so, today in election work

I sent a couple of thousand texts, mostly non-partisan get-out-the-vote things, but several hundred on behalf of state-level candidates who Obama recently endorsed. Which is a nice change after having to say "thanks for sharing your views, do you have a plan to vote?" to Trump supporters.

I have also done a little bit of what Swing Left is calling "relational organizing," reaching out to people you know but aren't close to, to ask them to vote. The examples they give include extended family, friends from high school and college, former colleagues, members of parent groups, and social media friends.

With a lot of those people I already know they support Biden [or, at least, dislike or fear Trump enough that they'll vote against him even if they aren't thrilled with Biden).

So far, I have sent a text to Emilie, the personal trainer I worked with when I lived in New York City, and taken a deep breath and written to the person who sends me my freelance proofreading work. As I said, I don't even know what state he lives in--which means he might live in a swing state, and there aren't many people I know who live in one of those states and there's any need to contact them about this.

ETA: Matt wrote back to agree with me about the election, and that he's in Pennsylvania and voted two weeks ago. I just sent email to a family member in Nevada, saying that this message is probably unnecessary, but I voted early just in case and urging her to do the same.

birthday cake

I made cattitude a chocolate birthday cake, with a layer of chocolate on top, at his request. This is something like the birthday cake he often asked for as a child.

The basic cake recipe I'm using is relatively light -- it's the Hershey's black magic chocolate cake, which is fairly easy to make and east to make non-dairy -- with semi-sweet chocolate chips melted on top.

The first time I tried this, the chocolate chips all sank to the bottom and melted onto the pan. This time, I took the cake out of the oven about 2/3 of the way through baking it, put the chips on, and then put it back. At that stage in the baking, the center of the cake is lower than the edges, and the chips rolled towards the center.

When the cake was done and I took it out, I used a knife to spread the melted chocolate a bit more evenly; cattitude said it's better with discrete chips, so I can skip that step whenever I next make this.

Because this was an experiment, I baked the cake in two pans, and put chocolate chips on only one, so I could count on having a good cake.