Cat Litter Lady

Different classes have very, very different personalities. Even in a homeschool co-op, where you are mostly dealing with kids from two parent families that are in church every Sunday, making for a rather homogenized bunch, in many ways.

I wore the name tag Cat Litter Lady to see who would notice, as our recipe was just that, Cat Litter. I wanted to see who would notice, and the first class saw it right away, and laughed and groaned and yelled, "What do you mean!?!" My second class just stared, nonplussed. Very little reaction. They are a tough crowd, and got even tougher.

Yes, we made Cat Litter in cooking class. Cat Litter Cake, actually. When I said that, the first class continued their laughing and joking, the second had only a smile or two, except from Robin, who laughed and snickered and really had fun with the idea. She is the pickiest eater in both classes, and so anything I can get her to try is a success to me.

I pulled out a pound cake, half of a cinnamon struesel coffee cake, and 8 glazed cake donuts, and told them to crumble them. The first class asked if they should use forks to break them up, and I told them they could if they wanted to be fuddy duddies about it. I recommended they get their hands in there and start crumbling, and boy, howdy! Laughter and glee and mess, mostly contained within the bowls. We measured out two cups of milk, added a package of vanilla pudding, and crushed up some vanilla sandwich cookies. I let them use the marble rolling pin to smash them in a zip top bag. Hilarity.

The second class looked at me as if I were asking them to reach inside each other's bodies and pull out the parts with bare hands. Except Robin, who said, "I'm going to pretend this is my brother's head!" as she went after the donuts, squishing with abandon. She is 11 and has 5 younger brothers at home, as well as a 1 year old sister.

We mixed cake and pudding and cookies, and then came the real fun. Pop Tootsie Rolls in the microwave for about 7 seconds and get them a bit soft. Form them into poop. The first class couldn't wait, except for Benny, who kept asking me not to use the "P" word.

Scrape the cake into a brand new cat litter box, sprinkle more crushed cookies on top, bury the "treasures", leaving some to show. Sprinkle more cookies to make it look like the cat tried to bury everything. Drape a couple of rolls over the side of the box for the effect, too.

The second class, well, only 3 of them would even play with the Tootsie Rolls. We also buried a few fun sized Baby Ruth bars, just to add character.

Serve with a brand new cat litter scooper, and you have a Halloween treat to gross out and make everyone laugh. They all loved eating it.

The first class had a great time, also, carrying the leftovers into the teacher's lounge area and offering everyone some "litter." The moms were duly disgusted, although many of them did try it.

That's what this time of year needs, something gross and fun in cooking class. The first class also came up with the idea of making brownies to shape the poop, using white cake mix and making your own cake, coloring it gray, or using chocolate pudding in a pastry bag to really make a nasty effect. The second class had to be dragged into doing it at all, ate in silence, and only Robin wanted to know what we were going to do with the leftovers. Since she has 5 younger brothers, I told her mom to take any leftovers home.


Today is:

American Beer Day

Angam Day -- Nauru

Big Bang Day -- London

Cranky Co-Worker's Day

Dias de los Muertos begin -- Mexico

Good Bear Day

Independence Day -- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Turkmenistan

Naming Day -- Zaire

National Potato Day

National Tell A Story Day -- Scotland; UK

Navy Day

St. Frumentius' Day (patron of Ethiopia)

Sylvia Plath Day

Tunch Pudding Festival -- Fairy Calendar

Birthdays Today:

Jayne Kennedy, 1951
Carrie Snodgrass, 1946
John Cleese, 1939
Ruby Dee, 1924
Roy Lichtenstein, 1923
Bette Babray, 1920
Dylan Thomas, 1914
Emily Post, 1872
Theodore Roosevelt, 1858
Niccolo Paganini, 1782
Captain James Cook, 1728
Erasmus, 1466


Today in History:

Constantine the Great is said to have received his Vision of the Cross, 312
Founding of the city of Amsterdam, 1275
Founding of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1682
US Navy forms, 1775
Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state or be exterminated, 1838
R.H. Macy & Co. opens its first store, on 6th Ave. in NYC, 1858
Boss Tweed is arrested, 1871
The first underground New York City Subway line opens, 1904
The first published reference to "jazz" appears, in Variety, 1916
Chuhei Numbu of Japan sets the long jump record at 26' 2 1/2", 1931
"You Bet Your Life," with Groucho Marx, premiers on ABC radio, 1947*
Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force, 1954
Mauritania and Mongolia join the United Nations, 1961
The British government suddenly deregulates financial markets, leading to a total restructuring of the way in which they operate in the country, in an event now referred to as the Big Bang, 1986
The U.S. prison population tops 1 million for the first time in American history, 1994
Gliese 229B is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified, 1994
Stock markets around the world crash because of fears of a global economic meltdown, 1997
The Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first time in 86 years, 2004
The SSETI Express micro-satellite is successfully launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, 2005


*(Ultimate result of this a few years later is, of course, the funniest
line ever on tv, when a man with 8 kids admitted to Mr. Marx that he did
indeed love his wife, and Groucho countered with, "I love my cigar, too,
but I take it out of my mouth sometimes!")