In small bowl, mix and cool:
1 cup dates (cut up)
1 teaspoon soda
1-1/2 cups boiling water

In big bowl, cream:
1-1/4 cup sugar
½ cup butter or shortening
2 eggs

Add date mixture.

In medium bowl, sift together and then add to wet ingredients:
2 cups flour
¾ teaspoon soda
¼ teaspoon salt

Mix and sprinkle on top:
¼ cup sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
nuts

350°F, greased and floured 9 x 13-inch pan, about 30 minutes.