Borscht Belt

Tripped up to Middletown, CT, today, to put my hard-won Flash skills to use revamping the website of my college friend, Kate. She and her husband Noah live in an oldish farmhouse - well, I think it may have started life as such, but the farm is long gone. It's been almost a decade since my last visit, and the place has seen some revamping of its own in that time. Kate's father is one of those guys who buys properties, fixes them up, and then sells them, and Kate and her siblings inherited that trait.

In fact, the house is the one that Kate's father grew up in - much as Beadboard Manor is the ancestral Kopperman home.

Upon arrival, it was time to break my fast. Actually, it was about two hours past time to break my fast, since I got out of the house much later than I wanted - stupid, stupid work stuff - and got on the road just in time to hit rush hour traffic on both the Tappan Zee and the Merritt. This lateness was then compounded by a lack of clarity in my Google directions, sending me about five miles in the wrong direction off the exit. Still, as anyone who has ever fasted (like a day is much of a fast?) can tell you, after a point, you're not really hungry. I'm sure that you get really hungry a certain time after that point, but I doubt I've ever gone more than 26 hours without eating in my life, so I wouldn't know.

But I digress. Dinner was, as it turns out, homemade borscht. I think I may have had borscht one time before in my life, and that was when I was ten, visiting a colleague of my father's who had emigrated from the Soviet Union. That episode did not leave me with good feelings for borscht - maybe because it was served cold and I was uncomfortable, but most likely because I was ten and hated all things that weren't pizza or Cheerios. Tonight's borscht was good, served hot, and with a dollop of yogurt. Plus, there was buttered toast, which is never a bad thing.

Anyway, I have to do some sketching tonight for the next KPMG strip, so let's call this Rambler rambled. Have a good Friday.

D.