return of the grievous angel

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about online review sites and it got me thinking. Regular readers of my other blog (all four of you) may recall a post from 2019 about featured "Dead Celebrity" Gram Parsons. Gram, a singer, songwriter and one-time member of the psychedelic-folk band The Byrds, was a pioneer in what has come to be known as the "alt-country" music genre. What started out as an account of the harrowing, now-infamous episode surrounding Gram's death and the fate of his remains, turned into another example of why I love reading reviews on Trip Advisor and why I love the internet. Here's the story, as it appeared on December 13, 2019....

In the summer of 1973, while attending the funeral of Clarence White, a musical colleague and member of the country-rock band The Kentucky Colonels, Gram Parsons, the singer-songwriter-guitarist who was influential in the "alt-country genre," instructed his friend and manager Phil Kaufman to cremate his body at Joshua Tree National Park when his time came. He wanted his ashes spread at the Cap Rock site at the park, which was a favorite spot of the singer. Little did he know that time would come just a few months later. In September, Gram Parsons overdosed on morphine and alcohol in Room 8 of the Joshua Tree Inn. 

In a series of clumsy, ill-conceived incidents, Kaufman intercepted Gram's body at the Los Angeles Airport (in a stolen hearse) and drove it back to Joshua Tree to fulfill the singer's last wishes. However, nearby campers reported the heavy smoke from the make-shift "cremation." The remains were retrieved and Phil was arrested a few days later. He was fined $750 for the theft of the coffin. (At the time, there were no laws on the books regarding the theft of a corpse.) What was left of Gram's body was returned to his stepfather for a burial in New Orleans, which was later revealed to be an ulterior motive in order to lay claim to Gram's chunk of a family inheritance. 

When I was doing research for this story, I stumbled upon a number of reviews on Trip Advisor for the Joshua Tree Inn, which is still in operation. The hacienda-style hotel is situated on a desolate stretch of Twentynine Palms Highway in the Mojave Desert, just north of Palm Springs and offers homey accommodations for visitors to the national park, as well as rock and roll curiosity seekers. The infamous Room 8 is available for those who need a personal connection to Gram Parsons. The room is marked with a guitar-shaped sculpture outside. The interior, however, is completely redecorated, save for a large mirror that management notes: "where Gram Parsons saw the last glimpse of himself." How eerie. 

The Trip Advisor website is a source of valuable information, in addition to being unintentionally entertaining. Personally, I love to browse the "terrible" reviews* given to hotels by angry guests looking for an outlet to vent their frustrations of a "less than satisfactory" lodging experience. A few years ago, while searching for a hotel in Anaheim, California, I read a review for a particular establishment that, along with the usual complaints about cleanliness and service, claimed the place was haunted. I began to read the current reviews for the Joshua Tree Inn, narrowing the criteria to only those in the "Terrible" category. The filter yielded twelve reviews. As I read, I noticed that a member of the hotel's staff had left a response to nearly every review, addressing the concerns and complaints noted in each. While the hotel doesn't have the capability to remove a bad review, it is offered a platform for rebuttal and clarification. 

 

In 2012, a disgruntled traveler from Atlanta, Georgia levied a "terrible" review against the Joshua Tree Inn. They began their assessment by saying that they should have opted to stay at the Holiday Inn Express down the street. Then, they laid into the place, complaining about the out-of-date décor and the "brick-hard" mattress that also squeaked. They mentioned the paper-thin walls, allowing guests to hear everything that was going on in adjoining rooms. They went on to gripe about the thermostat, the bathroom lighting and even the complementary breakfast, which they described as "a half jug of milk and some old bagels." They did, however, praise the landscaping, specifically the lovely and fragrant lilacs that are planted throughout the property. On the whole, the review was scathing. Although there are 134 "Excellent" reviews, one would think twice about staying at the Joshua Tree Inn after reading this. 

 

A month after the Atlanta traveler unleashed his venomous diatribe, "jtinn," identified as the Joshua Tree Inn's "Guest Relations Manager," offered this reply:

Mistaken identity. Review is not of the Joshua Tree Inn. We do not have bagels or jugs of milk, or lilacs, or noisey [sic] beds There is no Holiday Inn Express down the road. Nor have we had a couple from Atlanta, Ga. in April or anytime this year. Clearly you have confused us with an inn in 29 Palms.

The 29 Palms Inn is 16 miles away from the Joshua Tree Inn. It is also a hacienda-style hotel with a big, identifying sign out front. It has a similar variety of good and bad reviews on Trip Advisor. Maybe the folks from Atlanta were taking their "Gram Parsons" pilgrimage a bit too seriously and dipped into the hallucinogens. 

* Trip Advisor has five categories of user ratings: Excellent, Good, Average, Poor and Terrible.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

baker street

See those bagels? Look good, huh? Well, they were. Very good, as a matter of fact. And my wife baked them from scratch. Here's how they came to be.

Ten weeks into this worldwide coronavirus quarantine, we are running out of things to do. We watched all the television shows. We watched all the movies. We went on all the walks. Every day. Every single day until the days began to run into each other, one indistinguishable from the next. 

In between these mundane and repetitious time killers, Mrs. P and I spend a good amount of time on social media... even when there is not a pandemic going on. Under the current circumstances, we find ourselves staring at small screens and large screens for long periods of time. I post my drawings and, lately, a succession of screenshots from old televisions shows featuring a well-known actor or actress in a very early role. (I figured I should put my excessive TV watching to some constructive use... if you call that constructive.) Mrs. Pincus checks Facebook to keep in touch, catch up and commiserate with friends. A few days ago (it may have been a week ago... or maybe a month), Mrs. P came across a simple recipe for bagels. At this point, it appears that everyone is baking some sort of bread or bread-type concoction. I see the pictures on Instagram. There are beautiful, rustic masterpieces of oven-browned works of art. Some have intricate designs etched into the outer crust. Others are deftly braided and glistening with an egg-washed shine. Then there are some that can only be identified as "bread" by the accompanying caption. 

Mrs. Pincus is an accomplished baker, turning out bakery-caliber specialties that have brought her regular praise at our annual "Night before Thanksgiving" dessert party. She mostly concentrates on baked goods of the sweet and dessert-y variety. The closest she comes to anything remotely bready is her renowned kamish broit, which is sort of a cookie biscotti... but not really. Kamish broit is sometimes called mandel broit or mandel loaf and it is a traditional Ashenaszi dessert with origins among Ukrainian peasants. Aside from flour, sugar, eggs and oil, additional ingredients can include almonds, walnuts or candied fruit. Mrs. Pincus loads hers with semisweet chocolate chips and they have been known to cause riots if there is not enough to go around.

Mrs. Pincus often gathers recipes that pique her interest, hoping to eventually make some a permanent addition to her repertoire. Baking bread has never interested her. She couldn't be bothered with yeast and proofing and rising and kneading and resting and all those other steps. (Yeah, I took the self-guided tour at the Boudin Sourdough Bakery attraction in Disney's California Adventure, so I know those terms have something to do with bread baking.) The bagel recipe, however, seemed to pride itself on being comprised of just five simple ingredients — flour, salt, baking power, Greek yogurt and eggs. Actually, since the eggs are just used for a topical egg wash, the number of actual "mixed-in" ingredients are reduced to four. All of the traditional methods associated with the age-old process of bagel-making are dispensed with! No yeast! No mixers with a dough hook attachment! No boiling! Mrs. Pincus was game.

Sunday afternoon, we gathered in the kitchen. Mrs. P allowed me to assist, an appointment that I took very seriously. In the two days in November that Mrs. P works tirelessly to crank out an overflowing table full of tempting desserts, no one is permitted in the  kitchen, lest they interrupt — or worse, get trampled — amid the baking ballet that my spouse has perfected.

I collected a canister of flour, a can of baking powder and a box of coarse salt from the cabinet. Mrs. Pincus extracted two eggs and a recently-purchased-just-for-the-occasion container of plain Greek yogurt from the refrigerator. She added a small pouch of sesame seeds and a shaker of "everything bagel" seasoning to our last grocery order. We were ready. A cup of flour was measured. Two teaspoons of baking powder were added. Three-quarters of a teaspoon of the coarse salt followed into the bowl. In a separate measuring cup, Mrs. P spooned a heaping spatula of Greek yogurt, adding small amounts until the level reached the "one cup" marking on the glass. While Mrs. Pincus blended these unlikely bread ingredients, I got my first on-the-job-training in cracking an egg. Following verbal instructions from my wife, I gingerly held the egg with the tips of my fingers and began awkwardly tapping it on the edge of the sink until a crack spread across its surface. I carefully pulled the crack wider until the yolk and cloudy albumen dropped into a waiting glass bowl. Then, with a fork, I whipped the yellow and white contents together and waited further instruction.

By now, the four ingredients in the mixing bowl had melded miraculously — and against all explanation — into a dead ringer for bread dough. Mrs. Pincus rolled a chunk of dough — by hand — into a rope and then attached each end to form a circle. She repeated this several more times until a greased baking sheet was evenly arranged with nine bagels awaiting their time in our oven. I brushed the top of each one with the beaten egg and then sprinkled them with bagel toppings — six with "everything" seasoning and three with sesame seeds only. 

After a twenty-five turn in the oven, Mrs. P donned a quilted mitt and withdrew a pan of golden bagels. They were beautiful little examples of baked nirvana (the blissful state, not the band.... unless your idea of bliss is Kurt Cobain's mournful growl, then, by all means....). She placed the baking sheet on our kitchen counter for the recommending cooling time. As the temperature dissipated, we marveled at the little round, sesame and poppy-topped comestibles. When a suitable cooling period has passed, my wife broke one of the bagels in half and handed me a piece. I popped it in my mouth. It was absolutely delicious! I am not just saying that because my wife baked it. It was sincerely delicious! It was on a level of any commercially-produced bagel I had ever eaten. Seriously! While we enjoyed outr first taste of their magical bready goodness, my wife quickly mixed up another batch and and placed them in the oven. I called my son to tell him how good they were. My wife put five on a plate to bring to her parents. Plans were already in the works for the next time these bagels would be made. We saved the remaining bagels to accompany our dinner over the next few nights.

After dinner, we settled in front of another screen — the television — to find something to watch for the evening. As per usual, we settled on something that would not need our undivided attention. Mrs. P scanned Facebook, proudly posting pictures of the bagels that she had baked, explaining that they only required five ingredients. Well, the internet being what it is, its never ending mission to outdo anything you may have just read, someone else posted a recipe that only uses two ingredients! How can this be possible? We were doubtful that bagels could be made with five ingredients considering that none of those ingredients were yeast! But, come on, two ingredients? This is nuts! Mrs. Pincus clicked the link and read on. Within a second or two, she emitted a disappointed exhale. It seemed the two ingredients are plain Greek yogurt and self-rising flour. And what exactly is self-rising flour? Why, it's flour that already contains salt and baking powder! Oh, the internet!

Anyway, here's the recipe that we followed. And, no, this has not become a baking blog.

Five Ingredient Bagels

Ingredients

1 cup (5 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour (whole wheat or gluten-free mix can be used)

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon coarse salt (kosher salt)

1 cup non-fat Greek yogurt (not regular yogurt, but non-dairy Greek yogurt can be substituted)

1 egg white, beaten (a whole egg can be used)

optional toppings:

everything bagel seasoning, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, dried garlic flakes, dried onion flakes

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F. Place parchment paper on a baking sheet. Spray parchment with oil to avoid sticking. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt and whisk well. Add the yogurt and mix with a fork or spatula until well combined, it will look like small crumbles. Lightly dust flour on a work surface and remove dough from the bowl, knead the dough a few times until dough is tacky, but not sticky, about 15 turns (it should not leave dough on your hand when you pull away). Divide into 4 equal balls. Roll each ball into 3/4-inch thick ropes and join the ends to form bagels. (or you can make a ball and poke a hole in the center then stretch it slightly) Top with egg wash and sprinkle both sides with seasoning of your choice. Bake on the top rack of the oven for 25 minutes. Let cool at least 15 minutes before cutting.  (We made smaller bagels and got nine out of this recipe.)

I guess we'll be churning our own butter next.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

enough about you, let's talk about life for a while

Look, I don't want this to become the "quarantine" blog, so I'd like to make today's post the last one on that subject... at least for a while.

Like you and your neighbor and your co-workers and everyone else across the country (and still in most parts of the world), I am at home. In my house. It's where I have been since March 12. That was the date that I left my place of employment with the computer from my desk, with the instruction from my supervisor to begin working from home as of the morning of the 13th. Since that day, I have ventured out of my house for approximately forty minutes each day to walk around the block with my wife. Twice, during the past seven weeks, I occupied the passenger's seat of my wife's car when we made a delivery of some grocery items to my son's house. We pulled up in front of his home. He popped outside, his face swathed in a makeshift face mask fashioned from a bandanna. He opened the rear hatch of the car and retrieved his items. We had a brief conversation with him as he stood a good seven feet away from us. Then he retreated back into his house and we started for home. We made no physical contact.

My wife is the designated "real world" liaison for me, as well as the extended family that are sequestered at her parents' house a few blocks away. She has graciously volunteered to do the shopping for both of our households in an effort to keep everyone safe. And that's our life. We do what we do and will continue to do what we will do until the concern subsides. And it will.

During this time, I have steered clear of most news broadcasts on television. I will watch a little bit of local news to get information I may need about business closures or changes in hours. Sometimes I'll wait for a weather forecast, but otherwise, I skip that news too. Most news programming has become "doom and gloom" and speculative reporting. I hate news stories that begin: "Well, what if..." That is not a helpful news story. That is the basis for a Marvel comic book.

Mostly what I see on the news is complaints. Complaints from Mrs. and Mrs. Average American who have been inconvenienced by a deadly virus. I understand that staying confined to your house is difficult, but considering that death may be the alternative, I don't see it as that terrible. I've heard people complaining that they can't go to a concert or a ball game or the movies or a restaurant. They complain about having to work from home. They complain about Zoom online meetings. They complain that the supermarket doesn't have that bread that they like. They complain that they can't have a barbecue in their backyard.... although some people complain about it then defiantly have a barbecue anyway.

Really? Really!?!

Thousands and thousands of people work from home every day. Some people have lost those jobs that required them to work from home (myself included). You are being asked to honor these precautions for your own good, for your own safety and well being. Yes, some people need to be guided in this manner. They need to be told how to be safe because a lot of people have no common sense. These people are the reason that chainsaws come with warning labels that caution against grabbing the blade while it's moving.

The ones I find the most upsetting are the heavily-armed angry mobs flocking to the state capital buildings (my own state included) and screaming about being inconvenienced. They don't want the government telling them what to do. (They have no problem with a big, invisible, omniscient being who lives up in the sky telling them what to do, but that's a story for another blog post.) Is it really that difficult to stay home to avoid dying? Is that really a lot to ask?  Are your rights really being compromised?  Y'know, if you die, you'll have no rights at all. If you die, you won't have to worry about staying home or not being able to golf or get a haircut or social distancing. If you die, you'll be six feet away from everybody. Permanently. 

To date, two hundred and forty-thousand people have died as a result of this pandemic. Quit complaining. It's selfish. May I suggest that you suck it up. Stay home. Wash your hands. Shut up. And stop being a cry baby. 

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

stand back stand back

As the days and weeks of quarantine bear down, people are trying to remain upbeat and optimistic, while coming to the realization that things will be different once the safety limitations are relaxed. Surrounded by the same four walls — day in and day out, thoughts turn to returning to the office, attending a concert or sporting event, even shopping in a store that's not a supermarket. These thoughts can sometimes do wonders to ease a cooped-up mind.

There is something I am looking forward to "on the other side," as they say. 

There are two people in the world — the entire world — that I feel comfortable hugging and kissing. Just two. Considering that the current population of the world is around seven and a half billion people, that is quite an exclusive club. Those two people are, of course, my wife and my son. I don't like to hug and kiss anyone who is not my wife and my son.

We know things will change and previously accepted behavior will be altered by what we are experiencing during our time of "social distancing." When health experts determined that maintaining a distance of at least six feet from another human was essential in keeping the coronavirus at bay, I was ecstatic. When the practice of wearing a face mask was introduced as an additional precaution, it was like a dream come true. I am secretly hoping it will become the new normal when this thing is over.

My wife is a friendly person when it comes to hugging and "cheek-kissing" family and friends and even friends of friends. However, I often find myself awkwardly shuffling my feet and averting my eyes when I know I am next in line after she has exchanged embraces with someone whom I obviously don't want to, which, as we now know, is pretty much everyone. I have hung back near a front door or in a parking lot next to our car, hoping desperately to be able to weasel out of a presumed obligatory hug with someone I don't want to hug. It has nothing to do with my level of like or dislike I have for a particular person. It just makes me uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. There! I said it! It's not a personal thing. It's a human thing.

So here we are. Still stuck in our homes. Still under quarantine while a heretofore unknown threat ravages our planet. I just remain hopeful that soon — very soon — I will be able to emerge from seclusion, mingle with people and not hug them.

Oh, things will be better.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

behind the mask

I am writing this in the middle of my fifth week of "working from home" as a result of precautions being taken to "flatten the curve"* of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, due to the hands-on nature of my job, there is not a lot of work for me to do at home. I have been on "stand-by" for five weeks. Two weeks ago, I did a reworking of a layout that took me all of an hour. Otherwise I have wandered around the confines of my home during most of this time, going downstairs to the kitchen. Upstairs to the den. Over to the bedroom. Back to the den. Back down to the kitchen. I'm starting to realize that my house isn't as big as I thought it was.

My only respite from "workday" boredom is an afternoon walk with my wife. Mrs. Pincus normally works from home, maintaining her eBay business from a home office on the third floor of our house. (Yeah, I go up there, too... sometimes.) Every afternoon, we set out for a stroll around the block for a little fresh air and exercise. We have been doing this for over a year. My previous job allowed me to be home by 4:30 in the afternoon, but circumstances of my current job — which is an hour's commute — leaves Mrs. P to traverse the sidewalks of Elkins Park alone. I have only been able to join her on weekends — until the majority of the nation's workforce was sent home in the middle of March. Now, I accompany her daily and will do so for as long as this home quarantine lasts.

Rules, suggestions, guidelines and mandates have changed regularly throughout the course of this decidedly uncertain situation. The governor of Pennsylvania, who, like a select number of other state governors, has assumed a position of reassuring authority and calm out of necessity. Regular briefings on current state policy are broadcast on local television and on the state's website offering pertinent information to help and guide the residents of my state through this mess. As would be expected, things change. What was once accepted policy could do a complete one-eighty a day later. Just last week, it was strongly recommended that face masks be worn by all Pennsylvania residents when leaving the house, after initially being told the contrary. Instructions on how to fashion a suitable face mask out of a bandanna are readily available all over the internet. My wife, who has been self-designated as the liaison to the outside world, does the shopping, prescription pick-ups, banking and running of small errands for me and her parents. She is the sole representative of the extended Pincus clan that leaves the house to venture further than the perimeter blocks. Before each trip, she puts a colorful bandanna in place, secured with elastic hair ties encircling each ear. When she returns home, she carefully removes the cloth and drops it in a laundry basket in the basement (yeah, I walk those steps sometimes, too) for later cleaning. Then she proceeds to thoroughly was her hands, humming "Happy Birthday" or what lyrics she can remember from the theme to "The Nanny" as presented in a recent YouTube video featuring Fran Drescher. When we go out walking, I wear one, too.

Since this most recent mandate regarding the wearing of face masks, I am surprised by the amount of people we pass on our walks — from a socially acceptable distance of six feet — that are not wearing them. In reality, I see more people not wearing a mask or some sort of facial covering than those who are. I also see a lot of people not practicing "social distancing" (another of those phrases*), stopping to talk to a neighbor and standing close enough to grab an arm or touch a shoulder. We see folks walking dogs, passing other folks walking dogs, stopping to converse while their pets sniff each others asses — yep! their owners are that close. What is wrong with these people? Oh wait.... I know! We live in a time of "The rules don't apply to me." I know we all hear the same warnings, it's just some people think those warnings are for everyone else. Other people have to follow those rules. They can't possibly mean me! After all, I'm me! My wife tells me she sees the same thing in the supermarket. She has witnessed people closing up the temporary, but clearly-marked, six-foot delineations put on the floor. She has had people reach right across the bridge of her nose to get an item on a shelf. A guy even picked up a pair of sunglasses my wife had dropped, despite her loud pleas of "Please don't touch them," his ungloved hand continuing to wrap around the lenses. Oh, right!  Sorry! You can touch them! I didn't realize it was you!

Look, I don't know how long this pandemic will last and how long we will have to maintain this cautious existence. No one does. I just keep envisioning a post-apocalyptic world as depicted in so many movies. Sinewy hollow-faced men and women roaming the streets in ragged clothes with an appropriated rifle strapped to their backs, collecting scavenged scraps of survival from steaming, picked-over spoils, strewn across the decimated landscape. It's a worrisome image that I hope I never see.

But — goddammit! — those men and women better be wearing masks and keeping their distance.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

* If I may stray from my point for just a second (as I often do), there are certain words and phrases that I have come to loathe as specific hot-button topics trend in the news. Media outlets tend to stick these words and phrases into every report, no matter how applicable it is to the current hot story. Over the years, the constant repetition of words like "Iraqi" during the days of Operation: Desert Storm and "Lewinsky" during the infamous Clinton scandal drove me crazy! More recently, "quid pro quo" was quickly replaced by the current "flatten the curve" — a phrase that is slowly losing its meaning as it is repeated over and over again on a daily basis and repeated by people who just heard it repeated on a news broadcast. 

stand and deliver

Mrs. Pincus and I have been eating the same thing for dinner — nearly every night — for over a year... and we love it! We actually look forward to it. No, it isn't anything exotic or that can be considered "gourmet." In fact, it's fairly simple with minimal preparation. We eat salad. A big salad... with all kinds of stuff on it. Although I have been a vegetarian for almost fifteen years, I eat a surprisingly limited amount of vegetables, the majority of which are commonly classified as "salad" ingredients. I pass on tomatoes, cucumbers and celery. I will, however, include generous amounts of green peppers, radishes, artichokes and pickles. Yes, pickles! I love pickles on salad. Curiously, my wife likes the vegetables that I don't like, so our refrigerator is still stocked with celery stalks and a container or two of little grape tomatoes. Our salads are usually topped with a five ounce can each of salmon. Then we garnish our big salads with a sprinkling of crispy French fried onions and a smattering of "bacon bits," those tiny morsels of unknown origin that have never been anywhere near actual bacon. The kosher certification emblazoned on the label — to this day — cracks me up.

We try to keep all of these ingredients on hand at all times. Since most of these items are straight from the fresh produce section of our local supermarket, we find ourselves having to restock and replenish the vegetable drawer of our refrigerator a few times a week. And now that we are forced to stay in our homes due to the threat of the spreading COVID-19 pandemic, even sporadic visits to the supermarket can be somewhat dicey. Not to mention the fact that some supermarkets are having a difficult time keeping some items on their shelves. Mrs. P has still been venturing out to a nearby produce store, in an effort to stop her 80+ year-old parents from going out into the risky world. For other, shelf-stable items, we have taken (like most people) to having groceries delivered. During Week 1 of our government-mandated quarantine, we placed an order with mighty retailer Walmart. I love and hate Walmart. Their prices are ridiculously cheap, but as an entity, they are the bane of my existence.... but their prices are so low! Through their website, Mrs. Pincus placed an order for the following items: nine 6 ounce foil packages of French fried onions (we had been out of these for at least a week and our salads lacked that familiar "crunch"); a 13 ounce container of imitation bacon bits (again, the last of our fake bacon bits were shaken out weeks ago); and two 21 ounce bottles of teriyaki sauce (I love steamed broccoli dipped in teriyaki sauce. Maybe I like the taste or maybe this is the only way you can get me to eat broccoli. Who really knows?). That's it. That was the order. Within a day or so, allowing for the sudden rush of online orders, Mrs. Pincus received an email stating that our order would arrive on Saturday.

Well, Saturday rolled around. Another email arrives informing us that our delivery had arrived. I looked out the window of our front door and, except for the things that are usually on our front porch, it was empty. No box from Walmart... no matter what Federal Express claimed. I went outside and surveyed the area around our porch, expanding my search to include our front lawn, the front walkway and even the shrubs and flower beds that surround our porch. You never know the thought pattern and camouflage methods employed by a Fed Ex driver. I checked everywhere and concluded there was no delivery. My mind began to wander. In the current climate of panic and uncertainty, did some desperate scavenger sneak out of his claustrophobic self-quarantine, take a box from our front porch and spirit it away to a make-shift shelter to revel in his spoils. Did he think they had absconded with untold riches (from Walmart, no less!)? Was he hoping for something he could use as bartering leverage on the Black Market? I would love to been a fly on the wall when this motherfucker split the security tape on the box to reveal fried onions, fake bacon bits and teriyaki sauce! Serves 'im right! Bastard!

I posted an account of our Saturday morning "possible" burglary episode on Twitter (as I am want to do) while the more reasonable Mrs. P contacted some of our neighbors to see if our delivery was accidentally waylayed to one of their homes at the hands of a dyslexic Fed Ex driver. After getting negative replies for our contacted neighbors (my wife actually talks to our neighbors), she called Walmart customer service. The service rep said that we would be refunded for the order and, if we still wanted the items, we would have to reorder them. Well, of course we wanted the items, so Mrs. P recreated the order.

Three days later, on Tuesday, a plain brown box arrived on our front porch. Aside from the reordered Walmart items, we were not expecting anything. I brought the box in, examining the unusual way the address label was affixed. I realized that it had been cut from another box and carelessly taped to this new box. The blue remnants of a Walmart box were still attached to the label, clearly visible through the transparent packing tape. I opened the box. It contained a translucent plastic bag, its contents obscured. I undid the knot at the top of the bag with Mrs. P witnessing my untying ability. To our surprise, the bag contained nine bags of French fried onions and a large plastic container of imitation bacon bits. Conspicuously missing were the two bottles of teriyaki sauce. Or were they.....? Upon closer tactile examination, each foil bag of fried onions was coated with a thin layer of teriyaki sauce, as was the container of bacon bits. Actually, in some spots, the dried sauce was clumpier, a light brown in color with visible congregations of sesame seeds. And each bag smelled like a Benihana's.

I tossed the bags — one by one — into the kitchen sink, where Mrs. Pincus gingerly wiped them down with a wet paper towel. Then, we further inspected each bag, checking for a complete state of unstickiness. Several bags required additional wiping, especially in the folds and creases of their undersides. Mrs. P cleaned the bacon bits container. We placed everything on a dish towel to dry. A little later, we found room for everything in our cabinets along the stockpiles of our favorite salad dressings. (When did we become food hoarders?) We are still short the two bottles of teriyaki sauce.

So, now we wait for the replacement order. After it arrives (if it arrives), we will have eighteen bags of friend onions, another giant container of imitation bacon bits and — hopefully — those two bottles of teriyaki sauce.

Then, we'll be all set for the next pandemic.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

splendid isolation

This is weird. Very weird.

Like many people worldwide, I am working from home... except I am working from home for the first time in my 30+ tenure in the workforce. Honestly, it is very disorienting, but I am slowly getting used to the situation. For twelve years, I worked in the marketing department of a law firm. When I would arrange and take time off for a vacation, my supervisor would throw herself into a panic in the weeks and days before my scheduled time off. I argued that the graphic designer couldn't possibly hold this much importance in a law firm. Often I would ask if I could work from home, something I felt was totally feasible with an internet connection. I was regularly told that it was impossible and my request was denied. I don't work there anymore.

Well, here I am... two weeks into a mandatory "work from home" situation set in place by local jurisdictions to combat the potential spread of the volatile COVID-19 pandemic. Although my current job is very "hands-on," I am working from home.

Unfortunately, there is very little work. My employer is very reliant on the trade show industry and since trade shows (and other public gatherings) are being canceled left and right... well, there is very little to do. At the end of the work day on March 12, 2020, an ominous office-wide email went out, the contents of which gave instructions to all employees to take their computers home with them. "Work from Home" would begin the next morning... like it or not.

To maintain as much "normalcy" as possible, I still wake up at 5:30 in the morning, like I always do. I wake up so early because I work approximately forty miles away. My commute, depending on traffic, is a little over an hour on some mornings. However, now that I'm working from home, my commute is about thirty seconds, or as long as it takes me to walk downstairs to my dining room table. But still, I wake up when I am used to waking up and I get dressed like I'm going to work.

I get a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal and I watch a few episodes of The Andy Griffith Show — as is my usual morning ritual. Now, because the traffic is much lighter, I can watch My Three Sons, The Beverly Hillbillies and an episode of Leave It to Beaver and still be on time for work. At 8:30, I send an email to my boss, letting him know that I am ready and anxious to tackle any work that may come our way. Almost immediately, I receive a reply from my boss to say: "Thanks." Then I don't hear from him again until 5:30 when his email wishes me a "good evening," echoing our daily parting words when we are at our office. We had one meeting via Microsoft Teams that was awkward. Our weekly, 30-minute production meeting, conducted as one big conference call, lasted about four minutes.

My "work day" now is taken up with more television watching. I have seen every episode of Friends, Family Affair, Petticoat Junction and Father Knows Best. Some of them multiple times. I have scrolled through countless posts on Instagram and Twitter, adding mindless silly comments where I probably would have been better off keeping my thoughts to myself. I have drawn pictures of dead celebrities that I will add to my illustration blog in the coming weeks. I have watched several concerts on my phone. Performances by artists confined to their own homes, trying to release pent-up energy squashed by canceled tours. In the late afternoon, I take a daily walk with my wife. We respect the new normal of "social distancing" from our neighbors, but, as the days go on, there are fewer and fewer people from which to "social distance."

This time at home has a melancholy feel to it. I hate being non-productive. Sure, the are some Saturdays where I don't change out of my pajamas for the entire day. But that's what Saturdays are for. I don't like sitting day after day and doing almost nothing... especially when I am used to doing something. It reminds me of, a few years ago, when I lost my job. Every morning, after scouring and applying to every relevant job posting on the internet, I sat on my sofa and watched television. I rarely paid attention to what I was watching. And I hated it.

So, now I have a new job and some disease is disrupting my daily routine with no ending point in sight. We are trying to stay optimistic. We are trying to look forward to the day when we can go back to work and we are trying to brush away visions of Will Smith walking through a deserted city in I Am Legend.

At least I'm trying.

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