"C-O-O-K-I-E-S" (video!) and The Best Cookie Ever (recipe!)

Hello again...

My kids are older, but the need to be silly in order to stay sane remains strong. That's true even as my oldest has now entered the teenage years with genetic-level sarcasm. And that's true especially during a pandemic (no need to explain that one if your calendar reads 2020).

Amid coronavirus-related shutdowns, all my work has come to a standstill. My writing fingers are positively twitching. So once again I find myself turning to this on-again, off-again blog.

The "C-O-O-K-I-E-S" song featured in this post has been knocking around my brain for over five years. I was pretty proud of myself when I came up with it, gotta say. I always thought I'd post it here, much like the hand-washing song (which, come to think of it, is sorta timely, even if it's more inspirational than instructional). Then the blog went on hiatus as life ebbed and flowed in other directions, and somehow making a video with a song that puts a kiddie spin on Todd Snider's "Beer Run" just didn't make the top priority slot. Go figure. But the song remained in the back of my head all that time like a true earworm, and I continued to nurture the half-baked dream of making a ridiculous video. Because, why the swearword not?

And, especially, why the swearword not now? I don't know about you, but I've been needing some epic-level stupid-silliness to outweigh the uncertainty and grief of these recent months.

Pandemic.

Protests.

Kids growing up.

Even my favorite family music artist, Caspar Babypants, announcing that he's done making albums. (In my silly daydreams, I always imagined him singing this song. And, let's be honest, when you observe the video, you will wish it was Chris Ballew singing the song too.)

I've been teaching my kids about covering coughs, washing hands, and observing physical distance rules.

I've been teaching my kids about justice, mercy, and love.

I've been teaching myself to loosen my grip on my kids, slowly but surely, to allow them to grow into their own.

But I'm also still teaching my kids, and myself, to smile -- every day, to find reason to smile.

Video time

So without further ado, I give you the world premiere of "C-O-O-K-I-E-S" in all its musical and technical glory. (I'm of the era of dancing hamsters and peanut butter jelly-loving bananas, so I'm feeling marginally OK about this product.)

Cookie time

Now that you're good and hungry, here are recipes for some of our favorite cookies:

Frosted Rhubarb Cookies from Taste of Home

Salted Oatmeal Cookies from The Washington Post's Leigh Lambert

Annnnnnd, the one our family has made more times than we can count, and thus what we now dub...

The Best Cookie Ever

from my Mom

Cream:

1/2 c butter

1/2 c creamy Skippy peanut butter

1/2 c sugar

3/4 c brown sugar

Beat in:

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

Add:

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 c flour

1/2 c oats

Fold in:

1 c chocolate chips

Bake at 350 degrees F for about 10 minutes or just starting to lightly brown at edges. Cool on wire racks.

Do you have a favorite cookie recipe? Feel free to comment and share below. We can work off quarantine weight with family dance parties, hikes, gardening, and "vigorous housework."