Where's The Bundt Cake Pan?

As some of you have read, the last exercise was the Bake A Cake exercise. Not necessarily about baking a cake at all, but doing something calming that you really enjoy, committing an Act of Attention to the experience, and writing about it. You could bake a cake if you wanted, and my preffered way of doing this exercise is by baking a cake, hence its name. But I decided, by necessity partly, to do something different. I went to see art. I love museums and galleries, they calm me down. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my Happiness Book, so can't transcribe it for you. Will do so my next post, by which time I hope to have figured out the scanning thing.

But while I was casting about for ideas re my Bake A Cake exercise, I was wondering...Where Is My Bundt Cake Pan? I make this fantastic cocoa spice cake with walnuts ground so fine they're like a fluffy powdery substance, quite unlike themselves, and buttermilk and molasses, as I recall. I still have the recipe, but the necessary Bundt pan went missing a while ago in one of my many moves. I have moved 21 times in 26 years. I admit this at the risk of sounding crazy, but I have gone a few years between some moves. It's just that some years I've moved a couple of times. Maybe that doesn't make me sound less crazy. But I recently discovered that Beethoven moved 44 times. That made me feel slightly better.
In any case, in all those moves, numerous and sundry objects have been left behind inadvertently or not, broken, stolen while momentarily unattended, fallen from the top of the car, etc. Pondering this, I remembered this exercise, called My Favorite Things. I am not a big fan of The Sound of Music, and particularly of the song, but it's appropriate. So, what is your favorite possession? The one thing that when you were moving, you would sit right next to you on the passenger seat of your car, swaddled in bubble wrap (if appropriate), making the friend helping you move scrunch in the back seat with piles of old New Yorkers and lamps and baskets of potpourri and other general detritus of your life. The possession most redolent of memory, most comforting. Is your favorite thing your high school yearbook, or your old Karmann Ghia, or the paisley blouse your daughter gave you for Mother's Day in 1969 that you can't wear anymore, but can't throw out either?
Whatever it may be, take it out, commit an Act of Attention to it. The thing itself, and the memories that arise from it like a cloud of incense, settling around your head.

OK. Mine is a cup. Or rather, a mug. It was given to me by my college roomate, junior year, when we had the most amazing huge room, and had tea every afternoon at four, complete with chocolate covered Wheatolos and really good tea, and loads of friends that would drop by for the ritual.
It is a Blue Willow mug. The pattern that I have loved ever since the mug came into my life. It tells a story. There is a landscape, blue on a white background, with a bridge, and willows and two flying birds, and two people on a bridge, and a third following. I think the two are supposed to be lovers fleeing from the woman's father, who kills them and they turn into the birds. Or something like that, with time compressed in the design. It is a ubiquitous design, being I think the first mass produced pattern in England, then here, now it's back to China, where it originated.
My blue willow mug is smallish, and a little squat, not elegant. But I love drinking from it, the way it feels smooth in my hand, with bits of the pattern peeping between my fingers-- the birds, then the willow, then the solitary man on the bridge.
The memories carried in this small piece of pottery extend over 25 years, and include The Speech. Every time I move and have a new housemate, I give The Speech. The speech consists of a warning. "You can use anything I own, maul it break it, take it to work and leave it under a radiator. But THIS (holding up the mug). If you use it and break it I'll kill you. If anybody's going to break it, it's going to be me." I can tell what kind of housemate they'll be by their reaction. If they just look at me like I'm a little touched and shrug and say OK, I know they'll basically be fine. If they swear up and down that they would never disrespect my possessions, and thank me for telling them, I know that the first time I go out, they'll use the mug. They will be compelled. If they say "If you even touch my hockey stick, the one that's signed by Bobby Orr, I'll kill you," I know it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship...