Just heard that the Senate voted down the Keystone XL pipeline, which is a welcome surprise.

Whoa. To quote Allie Brosh, maybe everything isn't hopeless bullshit?

I got results from some random standardized testing (NWEA RIT? whatevs) Dillo did at school, and apparently he reads at the level of the average 8th grader (he's in 3rd.) My clever rabbit.

Whoa. To quote Allie Brosh, maybe everything isn't hopeless bullshit?

I'm such a pessimist that I'm just braced for the grand jury decision in Ferguson. All other news just keeps bouncing off my brain while I'm waiting for that.

It's not as bitterly cold here as it is many places, but I think it calls for soup. Specifically broccoli cheese soup, although I am too impatient to roast the broccoli.

I am battling the weather with (vegetarian) shepherds pie. Yum!

Oh! Dumb-ass baking question: I've never baked/assembled a layer cake before, but I'm making one tomorrow. You know how round cakes tend to bake up into a dome shape? What's the best way to slice off the dome so the cake is flat enough to frost/stack, without destroying the cake in the process of slicing off the dome?

I should amend that: what's the best way to slice off the dome that doesn't require special tools, because I have none and am not going out to buy a cake dome-slicing tool. So it has to be using normal kitchen tools (knife, etc.).

I'm such a pessimist that I'm just braced for the grand jury decision in Ferguson.

Ugh. You have a point. The course I'm taking on the Civil War and Reconstruction is not helping my outlook on America's deeply entrenched racism. To put it mildly.

Keystone pipeline comes down to one no, by Independent Angus King, who kind of sounds like the kind of cranky pain-in-the-butt I could learn to really like.(Of course, in my head right now, he's totally a cartoon of a New Englander, because I've never really seen him)

What's the best way to slice off the dome so the cake is flat enough to frost/stack,

You don't slice off the dome, you use it for more frosting square footage. And you use frosting to fill in the gap between the layers. Like mortar.

I should amend that: what's the best way to slice off the dome that doesn't require special tools, because I have none and am not going out to buy a cake dome-slicing tool. So it has to be using normal kitchen tools (knife, etc.).

I hear good things about dental floss. I haven't actually tried it, I've just done it like Connie said above - NOTE: for a checkerboard cake, the domes really do screw up your presentation. Next time I try for the checkerboard I will plan on using the dental floss.