My wife and I are both fond of cooking, but prior to the current situation, we also would dine out now and again or order food from restaurants to pick up or to be delivered. Then this whole COVID-19 thing happened – I assume you’re all aware of it – and suddenly everything is up in the air.
Now we both cook all the time, and I am not, not, upset that I have to share the kitchen. I am not that sort of man most of the time and certainly not now. (Love you, baby!)
But then my youngest child’s birthday came up, and she wanted Popeyes. Now I am not a fast-food guy for the most part, but I will eat Popeyes all day. (See also: Taco Bell’s “Mexican Pizza” and one of the contenders for the best bite of food ever, the sausage-egg McMuffin with cheese.)
The birthday girl requested Popeyes, and we obliged. It was delicious. We have also ordered pizza a few times during the lockdown, always from Mid City Pizza. We order from them because there is a location not too far from where we live but more important because their pizza is outstanding. It’s New York-style, and if that’s not your preference then you may want to look elsewhere, but they do a damn fine pie.
My daughter turned 8. The anniversary of her birth is inconvenient where parties are concerned at the best of times because school is out and some people travel during the summer. This year was worse because nobody could come to her party but family and close friends. She still had a blast, not least because those close friends included her best friend Jack, to whom she is betrothed according to her. (They hadn’t seen each other face to face in more than 11 weeks before we decided we could risk letting them have a socially distant reunion.)
I have read that people are getting into gardening during the current crisis. I am starting to believe it in part because I saw a Dan Gill column on the front page of the
Picayune-Advocate the other day. It used to be rather difficult to find Dan’s work, but there it was, front and center!
My garden is doing well because it is hard not to grow plants here. It is also not hard to grow insects that eat those plants, and apparently the lizards that are almost as prolific as the bugs are not prolific enough to contain said bugs. I have a lot growing now and most of it has been growing since last year because I am not capable of culling. I do not have a large yard and I do not plant enough, generally, to get a useful harvest except where tomatoes and chile peppers are concerned.
Half of my tomatoes are beset by worms, my beans have some sort of aphid infestation and my watercress is about to die because of the heat, but I’ve never had to walk down a street as anything other than a white man and so it seems a bit petty to complain given the world now.
