The Life of Pie

You know what you can’t find during a pandemic?  Any of the right stuff to celebrate someone’s curve-flattening birthday.  

Our household had it’s first pandemic birthday yesterday when Rita celebrated her [redacted] birthday.  And is it just me or do food items represent 80% of all birthday gifts during the pandemic?  Food items and pajamas.  There!  We have covered all the Covid bases.

I thought the easy part of the birthday celebration was going to be getting a lemon meringue pie for Rita.  After all, the restaurants and bakeries are looking for takeout business and for once, I was somewhat early (and by early I mean it wasn’t the day before her birthday).  

But it appears from initial inquiries that what bakeries really want is not have to stock a bunch of special ingredients in the hopes that some birthday-desperate-spouse makes their once yearly special order.  This realization created some seriously panicked shopping on my part as lemon meringue pie represented about 40% of my birthday celebration for Rita.  I mean…I can only wrap so many bottles of wine from the basement ….I mean wine cellar… as birthday presents without Rita catching on [that number is actually zero as she knows every bottle of wine in the basement by heart].  

In my ever-balanced reaction to the first few strikeouts, I proceeded to google “Best lemon meringue pies”, “Acceptable Lemon meringue pies” and even “I once made a lemon meringue pie” until I had the websites for 50 places in and around town known for yellowy custardy things.   [Although note to my April 2021 self…Wake & Bake is NOT a bakery.]  Since all of them were closed for the day, I went ahead and emailed most of them with a desperate request for help [but skipped Sugar Booger since I’m pretty sure ain’t nothing in that pie box that is winning me any birthday points.]

Proving that people are spending this pandemic making lemonade and not lemon meringue, most inquiries went unanswered.  Therefore, I was incredibly excited when Dozen bakery, one of the best in town, replied to tell me they would love to help me out.  But first a few details:  They only offered delivery and not pickup.  Okay.  Works for my quarantined self.  Second, could they have my credit card number and expiration information.  Hmmm….shouldn’t there be a website?  Or an invoice? Weighing the risks of credit card fraud vs. a pieless birthday, I quickly tapped out all the information and threw in my mother’s maiden name to ensure no hiccups on my way to becoming a birthday hero.  

Imagine my surprise when a few hours later I got ANOTHER email from Dozen bakery telling me they would love to help me out with a lemon lavender pie.  

In true McC fashion, I had gotten a reply from one of the rando bakeries that I had emailed and I had just assumed it was the reputable one.  When I gave them my cc number.  And address.  And wife’s name.    

Of course, I did the only thing I could at that stage….I ordered a “backup pie” from Dozen for delivery.  Quick…while my credit card still worked. I realize it was NOT lemon meringue, but close enough, right?  After all, bespoke food orders and Covid don’t really go together and I thought I might need a backup pie in case I had just given my credit card to a Nigerian prince.  

And THEN we found out that our weekly fixed menu service from a local restaurant was ALSO sending a strawberry rhubarb pie in this week’s order.  

Which meant that the actual Saturday birthday promised to be a Pie Parade to our front door.  But…there are worse things.  I just hope the 2^nd pie delivery man doesn’t run into the 3^rd pie delivery man on the sidewalk.  How awkward.

Ironically, Rita doesn’t even like sweets that much. 

P.s. Now that we are on the other side of the birthday celebration, I am happy to report that all pies were a hit.  Including the mystery meringue: 

Rita:  “This is amazing.  Where did you get it?” 

Me:  “I have no earthly idea.”

I could order it again, but I think I might need a burner phone. 

The Cat's Away

Rita decided to go to the farm today and it has created quite an imbalance in the universe (the universe that is the square footage of our quarantined world).  I think this is the first time she has left the house since we started self-quarantining in the upstairs vs. basement (the latter being known as my Garden Apartment).  

I have a strange temptation to frolic through stairwells and engage in all sorts of clandestine behavior:

• Spend some quality time with the espresso maker
• Do laundry.  I can’t explain it.  Forbidden fruit and all that
• See what a fridge with vegetables looks like
• Look for the jointly owned (I say again) but well-hidden bottle of Pappy Van Winkle that we got as a wedding gift.  (And that I can now confirm is not hidden anywhere in the Garden Apartment.)
• Look out a window with a different view.  (How do people in NYC apartments do this every day??)
• See if my favorite loafers are still in the closet.  It’s not that I have any plans to wear….shoes.  It’s just that when I haven’t seen something for 4 weeks it usually means I left it in a hotel room.  Until my trouser-socked feet are resting comfortably in my Franco Sartos, I will remain convinced they have been lost to an airport Hilton.
• Sit at a dining room table.  Just for one meal. Then I would like to go back to eating on the couch. 

Home hair coloring – the “Before” blog post (“After” to follow)

So eight weeks removed from my last hair color and I am acutely aware of how old my hair follicles are.  If I ever had thoughts of becoming a “silver fox”….now is the time.  However, I’m not yet ready to emerge from this quarantine as an older, fatter version of McC and so I will at least make a try at maintaining some sort of hair style while also trying to break up with the chocolate bowl.   

We have an acquaintance who is a hair stylist and has apparently established a black market of DIY hair coloring kits.  He told us to “send me a picture and I’ll match the color”.  Which got me thinking: 

• How good IS the photo quality on my phone?  (I’m getting ready to find out.)
• If anyone asks, that is why I have an otherwise inexplicable picture on my phone of nothing but my grey roots
  
• Did he get like 40 different root shots from various customers?? And how exactly does he match each picture with its delivery address so I don't end up with the “Ruby Fusion” delivery?

Although I have to confess, I will not…as long as I live…ever forget the cautionary tale from my older sister when she colored her own hair back in college.  She said she was going for something less “mousy” and more “black sheen”.  Less bare and more Cher.  Except she either bought the wrong color or left it on waaaaay too long.  While all pictures have subsequently been destroyed, rumor has it she was left with hair that was the color and density of black felt - like someone had cut a swath of craft fabric and pasted it to her head.   She spent the better part of the weekend looking like Wednesday Addams before she ultimately found someone to bleach all of her hair and then recolor back to her a natural color.

It is with that cautionary tale in mind that I begin my own DIY home color.  I figure if I color it early enough in Covid, that my hair will have time to grow out before I have to get the obligatory repair job.  Like worse case, I will spend the rest of quarantine in a ballcap – but I’m living that life right now already.  I’m just praying I don’t do so much damage that I have to spend the rest of my life in a ballcap.  

It is hard to get any volunteers to apply hair coloring.  Apparently, my promises of hair-dresser-amnesty are not being believed.  I initially asked Rita and she was like – umm…get six feet back from me.  Then I asked my sister (the other sister and not the one of the black felt hair whose help I didn’t request) and she said “Nopedy, Nope, Nope.  Remember when we were kids and you told on me to mom & dad for cutting your ponytail while you were napping? Well…I’m not touching your hair again.”  It looks like Nic has been playing the long game on paybacks.  I had just broken the news to my 82-year-old mother that she was going to have to learn a new skill when Rita came around.  She apparently decided she had a vested interest in the outcome since she’s the one who will be looking at me. So we will both wear masks and gloves and she will stretch out her arms as much as possible and plan for the toxic chemicals to kill any hidden Covid germs.  

And unfortunately, there ain’t no open salon out there to do rescue stylin’ right now.  So I could be Wednesday Addams for the duration.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend this pandemic in goth.  

More to follow….