Cordon Rose Banana Cake

I am making Rose Levy Berenbaum's banana cake, wondering why I have been so uninspired to write this week, and wishing I was vegging on the couch. Here are some potential reasons:

• the weather's been schizoid - 80 on Sunday, thunderstorms, only up to 53 Tuesday, today's grey and humid, cool (high of 71) but sticky
• John's still on the road - at his Dad's in SF, but they had car trouble - backing out of a parking space near a film processing place right downtown, it started to rumble and warning lights flashed - 3 hours later they had had all new spark plugs put in, for $400. Still, if the car's going to break down, better it happens in downtown San Francisco than Death Valley ... or Yosemite, where they went today
  
• There's been extra stuff at work;
  
  • my boss has to have surgery right before a conference she's been planning for the better part of a year, so we're all going to be pinch hitting for her;
  • I'm trying to get an online class up and running, and the University just upgraded the software - we went to like version 8.3, and a bunch of things seem nicer, but there's still a learning curve; the new features list is about 16 items ... and I love how it ends - the tech guys say "If you find other important new features to Learn@UW, please use the feedback link below." a.k.a. we don't even know all the new shit in there; if you find some cool stuff (or fucked up stuff) please tell us.
  
  

Or I did have this sort of inspirational thought while walking to work yesterday - maybe I've been too caught up in others' events to be introspective enough to 'blog ... but somehow I don't think that's it.

The cake's not getting done; maybe I used too small of a pan. I'm gonna go watch TV till I can take pictures of it.