Day 121

Day 121, self quarantine:

It’s Monday, July 13, 2020.

Most of us began our quarantine at the close of business Friday, March 13, 2020, a whole ‘nother lifetime ago.

Happy four month anniversary.

Oy, one-third of the year indoors.  I thought we were a couple of weeks away from that auspicious milestone.

That’s four months without:

Human contact other than whoever we live with.

Live music, movies, theater.

Museums.

Professional sports.

Eating in restaurants.

Going outside without a mask.

Etc. etc. etc.

And there’s no end in sight for most of it.

But hey, at least I got a haircut.

How long until we shut down again?

Florida just recorded 15,000 new cases in one day and what did they do?  Reopened Disneyland so that every idiot who visits comes back and infects all of us.

Goddess grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Okay, I’ll try. 

What choice do I have?

It’s too scary to think about
so I won’t.

In other news, because I was off for three days and I was feeling chill, I cleaned the house and then Gary picked up a couple ridiculously gorgeous bunches of flowers at the farmers market, and everything just looked so pretty to me I walked around with my phone snapping pictures and here they are.

The food you know about, though as you can see, I got a surprise of white raspberries on my plate and I wait all year for their once a year only appearance in July so despite soft scrambled eggs with cheese and spinach and sweet almond biscuits, those raspberries stole the show.

The pics of me’n’Jake and the inside of our car were taken yesterday while we waited for Gary outside Trader Joe’s.  I tried to capture the bored millennials standing in line waiting to shop and the nervous, over zealous employee who kept trying to squirt hand sanitizer on everyone but I think I blew it.

Oh well, you can imagine the whole scenario, I’m sure.

The tomatoes I will tell you about tomorrow.  If you’ve ever eaten at Village Whiskey or any of Jose Garces’ other restaurants, I got my grubby little hands on his recipe for herb tomato pickles and Gary made them yesterday for a large  component of tonight’s dinner.

Tomato pickles, you ask?  Maybe the most delicious way you will ever eat a cherry or grape tomato.

Wait until you see what we’re having.  This may be Gary’s finest accomplishment yet, with the menu created by me.

The pic of Jake is Jake giving me a not so subtle reminder he wanted dinner last night even though he knows Gary is the chef.   Haha, I’m Jake’s medium.  He implores me with those eyes and I shout out to Gary.

Gary makes him a grass fed burger every night.

I know.  I want Jake’s life, too.

The vegetarian version.

Wait a sec, I kinda have it.

When I retire, I will have it!

Haha when I spoke with my accountant on Saturday after he had a chance to review all our tax stuff, the first thing he said to me was, “I see Gary’s retired!  Why aren’t you?  You guys are in great shape, what are you waiting for?”

Haha, welp, my birthday on August 17 for one thing.  

After that I’ll let the virus dictate.

Goals, people.  

You gotta have them, now more than ever.

Sigh...I know.  Trust me, I know.

Go forth and conquer anyway.

Day 120

Day 120, self quarantine:

How is it Sunday already? How is my three day weekend going so fast?

Good thing I have another one coming up this week.

So yeah, everything is horrible.

There’s 1,000 new cases in PA this morning.

And the press is falling all over themselves because the orange turd finally wore a mask yesterday.

He wore it to a fucking hospital so HE wouldn’t get sick, following a night where he made the extremely unfortunate choice to commute the prison sentence of a fellow criminal pal who threatened to flip on him IN BROAD DAYLIGHT if he didn’t, AND HE NEEDED A FUCKING PHOTO OP.

Even the Washington Post bought in.

I’m so disgusted this morning.

I want out of this country but guess what, it’s too late, everyone has closed their borders to us.

We’re stuck here with a raging madman who doesn’t care if we die.

As Julie remarked yesterday, we’re lepers.  

Donald Trump has turned the United States of America into a leper colony.

Think about it.

Look at him in that mask.  

He looks like an angry top forced to be a bottom.

Or a mental patient.

Okay, I’m done.

Seriously.

So what’s everyone doing today?

I am about to wake Gary for our bimonthly in and out at Trader Joe.

We’re in the mood for a decadent brunch today and inspired by a friend who asked for fresh spinach recipes, we’re having soft scrambled eggs with spinach and cheese stirred in.

One of my favorite meals.

“Ooh, can you make biscuits, too?” I asked my personal chef.

“I thought that was a given,” Gary said.  “What kind do you want?  Sweet almond, cheddar pepper, or original plain?”

What, I can’t have all three?

I’m going for sweet almond.  I love the mix of salty and sweet when I eat.

Wah!  Whenever Julie and I went out to brunch, one of us would get a salty dish and the other something like over the top  pancakes and we’d split both.

Memories.

Brunch at Parc with both kids comes to mind.

https://parc-restaurant.com/menus/brunch/

Oy.  Why am I doing this to myself?

Okay, I’ll stop.

Hey, but if this journal is to reflect what’s going on during the pandemic, I have to be honest.

And Gary can duplicate anything on Parc’s menu while I FaceTime with the kids if I’m that desperate.

I’m not.

Okay, I’m going to get dressed for my big car ride to Trader Joe’s.  

I really have nothing else to say except:

May your Sunday be peaceful and filled with happiness.

Day 119

Day 119, self quarantine:

Happy Saturday!

Today is music day at Casa Slick.  I have it in my head that Eric’s song is going to get a little special attention on the radio this morning so we’ll see if I’m right.

Oh man, Natalie and Eric’s concert broadcast last night was so much fun! Hopefully they’ll put it on line and yeah, Gary and I were watching and saw ourselves several times and Julie was watching from Seattle, too.

I miss my family so much.

I miss live music so much.

And speaking of music, if you tuned in to see Natalie last night, hopefully you also got to see Kingfish Ingram, who was broadcast first.

Oh my fucking god.

https://youtu.be/k3nOV7mBC3k

It’s as if B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix had a love child.

I never heard of him until last night and I just went down quite the rabbit hole on You Tube.  His version of Purple Rain is extraordinary.  

Time to buy some new music.

So I’ve been working on my “perfect song” playlist and Gary wants in on it.  Even though our taste is almost the same, nope, it’s not.  We love prog, blues and rock, but Gary likes stuff like AC/DC where, as you know, I go the other way with Miley Cyrus and even folk music.

Okay, yeah, it’s true, I fucking love folk music.

Don’t tell Gary.

Haha he knows.  I think he likes it, too, but he’s never going to put on a Tom Rush record when he’s listening to music.

I fucking love Tom Rush.

I’m listening to his cover of Joni Mitchell’s Urge for Going right now.  If that doesn’t bring you to your knees, I’m sorry.

Urge for Going is a perfect song.

So now we’re preparing dueling lists.  Mine is finished...I think...and I will get Gary to give me his this weekend.  I’m curious to see if we have any the same.

Yes, we are music nerds.  I’m going to post our lists so you will be suffering along 😎

In other news, I’m too disgusted and furious to say anything about the criminal squatting in the White House other than I hope a lifetime of eating gross, greasy food catches up with him in the bigliest way possible.

Today, please.

Make it painful.

And double it for his supporters.  Triple the agony if they’re fans of Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, or that tool, Matt Gaetz.

All of you burn in hell, but wait, not before suffering debilitating strokes which leave you drooling and pooping in your wheelchairs.

We’re running out of time if we want to save our democracy from a transatlantic kleptocracy.

Read, people.  Educate yourselves.  Fox News isn’t real.  Rush Limbaugh is a racist pig.  I’d say take action but I don’t know what the fuck to do.  I’m throwing money at some Democratic candidates but at this point I think I would rather spend money on some new original art for my walls.

Any of you selling your work? Email me.  I’m interested.

So I think that’s it for today. My day off yesterday was so enjoyable I could definitely get used to more days off...like permanently.  It was dark and stormy and it was a great day to be indoors.

As if we can go anywhere else.

Oy, what a mess.

Oh well.  As always, let’s make the best of it.  Here’s to a day of good health, good music, and good food.

Hey, everyone should be able to manage at least one of those, right?

Enjoy.

Day 118

Day 118, self quarantine:

Happy Friday and happy day off to me!  I actually slept in today - Jake and I didn’t get out of bed until 6:00 a.m.

I’ve always been jealous of people who can sleep past 8:00 a.m.

Okay, I’m lying.  People who sleep late waste the day!

Omg, it took me years to get over that Gary is “one of them.”  I used to get so frustrated at 10:00 a.m. on the weekends - the sun shining in, me awake for six hours already, and I could literally hear Gary still snoring from downstairs.

I turned that time into valuable “me” space and now I get annoyed if he wakes up before 10.

Go figure.

So yesterday I was all set to begin my three day weekend when my phone rang.  It was our accountant.  He was concerned because he hadn’t received our tax stuff for our no contact phone appointment later that day.

Jfc, I completely forgot all about that.  We had our annual appointment for our taxes a couple weeks before the usual April 15 deadline and just as we were first quarantined.  They extended the deadline to July 15 and my accountant rescheduled us for a telephone appointment yesterday.

Gah!  How the hell did I forget that and now our returns are due next Wednesday.

So we had no choice but to scurry around the house and grab all our paperwork and fly down to South Philadelphia at the end of the day to drop everything off in the mail-slot of his office so he can call me Saturday at 5:00 for our no contact appointment.

You can imagine how enthusiastic I was about that whole nightmare.

I had been up since 4:00 a.m. busting my ass at work since it was my getaway day for a three day vacation and now I had to make sure I had all our tax stuff, get out of my pajamas and drive to South Philadelphia.

I was pissed and didn’t want to go.  

So.  Because I’m a big baby, whenever I have to do something I don’t want to do, I make sure there’s a reward system in place.

We get gifted at Casa Slick every time something great OR awful happens.

The reward/gift is almost always food because, well, food.

Last night we had to go to South Philadelphia.

That just screamed PIZZA.

Gary was instantly on board.

“Marra’s?” he asked hopefully.

http://marrasone.com/

Marra’s is the best.  Except you can’t get Marra’s to go.  I have never seen a pizza go from sublime to terrible so quickly.  The minute you put a brick oven Marra’s pizza in a box, it takes on the taste and texture of cardboard.

So no, no Marra’s.

I had my eye on Mack’s Boardwalk Pizza.

https://www.mackspizzamenu.com/

I mean, the name alone.

It was only blocks away from the accountant.

We had tried that pizza years ago and liked it but at the time, his store was more of a garage and Gary wasn’t thrilled with the set up so we never went back.  Then I read they moved to a real storefront in the Italian Market and I made a mental note to try it again.

And forgot.

“I’m gonna call and order when we get to Washington Avenue,” I said to Gary excitedly in the car.

“Why?”  Gary never understands any kind of planning.

“What if they tell us there’s an hour wait?”

Gary rolled his eyes.

In retrospect, it’s good one of us is a planner because when I called...

“The number you have dialed is not in service.”

Oh, no!

“Maybe it’s disconnected because of the pandemic,” Gary said.  “We’ll drive by after we drop our tax stuff off.”

“Yeah, that must be it.  Google and Yelp are listing them as open,” I agreed.

Because I had my heart set on that pizza and I had no plan B.

We drove up 9th Streetslowly.

“There it is,” Gary said.  “Closed.”

“But...why?” I asked, as if Gary would know.

Actually he did know.

“Uhhh...because there’s a pandemic?”

Wow.  

You know, I noticed during our drive that Philadelphia is far from back to normal.  Half the stores in downtown Philadelphia are still boarded up.  Restaurants are shuttered and dark.  At 5:00 p.m. on a Thursday night, there was no traffic, either vehicular or pedestrian.

It still looks like a scene out of Mad Max.

“So what are we doing?” Gary asked.  “Now that you have Jake and me primed for pizza.”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking.  Gah, too much pressure.  Wait!  What about Lorenzo’s?”

Lorenzo’s Pizza is an Italian Market mainstay.  I think it’s been around since I was a kid.

http://lorenzospizza.net/

“Okay,” Gary said.  “It’s right up the street.  “Are you sure they’re open?”

“Yeah, they even have Covid-19 parameters on their website.”

We drove to Lorenzo’s and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Closed.

“But why?” I asked Gary again like a little kid.

“There’s a pandemic, Rob.”

I had one more idea, one I was sure wouldn’t work.

A few weeks ago, Julie sent me a video about a guy eating a pizza from a place in South Philadelphia called Angelo’s.

You really need to watch this.

https://youtu.be/ioaN3xjq1EY

It was one of those small batch millennial “places.”  They only take cash, the only way you can order is via phone but half the time it’s busy, and if you go to their website it says “sold out.”

I told Gary none of this.

He’d never go to a place like that in a million years.

But I was desperate for good pizza though to be honest, I thought they’d be closed, too.

We drove up and not only were they open, there was a parking space right outside where the heavily tattooed young owner was leaning against the wall, having a smoke.

Gary jumped out of the car with his long hair and sunglasses and it was almost hilarious how the owner fawned over him.

“What can I get for you, my dude!”

His reaction was even weirder as we watched about 25 people walk up asking for pizza while we sat in the car waiting for ours and he turned them all away.

“You gotta call and order the dough in advance!” he yelled.

“But your phone is busy.”

“Try harder!”

Gary and I looked at each other.  This guy was the Pizza Nazi but for whatever reason he took a liking to Gary and Gary ended up getting out of the car and talking with him and of course by the end of the conversation he knew we had a drummer son, bass playing daughter and singer songwriter daughter-in-law.

“I knew you were somebody,” he said.  “Enjoy the pizza, Gary! Come back any time!”

So that was cool.

I texted Julie from the car on the way home.

She was suitably jealous.

Look at this pizza.

It’s a thing of beauty, isn’t it?

“Omg omg omg,” I moaned while eating.

And I just realized I wrote an entire post in homage to pizza.

And that’s how it should be.

Enjoy Friday, everyone.

Day 117

Day 117, self quarantine:

Happy Thursday-Friday, since I’m off tomorrow.  Why I haven’t thought about taking a series of Fridays off until now, I have no idea.  It feels wonderful!

Well, except first I have to get through today.  Work wise, ew, today is going to be brutal.

So today is day 117 of quarantine, which means in another two weeks, we will have sheltered in place for 1/3 of a year.  We started isolating in the winter, stayed indoors all through spring, and now we’re somehow in the second month of summer.

So that’s pretty crazy.

I’m trying not to be Debbie Downer here but the news on the virus is getting worse by the day.

Is the motherfucker masquerading as a President deliberately trying to kill us?

The Supreme Court better rule in favor of the people today.  We need to see why he’s so afraid of Congress seeing his financial records.

I’m not hopeful.

Gary is.  Gary also thinks the people are going to take to the streets en masse this fall.

I think the pandemic is going to prevent that, along with our ability to vote.

We’ll see.  I will never be happier to be wrong.

I want to move to Portugal.

In much better news, Eric is getting great feedback for his record and I’m thrilled for him.

Here’s the video:

https://thekey.xpn.org/2020/07/08/eric-slick-wiseacre-when-it-comes-down-to-it/

 My grandson Marvin sailed through brain surgery and when I talked to Eric yesterday, he was cooking him chicken for dinner.

The Slicks know how to treat their dogs.  We know dogs > people.

Never trust a person who doesn’t like dogs.

Hahaha my criteria for liking people in the past was always what they had on their bookshelves and what they had in their record collection.

Now it’s if they like Trump and don’t like dogs, emotionally I pee on their face and walk away forever.

I’m not sure if that means I’m a grownup or not.

Who cares?

Okay, you can tell I am preoccupied and don’t have much to say today.

Some days are like that.

Fingers crossed for a good day today for everyone except Donald Trump 

Peace out.

Day 116

Day 116, self quarantine:

Happy Wednesday, July 8, a/k/a Eric Slick’s new single release day!

Here’s the link!  There’s a video, too, but it’s private this morning so I’m guessing Eric wants to release it himself.  I’ll come back and edit to add it later.

https://youtu.be/Vr77mYRJv7k

Anyway, I know I’m prejudiced but I think this is mahvelous.

I love the lyric, “Maybe I’m not perfect, I’m a simple person...”

The entire record is power pop.  What I love about Eric is, he not only plays 87 instruments, he seamlessly hops from genre to genre, not afraid to try new things with each new project.

Speaking of that reminds me of the Beatles.  I heard an interview with McCartney where he was talking about how back in the early sixties, they first heard Diana Ross and the Supremes and Paul and John were like, this is awesome, it’s the best thing we ever heard, and then they heard the Supremes’ follow up record and the Beatles were like, Hey ho, the Supremes’ second record sounds just like their first record.

The Beatles were mystified. Why would any musician want to do that?

They wanted every record to be different, to bring something new to the table.

Damn I miss that.

Gah!  And now I’m one of those cranky old people yapping Back in My Day 🤮

But you know what I’m talking about.

I love creative people who are always coming up with new ways to express themselves.

Which brings me full circle back to Eric.

I’m gonna tell some Eric stories now.

In fact, I’m gonna give you part of the speech I wrote for his wedding last year, kinda, most of which I didn’t get to read due to nerves and overhearing someone at the table next to ours moan, “Enough with the speeches, I’m hungry!”

Hey, I’m a Jewish mother.  I can’t let anybody go without food.

So...taps mic...here goes.

The minute Eric could stand in his crib, if we would play music for him before bed time, he would bang out the melody on the slats of the crib.  It was crazy.  No matter what we put on, the Beatles, the Who with Keith Moon on drums or Cream with Ginger Baker — Eric kept a perfect beat.  Gary and I would look at each other incredulously, not believing what we heard.

But in the meantime, we were also worried.  Eric was over a year and a half old and didn't speak.  He would just look at us with those big green eyes, like he wanted to say something, but couldn't.

And then one night, just as we were really starting to panic, Eric walked over to us, wearing his favorite outfit of nothing but a Pampers, opened his mouth and said, "You've got the tummy ache blues, from eating all the candy you did!"

Gary and I gasped, "What did you just say, Eric?"

He repeated it.  And all of a sudden, we realized Eric was actually singing Tummy Ache Blues from his favorite 1939 VHS cartoon.

So Eric's first words were a whole freaking song.

During the next couple of years, Eric's obvious skill at drumming was increasing, so by the time he turned four, he had a real drum kit.  And also, by the time he was four, he wanted to be in charge of his own birthday party.

"Okay, Eric," I said.  "Sure we’ll get you the chocolate peanut butter birthday cake you want, but what about invitations?  You want to go with me to pick them out?"

"Oh, no, Mom, we don't need invitations.  I already invited everyone."

This was news to me.  But okay...

"You already invited everyone?   How many kids did you invite?"

"Just three.  My three favorite friends in the world."

Three favorite friends in the world?

"Okay...and who would that be?"  I thought he was so adorable - I tried to picture which little boys were coming over.  Who were his top three?

"I invited Dennis, Frannie, and Frannie's best friend, Michelle."

Wait a second.   Hang on, hang on.

Dennis, Frannie and Michelle?  

Dennis was a friend of mine and Gary's - he was also our pot dealer.  

Frannie was Eric's very large breasted beautiful 21 year old babysitter.

Michelle was Frannie's equally beautiful large breasted best friend.

Hahaha.

"Is that why Dennis asked me if it was okay to buy you a GunsNRoses CD for your birthday?"

"Of course, Mom.  It has a parental warning sticker on it and everything!"

Oh god.

"Yeah, I know.  Dennis told me.  I said it was okay, but please don’t sing the lyrics at school."

"I would never!"

Holy hell, I just remembered the little brat who slept over for Eric’s 11th birthday and told his mom we had a Playboy Magazine in our bathroom.  That bitch actually called and yelled at me.  "We don't allow our son to read pornography, Mrs. Slick!"

Mrs. Slick?  Who dat? Wasn’t that Gary’s mother’s name?

I loved being a mom but man did I hate the other parents.

And sleepovers.  They were the absolute worst.

So that was the opening of my speech for Eric’s wedding.

(Not the last part about Playboy magazine and hating other parents - I just added that now.  I was inspired.)

Hahaha you know what? It’s a good thing I didn’t read my whole speech at the wedding.  That was just page one of ten.

That dude at the next table would have starved.

Okay, I’ll stop.

That was fun, though.

Congratulations on record release day, Eric!

Oh god, I have to work now?

I have to listen to the radio! WXPN is premiering Eric’s song throughout the day.

https://xpn.org/listen-live-m

Okay, that’s enough out of me.

Rock on!