Dead? I hope not!

New Roommate went camping this weekend, with family. New Roommate hasn't come home yet. New Roommate's car is in front of the house and hasn't moved.

Hrm. Mystery.

******
Mystery...SOLVED! 2-day camping trip. Not just an overnight. It smells like campfire inside here now. :-)

Grumble

My blood tests got lost. Neither the doc's office nor the lab has any idea where they are. I'm too confused to make any sense of what to do about it.

Stupid Drought. Stupid bears.

This just made me cry. Damnit.

Possum Living

Do you want to get out of the rat race but not drop out? Do you want to live a life of leisure without worry or guilt? If your answer is yes, Dolly Freed will show you how to live well without a job and without working very hard.

In 1978, 19-year old Dolly Freed penned Possum Living: How to live well without a job and with (almost) no money, an irreverent, saucy how-to guide to simple living, urban style.

It's the most bizarre, yet captivating, thing I've read in years. I've been coming back to it every few months for the last year or so. I think that she's a certified whackjob. But I still like her.

She was in a movie at about the same time. Janet Maslin apparently reviewed it in her early days at the Times.

Fast forward thirty years, and Ms. Freed seems to have dropped off the planet.

I emailed the company in NY who sell the movie, to see if they've ever heard from or about her. I like a good mystery.

Status Update and (fever?) dreams.

So. I'm feeling a lot better than I was late last week. I didn't sleep during the day on Friday OR yesterday, for example.

But I'm not better.

Today I managed to get up early (didn't everyone?), take a walk to a new bakery, majorly clean the kitchen, do a load of laundry, make a really fantastic tomato sauce from the last few pounds of tomatoes I was hoarding, and then drop off the rent checks.

I picked up more Gatorade at el rey de la comida (It's been on sale. I've had about 10 liters of the stuff this week), and also bought some pantry essentials I was somehow lacking. I had meatballs to make! Cookies to bake!

By then it was noon. And I was shaky, in a cold sweat, and scared. I dropped all the groceries on the counter, and got in bed. I read for a bit, and then slept the sleep of the freezing cold and dead.

I've been having tummy issues today, so the Gatorade is more important than ever. Jesus this is annoying. It's now been a week.

I'm going to try to work from home tomorrow. Too much to do, and I feel good 1/2 the time. I just don't want to have to go in to work only to need to collapse.

******
I dreamed last night that I found Dave Neuhaus, living in GR. He had changed his name to something vaguely Arabic sounding (Abdul Auk, I believe), and had become concertmaster (despite not playing violin) of some orchestra. He was sharing offices with another guy I knew back in the day, named Carl Aronson*. Dave was wearing a turban, and for some reason I had to then watch a fancy slide show of his different looks.

*Carl was a Jew for Jesus, if I recall correctly, and played a mean trumpet. We were in a wind ensemble together once (Playing horn allows you to do elite things like this even when you kind of suck in comparison to the others. Nobody plays horn, so they're at your mercy.), and played something from Handel's Water Music. The ensemble kicked ass.

Gwen Frostic and Bronner's Christmas Wonderland, too.

Pinky, in addition to you being just, well, COOL, I love that we share roots. We have a bond that most people just will never understand, and I appreciate it.

FRAGELS, PEOPLE!

You only WISH you had access to these fantastic lumps of hot, sweet, chewy bits of happiness.

From here:

fragel

(thing) by Lucy-S (5.4 hr) (print)

?

Fri Jun 21 2002 at 20:11:50

A fragel ("FRAY-gul") is a a bagel that, instead of being baked, is deep-fried in light oil and then rolled in sugar and cinnamon.

They are soft and sweet and densely chewy. They taste like a cross between a bagel and a doughnut, and have far more calories than the former but are healthier than the latter. They are probably at least as fattening as boardwalk fries, and they are deeply yummy.

As far as I know fragels are solely a regional Michigan delicacy. I first encountered fragels when I was in East Lansing, MI for the Clarion workshop. East Lansing is evidently an enormous market for all manner of exotic bagels due to the huge college student population. One of the Clarionites, a native Michiganer, came in one morning with a big brown paper grocery bag mottled with telltale grease spots. A delicious aroma filled the room the moment he opened the bag. He passed the fresh-fried goodness around the room, and five pounds of fragels disappeared in about as many minutes.

I have searched the Midwest for bagel shops that offer fragels, but I have been met with nothing but blank looks when I've asked about them. I'm amazed no one else makes them -- it's surely not out of bagel purism, because real water bagels are not what most bagel joints offer.

If you visit Michigan, your best bet for finding fragels is to seek out a regional chain called Bagel Fragel that has locations in Lansing/East Lansing and Ann Arbor.

Thank you Pinky!

Durham Pizza

I. Want. Good. Pizza. Now.

Where can I get it around here? I've been having crappity pizza the times I've had it of late*, and that's just no good at all.

I'm thinking that Pizza Palace is in my future. I had some of that with Elrond a couple of months ago, and mmmmmmmmmmmm it was good. But I'd have to wait until probably 5 p.m. tonight. I don't know if I have that kind of stamina.

Alternately, I've heard good things about Randy's. But I'm not sure the one near me has the same owners as the one I've been to before. That one, which I tried a few years ago when hanging with my boy Gee one day, was over in Woodcroft, kind of by City Beverage. It was fab, too.

Here are the qualities that are coming to mind that define a fantastic pizza as I would like to eat it right now.

1) Thin crust that is slimy under the sauce, but crunchy and slightly burned on the bottom. Not soggy.
2) Thin, almost watery sauce. Not sweet, savory. Even salty, perhaps.
3) Cheese that is gaggy it's so melted. And that is not very good once it's cool. And that tends to slip around a lot if you've tried to move the pizza while it's too hot.

Any suggestions?

p.s. I am JUST barely able to leave the house for an hour or so. However, I am still exhausted and BORED. BORED!!!! NOTHING TO READ!

NOM NOM NOM NOM PIZZA!




*It's because it's been work-related CRAP.