One 13.7 ounce Vanilla Frappuccino by Starbucks Coffee. Entirely overpriced at $1.99 at the gas station down the hill from my office, but certainly a glass bottle of pure goodness to get me through two more hours at work.

Ohm.

A good friend of mine had the greatest line recently:

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit next to me.”

When I’m home on my lunch hour, wolfing down leftovers, a turkey sandwich or even a slab of chocolate cake on the green couch in my TV room, I’ll put down the remote if “Look-A-Like” is on the TV Guide Channel.

I can’t help it. At times, I’m a junkie for fashion and style tips, hungrily hunting for my next fix.

Thanks to a duo of $10 gift cards to Walgreens this Christmas, I am able to change the surface of my face (for the better), one scrub at a time.

,

I had a chocolate cake mix on hand and felt daring on Monday when I whipped up the following dessert. For anyone who loves coffee and chocolate, this recipe is one for your files.

One word: divine.

Thank you, Betty Crocker. You’re my new best friend, that’s for sure.

# # #

Double-Chocolate Cappuccino Cake
Chocolate and coffee marry for a sophisticated flavor jolt in an all-American dessert favorite: chocolate-frosted layer cake!

1 package Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® chocolate fudge cake mix
1 1/3 cups water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tablespoon instant espresso coffee (dry)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 ounces semisweet baking chocolate, chopped
Chocolate Cappuccino Glaze (See Below)

1. Heat oven to 350ºF. Generously grease bottoms only of 2 round pans, 8 or 9×1 1/2 inches.
2. Beat cake mix (dry), water, oil, eggs, coffee and cinnamon in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl constantly. Stir in chocolate. Pour into pans.
3. Bake 8-inch pans 33 to 38 minutes, 9-inch pans 28 to 33 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire rack. Cool completely, about 1 hour.
4. Fill layers and frost cake with Chocolate Cappuccino Glaze.

Chocolate Cappuccino Glaze
1 tub Betty Crocker® Rich & Creamy dark chocolate ready-to-spread frosting
2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee (dry)

1. Remove lid and foil cover of frosting. Microwave on High 20 to 30 seconds or until slightly melted. Stir in coffee until blended.

I certainly don’t feel the panic and dread some experience when a new year looms ever so closely. What I accomplished in 2005 can’t be measured “with coffee spoons,” as T.S. Eliot once wrote.

Rather, I feel the most important accomplishments can only be discovered on the inside, thick in my head and my heart.

That’s where growth happens.

Not on a resume or career vitae.

Not in e-mails packed and shipped between friends.

What happens on the inside impacts everything.

What has happened does not equal what shall come.

More from Eliot:

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create;
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Too many cans of Busch Light?

http://www.shaggy-money.flywheelsites.com/bushdrunk.wmv

Matt’s mom and dad gave me a $15 gift card to the iTunes Music Store for Christmas. Score!

Question is: What 15 songs should I purchase? Or, can you recommend an entire album?

[Click here to view the titles of my 4,618 songs, all housed happily in iTunes.]

Merry Christmas!

In the Mighty Mouse User’s Guide, the second sentence reads as follows:

Your Mighty Mouse includes many features that embody the simplicity, ease of use and elegance you expect in an Apple product.

Ah, how I swoon, Steve Jobs; how I swoon.

###

I should mention that Matthew and I exchanged Christmas gifts earlier this evening. One of my gifts was a brand spakin’ new Mighty Mouse. Thanks, Matthew!