"I'm young and healthy..."
“…and you’ve got charms…”
…is what was being sung in my head when I woke up this morning. That’s a song from 42nd Street, originally a 1933 Broadway musical which was revived in 1980, and played at the newly renovated National Theatre in Washington when I lived there a few years later. I must have watched it 50 times or more; it played for months. The Executive Office was at the front of the theatre at the mezzanine level, a few steps away from the back of the house. President Reagan was at opening night, and the Secret Service first roved through the building with their stinky bomb-sniffing dogs. I had just started working there earlier in the week, and was too petrified to watch the show, but as months went by and I settled in, I watched again and again - from the “President’s box” - and gave away free box tickets, which made me quite popular at the marina, even though they’re crummy seats, sight-line wise.
This morning, I knew I’d been dreaming before I woke up. In the past few years, I have been less able to recall my dreams upon waking. Unless it turns out to be creepy, I would like - somehow - to have my dreams recorded so I could replay them. But I think there was a movie starring Robin Williams that included something along those lines, and it was quite creepy.
I think you all know that housekeeping is not my strong suit. I’m not sure I even have a strong suit anymore, although I can now become strongly obsessed with something I can’t do anything about without help from, say law enforcement or brave neighbors.
F’rinstance, there’s a drug user/dealer living across the street. The people renting to her apparently do not think this is a problem. Having worked for six years at the local substance abuse clinic, I do. I believe they may think they are helping her in recovery. They may even be getting paid to do so (I wouldn’t be surprised, since years ago the NC government paid some consultant $100,000 to initiate the privatization of community mental health). In my not-so-humble-opinion, people in recovery need to be in safe housing staffed by professionals, not housed in random residential areas by well-meaning but not professional people. Addicts are notoriously manipulative. So, that’s my latest obsession - ridding the neighborhood of the like.
Ironically, when I moved into this house 20 years ago, that same house across the street was owned by a nice, but somewhat creepy man who liked to watch me doing yardwork, sitting in his underwear in a white plastic lawn chair directly across from my front sidewalk. That was bad enough, but turned out his son was manufacturing meth in the basement apartment. I recognized from the SA clinic some of his customers. Sonny moved to Florida to escape prosecution and later died there.
So, this morning I decided to have bacon (my second favorite food group, after butter). However, a couple of weeks ago, I tried to make kettle corn in my popper and really messed up the stove top. (Advice: the closest you can come is to mix salt with sugar to sprinkle on your buttered popcorn. Do not pop the corn with the mixture already in the popper with the oil; you will be sorry and it doesn’t taste any better that way.)
I’d been able to ignore the mess on the stovetop until this morning. I woke up about 9:30 with bacon on my mind. (I had half a pack left over from a few weeks ago when my regular boarder dog made a break for freedom as I opened the gate. She always, always takes off up the street, cuts down my neighbor’s back yard, and into the field behind my house. Always. I had cut open the new package of bacon and headed down the driveway out back. We got there about the same time, and though I probably could have just grabbed her collar and slipped the leash on, I held out the package of bacon. She vacuumed half of it into her mouth, and home we went.)
While retrieving her, I did get to meet the guy who’s doing a fabulous job rehabbing the “murder house,” as we around here still call it. The slumlord who used to own it and the house next to it is gone, and there are no more druggies in either house, thankfully. For what should have long ago been designated and protected as an historic neighborhood, we seem to have had an overabundant history of criminals and drug addicts here.
It was 1:30 today before I finished cleaning the stovetop. But I’m young (compared to some of you) and healthy (compared to some of you) so I’m going to tapdance my way through the rest of the chores. Or take a nap.
xox
Lucy