A couple of weeks ago I made pie crust dough and put the extra half in the freezer. You know what they say, Spaghetti sauce in the freezer is like money in the bank. Pie crust, too. My dough was a thick, flat round, ready to thaw and roll out.

Tonight I was eating ice cream, lots of it, and noticed that the Ziploc bag of pie crust had all but disappeared . . . the pie crust, that is, not the Ziploc. I've been robbed! There was one little crummy crooked piece left, about one inch by two inches. The shape reminded me of a piece from a puzzle I had as a kid, The United States of America. Not sure which state exactly, something like a rough-looking Illinois.

Such a mystery. Not exactly, my first thought was, DTD'S handiwork.

A little while later, DTD herself appears. She breezes in and I offer, Umm, I have a strange question for you. Her face instantly colored with "Not So Sure About This". I continue, Do you per slim haps know what happened to the pie crust that was in the freezer?

Giggle, giggle. Well, why did you stop with just the state of Illinois left?, here, take it. She says, It's GOOD (giggle, giggle). Illinois is still in the freezer, one last fattening yummy morsel for her next Facebook binge over here. Happy to oblige. Just glad I discovered this before I was in the middle of making chicken pot pie and ready to roll. Every time I buy chocolate chips to make cookies, she beats me to 'em, too.

Today was great. Jinny just received a book written by a man who was raised pretty much right on her property. He lived on a boat as a boy, right in her little bayou. But he lived there before the area was settled into Driftwood. The land was all Florida vegetation, undisturbed, along with the wildlife -- Razorback hogs, alligators, snakes and panthers (meanwhile, today, the Florida panther is in dire trouble, it's in the newspaper). The water was full of sharks and stingrays. There was phosphorus in the water and when the sharks bit at mullet or whatever, you saw dazzling light displays, some kind of electrical charge. Some folk ran boat tours to watch this phenomenon. But you didn't swim in the bayou at night, oh, no. Sandspurs were the rage, too.

We read Chapter One and I'm so afraid she's going to get her other helper to read Chapter Two, when I want to be the sole reader-out-loud of this fascinating story of my home town. Well, it's true.

Then I went with my friend and relatives to see the movie costumes display at the Florida International Museum. These displays highlighted period movies filmed in England from the last decade or so. I was floored by the intricacy and detail, labors of love, no doubt. A film we watched from a costumes' archives museum revealed the painstaking, time-consuming skills involved at repairing authentic clothing and creating new costumes. Looked down at my own plain T-shirt and thought, This completely disproves evolution, and at least I'm comfortable and not suffocating in a corset made of whale bones. Of course, if they tied me up in such a straight jacket (corset), I would die on the spot from claustrophobia. Good thing I'm not a period actress. We all agreed our favorite dress was a pinky peach gauzy number worn by Emma Rossum in Phantom of the Opera. It was exquisite. Had sparkles and rosebuds as decorations.

Boy, the modern day actresses are tall and thin. And the men are tall and broad-shouldered, etc. In the movie, on my TV screen, it's not life-size, so I was very impressed to see the true heights and sizes. I would feel like a squirty plump shrimp next to these glamor girls. One lady in our group is nice and slim and tall. SHE would fit in just fine. The elegant one.

Tip: Two big bowls of mint chocolate chip ice cream take away your two day headache and put the pep right back in your step. Presto.

Even plumper KEM