Day 28

Day 28, self quarantine:

Happy Easter.  Yeah I’m Jewish, but every holiday in my life is about food, not religion, so you better believe I celebrate all of them, especially when it’s all about baskets of chocolate.  (See also: Valentines Day)

For whatever reason, I’m thinking of Easter/Passovers past, starting with mine.  I got my philosophy about food from my mother, which is basically Food is Love.  We didn’t go to synagogue on Passover or have a sedar, but we had rich, cheesy kugels (I know, I know) brisket cooked in ginger ale (I can already see I’m going to have to do a separate post about food in the sixties) and on Easter, my mother would bake a ridiculous multilayer coconut cake with marshmallow icing.  

I just had another crazy memory.  Back in the dark ages, when I was in elementary school, on the last week of school leading up to Easter and spring break, we made Easter bonnets.  Our teachers would send home a supply list:  Paper plates, ribbons, jelly beans, Peeps...and we’d turn them into rather spectacular millinery, which we’d proudly wear in an Easter “parade” in the schoolyard.

As a budding foodie, I freaking loved making those bonnets.

I could just see Julie and Eric wearing paper plates on their heads and marching around outside.

Oh wait, what am I saying, yes I can 😎

I’m not gonna go into it, but for the most part, my childhood memories of holidays are not good.  My mom thought they meant family, my father thought they meant Oh awesome, I can lock myself in my bedroom and get wasted.  There was always a lot of yelling.  From the time I was a kid, I vowed if I ever had a family of my own, It would be the exact opposite for my children.

Which brings me to my next memory, and it’s a good one. Young’s Candies.

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2007/07/02/taste-forever-youngs/

For the kids’ entire childhood, we were lucky enough to have an old school candy store in the neighborhood where they made amazing chocolate on site.  Every year, Gary and I would make up spectacular custom baskets.  Eric loved anything peanut butter.  Julie loved solid chocolate eggs. Easter mornings were like Hanukkah/Christmas around here, but then again, so was every holiday.

I guess I am especially feeling the loneliness of quarantine today, but okay, I’m also realistic.  Eric lives in Nashville and Julie lives in Seattle.  I doubt we’d be sitting here, ripping apart our respective baskets and sharing a breakfast of candy this morning, anyway.

I’m here to tell you that over ten years in, empty nest syndrome never gets any easier.  

But yeah, yeah, there are certain perks.

I told Gary not to buy me any Easter chocolate this year. He’s still asleep upstairs. 

 I really hope he didn’t listen to me.  

Ugh, what am I saying. There’s still macaroons in the house.

Mmmm...macaroons.  I just realized we covered both holidays with that one.

Omg, they are amazing with a hot cup of coffee.  And with that, I’m off to have eight more.

Happy Easter!

Day 27

Day 27, self quarantine:  

I’m back.

Yesterday started out tough.  I was waiting for news on my “co-worker” hospitalized at John Hopkins (John Hopkins!) with COVID-19.  It was kind of like how I imagine it is sitting around waiting for a meteor to hit.

I decided to binge watch  Top Chef all day while snacking on Gary treats throughout.

“Can you make cookies?” I asked him.

Gary looked up from his computer, (hahahaha) shocked.

“Cookies?  What kind of cookies?”   

“Christmas cookies?”

“What?  Christmas cookies?” 

Hey.  At least he didn’t immediately say no, even if he was looking at me like I was out of my mind.

I nodded. 

“Which ones?” he asked.  Shortbread?  Thumbprints?  Oh, no....you want the ones that take me three hours - the ones with peanut butter cups?’

“No...”

“Which ones, then?”

I looked at him hopefully.  “All of them?”

“Rob!  Seriously?!”

“Okay, okay, just thumbprints.”

He sighed.

“Isn’t it Passover?”

Oh, yeah.  Crap.

I considered this for a moment and brightened.

“Do we have any coconut?”

“Coconut?  I don’t know.  Maybe.  What now?”

“Macaroons.”

He started to laugh but stopped when he saw my face.

“Oh my God.  Really?”

“Yeah.”

“If I make them, do you promise you’re not going to complain all day tomorrow you’re fat?”

“Well...”.   

He had a point.

As I was trying to decide,  using my usual scientific methods, i.e., if I diet and get thin during quarantine I will probably get the virus and die, conversely, if I eat my way through the next several weeks and gain a couple hundred pounds, I’ll likely live a long, miserable life, I got a text from Aileen.


Aileen is one of the many extraordinary people I’ve met through my kids.  As a young girl, she took a Robert Fripp Guitar Craft course on the recommendation of a boyfriend and it would change her life, leading her to a career in  music and music therapy, and inclusion into a group of international King Crimson family and friends.

Over the past fourteen years, I’ve seen the love and power of that group.  In fact, it was through the extended Crimson family in Seattle that Julie finally found love and happiness and her new home.

I remember in the early days of the Adrian Belew Power Trio, when I tagged along as merch person, we were stopped at the Canadian border for the usual questioning.

“You’re musicians?” the border patrol guy asked, peering into the car and taking in the guy in the sombrero with two giggling teenagers.   “What kind of music do you play?”

Adrian’s response was immediate.

“We play intelligent music.”

Isn’t that the truth?

Anyway, getting back to Aileen, she texted me that she was going to be in our neighborhood and was going to be dropping off a very special package (carefully wiped down) on our stoop.

And with that, Gary got a reprieve from cookie making.

Because you know, when someone tells me they have a gift for me, my mind goes right to food.

And I follow Aileen on Facebook.  She’s superwoman.  She makes bread.  She grows all kinds of vegetables in her garden.  She freaking roasts her own coffee.

Guess what she also tried her hand at during quarantine?  

Soap making.

In addition to leaving us a bag of her incredible fresh roasted coffee, Aileen put together a self care package of beautiful, fragrant soaps.  The picture I took doesn’t begin to do justice - I wish there were smellivision.

My mood did a 180.  

I remembered I chose the path of gratitude.

The rest of the day was wonderful.  I learned my coworker is improving.  Gary made vegetarian matzo ball soup.  And Julie did an amazing live stream show which I finally figured out how to broadcast on the television as opposed to my phone.

Speaking of live-streams, Eric is doing one at 7:00 tonight with luminaries like Roseanne Cash and  John Oates to raise money for musicians brought to their knees by the events of 2020.  I will post a direct link later.

So that’s it for today. There’s only one remaining question: Do I want those macaroons or not?