March | 2020 | Once Upon Your Prime

I somehow convinced myself that unless I wrote about the Coronavirus, (which I am so done with!) then nobody would be interested in my usual posts delving into life’s foibles. But just today I woke up adamantly declaring, “I don’t really care who reads me! If a typewriter clacks away in a deserted forest and there’s nobody around to hear the sound of a tree falling, would you still use Liquid Paper whiteout to cover up a typo?” Okay, I actually just woke up saying, “I don’t really care who reads me.” And the rest of that sentence I made up right now.

Long before WordPress blogs, I wrote only for myself. And I would never have kowtowed writing about the “hot topic of the day” just because it was the “in” thing to do. So today I’m going back to the mindset of writing for one important person . . . me.

Dear Diary,

After the WHO declared this virus a national pandemic, I tried to use my quirky humor to make this meme, which nobody understood or thought was the least bit funny. Basically all I succeeded in doing was dating myself.

That’s when I decided it was wrong of me to join the masses who try to capitalize on this crisis to get laughs. The other reason is — I was actually the first person to think up, “Ironically Passover is going to be cancelled this year due to an 11th plague.” But someone stole it from me and now they’re getting all the credit! I’m just not competitive enough for this “going viral” business, Diary.

Oh and guess what else? People are crafting personal protection out of bandanas, bras, and even diapers — so I feel terribly guilty my teenage daughter hoards face masks. Should I sneak into her bathroom and swipe them to donate to local hospitals? She has eighteen masks for oily skin and five with avocado, tea tree oil, and rosewater, which I think tightens pores?

And speaking of bras, as an overly endowed woman, I think “Flatten the Curve” would be a great tagline for a minimizer. I also thought of selling the concept of “Corona Ice-cream Cone-a” to Baskin Robbins so we can all measure our pandemic days using their 31 flavors, consuming a different one each night. Maybe then quarantining wouldn’t be such a Rocky Road? And how about “Corona Cologne-a” which could be an easy spray vaccine that smells nice too. People have always said I missed my calling in advertising/marketing.

So here’s a weird phenomenon. Every morning I wake up, go into my bathroom only to find the toilet seat in an upright position. I can only conclude I have a male ghost with a tiny bladder who’s been told to shelter in my place. This spook also eats all my Oreos, chips, and Hershey bars so he’s obviously switched from the Paleo Caveman diet to the Pandemeo Covidman diet.

And I’m so glad every single company I ever gave my email address to keeps me informed on a daily basis with detailed reports on how they and their employees handle Corona germs in their place of business. Yet I can’t get a single update from any of my six kids about whether or not they washed their hands before dinner.

My birthday came the same day the U.S. declared a national emergency and I figured that was oddly fitting. I consoled myself thinking about the entire country singing, “Happy Birthday” especially to me each time they scrubbed up.

Also I’m writing to Netflix and requesting they remove that message that pops up asking, “Are you STILL watching?” California is mandated to Stay Home . . . of course I’m still watching! But spare me the guilt. At least my refrigerator doesn’t inquire, “Are you still eating?”

And regarding guilt — taking a break from Facebook right now because I can’t log in there without someone reminding me that “Shakespeare wrote King Lear during a plague!” Big Deal. I’m working on Coroneo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopandemic, and The Taming of the Shrewd (Virus).

Till next time, Diary.

PS. I’m so proud that I’m sticking to my principles and writing for myself, not allowing the Coronavirus to infiltrate into my creative material.

I cannot stop making and eating the above pizza. But nobody else seems to give two shakes of parmesan cheese about it.

Well, at first my family was actually in a state of disbelief. Listen….

Me: Look! Your mother is having pizza.

Eldest Daughter: OMG you guys, c’mere! She really is!

Youngest Son: Yay! I thought this day would never come. Yum! We get pizza in the house again. Did Dominos deliver or did you pick that up from Papa Tony’s?

Me: Neither. I made it!

Eldest Son (eyes narrowing suspiciously) You made it? With what kind of crust? That weird cauliflower stuff you mentioned?

Now here I should interject that my entire family knows I don’t eat bread. Or grain. Or pasta. Or starch. Ever since I went on the Atkins’ Diet in 1999, carbs have been a huge phobia of mine. In fact I’m so terrified of them, a pizza is something I dress up as on Halloween night to frighten the neighborhood children. But you’d never find me consuming a slice.

Me: Nope. It’s not with caulifower. I got a new recipe book and it has ingredients for a pizza crust that’s 100% chicken!

Youngest Daughter: One of your Cro-Magnon Man recipe books?

Me: You mean Paleo, dear. But never mind that. Here! Everyone have a taste! Cuz it’s chicken!

They exited the kitchen so fast, you’d think I put on the Chicken Dance song and demanded they strut their stuff. Well what do kids know anyway? I think this healthy non-carb pizza is the best thing since sliced bread!

And I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, so I did the next best thing. I made a post about it and put it on Facebook.

This post sat there for days, becoming stale. No likes. Zero comments. Then slowly but surely people unceremoniously unfriended me. What??? It’s not like I suggested preparing a crust out of the Corona Virus. This was chicken, folks. No harm, no foul — excuse the pun.

Well I wasn’t going to let that put a damper on my enthusiasm. I made the recipe over and over. Then I got adventurous. I substituted pesto sauce for marinara. I used creamy Alfredo sauce another time. And because it was a chicken crust, I even tried it with BBQ sauce. Delicious! You see, Atkins never said I should avoid sauce. Just the stuff most people put sauce on. But CHICKEN. What a fantastic alternative!

Eventually I phoned a girlfriend to confide.

Me: I’m quite surprised and pretty disappointed that people aren’t embracing my healthier way of having pizza. Any idea why?

Friend: Honestly Stephanie, you’re taking chicken, smashing it down real thin, baking it with tomato sauce and cheese on top. When we order that in a restaurant, we call it Chicken Parmesan.

Me: But you can pick this up and hold it in your hand like actual pizza. Want to come over for dinner tonight and see for yourself? Hello? Are you there?

Maybe people who indulge in every day flour-crusted pizza just don’t see the big deal about a healthy chicken crusted pizza. But for me it’s a huge novelty in my culinary experience. And why should I stop at pizza crust? The sky is the limit now! I can make taco shells out of chicken. I can make burrito wraps out of chicken. I can make buns for hamburgers out of chicken. I can open a restaurant and call it “The Chicken Comes First! (Before The Egg)”

After I enthusiastically told my boyfriend how happy-go-clucky I was feeling over all of this chicken stuff and that I was making plans to go on the Shark Tank television show, he reminded me not to count my chickens before they’re hatched.

Hmmph. Everybody’s a comedian. So please leave me your best “Why did the Chicken Cross the Road?” joke in my comments section and also let me know if you want my innovative recipe. Somewhere out in cyberspace is another pizza deprived person who will surely compreHENd (see what I did there?) why chicken pizza crust is such big news.