Time Fries! (24 page)
Authors: Fay Jacobs
Well, the rumors are flying!
Friends here in town and even down south have been peppered with calls. “Are Fay and Bonnie moving?” “Are they running away in the RV?” “Are they going to live at Jellystone Park with Yogi Bear?” I guess they saw the FOR SALE sign on our weed-riddled lawn.
NO!!! We are NOT leaving Rehoboth. That would break our hearts. But the rumor mill has been churning ever since we began a hunt for the perfect retirement dwelling. You know what they say in this townâdon't worry if you don't know what you're doing, someone else will. Or guess, fabricate, or surmise. So here's the real story.
Where once we (the Royal WE) enjoyed gunning our pet riding mower over turf on the homestead, we no longer feel the thrill. We do feel the sciatica. We are sick of paying to open and close the watering system, when we could be using those funds at our favorite watering hole. Personally, we resent spending our martini money on mulch.
So recently, we woke up, smelled the Starbucks, and saw the forest for the trees. Trees, I might add, we lovingly planted in 1999 when this place was the little house on the prairie. By this time they're a threat to the roof. So after 14 years of mulching, pruning, watering, feeding, and otherwise giving aid and comfort to the greenery, I had to kill them. It was enough to make me want to chug Round-Up.
And we got sick of spending the equivalent of several gourmet dinners just to recoat the driveway every year. Likewise money spent on crawl space ventilation and weed whacker string. Uncle!!! So it's time to put yard work and exterior maintenance out to somebody else's pasture. We're going to downsize, or as the PR flaks say, “rightsize.” We have whacked our last weed.
It's been 18 years since we first docked in Dewey in our floating home. News of our arrival was detailed in the pages of
Letters from CAMP Rehoboth
, and every move we've made since then has been documented there as well. From the boat to a condo, then a second condo and finally to our house in the “suburbs” of Rehoboth. Then came the RV as an additional guest cottage.
So it's time for the next chapter. For a brief shining moment we considered coming full circle, renting a slip in Dewey and living aboard a boat again. But we came to our senses. Leaping on and off a rocking boat on a windy night was a challenge when we were in our forties, but now we'd have to line the dock with granny grab bars and still risk an occasional cold bath. Besides, the gentle roll of the boat that used to lull us to sleep, will now just exacerbate the reflux. The final nail in the gangplank was picturing 3 a.m. pee breaks, perched on a moving target. No thanks.
Okay, so where could we live, keep the trappings and privacy of a single family home but avoid mowing and mulching? After much mulling and financial planning, we decided to sell our house and buy a manufactured home. A linear estate. A mobile home that stays put. Once we sell our house, we will be moving to a beautiful mobile resort community, still here in Rehoboth Beach.
Oh, I know the jokes. You might be trailer trash if: the Salvation Army declines your furniture; you offer to give someone the shirt off your back and they don't want it; you have the local taxidermist on speed dial; you come back from the dump with more than you took; or you have a complete set of salad bowls and they all say “Cool Whip” on the side.
Well, the truth is, you may be ripe for a manufactured home if you want a place where your annual tax bill is lower than dinner for two (seriously); your house is registered at the DMV (honest); there are gorgeous cherry trees and pretty landscaping all over and you don't have to mow it, mulch it or feed it; you have a pool and exercise room without needing a gym
membership; and finally, you can lock the door and travel without a care in the world.
So that's the plan. Our new home will be Base Camp Rehoboth so we can enjoy the beautiful months here at home and travel in the RV when there's ice and snow on the boardwalk.
Not that the transition will be easy. The new place is tiny. The office where columns like this will be written is so small (how small is it?) you need to go out in the hall to change your mind; you put a key in the door lock and break a window; you trade your desktop computer for a laptop. And for that matter, does anybody reading this want a gorgeous roll top desk? It won't fit through the door.
So the task before us, unlike the new house, is huge. We have to downsize; de-accessorize and pick our way through 14 years of accumulated possessions. How did we collect all this? The Mother of All Yard Sales (Part I) will be next week on our driveway. By then we will have made painful decisions about what to keep and what to let go.
The next great adventure begins. In the meantime, you might be manufactured home material if you want a house where you can party on and let the good times roll without using all your disposable income for yard waste bags shredded mulch. I'm ready.
About the only thing associated with walking I haven't done lately is taken a long walk off a short pier. But, I suspect I'll get to that come August.
In a completely uncharacteristic move, I have taken up walking for health. I walk between one and two miles a day and oddly enough, I like it. Since January I haven't missed a day.
Now that also might have something to do with my diet and exercise-obsessed best friend who will verbally eviscerate me if I skip a day. But frankly, scary as that prospect is, and as oxymoronic as this may sound, I enjoy the exercise.
Not that it's been easy. At first, I dutifully schlepped along with my mile mentor and got pains in my shins, medically known as shin splits. That's positively the only thing I have ever had in common with a ballerina. Trust me.
Then I had to build up my stamina. For a person who got winded walking to the mail box, this was a chore. Initially, I only had enough air to either walk or talk, not both. Consequently, I schlepped along quietly, which frightened the drill sergeant beside me. Me not talking is like me not breathing. But luckily, I soon built up to walking and grumbling at the same time. Much better. Walking and chewing gum was still in the future.
“It's time you got a pedometer,” announced my relentless self-appointed guru.
“Why?”
“So you can know exactly how many tenths of a mile you've been complaining.”
Okay, so I bought the pedometer. The directions said I could attach it to my belt, pocket or shoe laces. Shoe laces seemed easy.
Days went by and I consistently got credit for far more miles than I walked. What the heck? It wasn't until I was watching television one night and looked down to realize that
a shoe is really not the proper place for a pedometer if you have restless leg syndrome. I was eating popcorn and watching
Mad Men
and the pedometer thought I was doing a 5K.
A person's weight and the distance you walk determine the calories you burn from walking. A rule of thumb is 100 calories burned per mile for somebody my weight. But all I have to do is eat a cookie the size of my thumb and there goes the benefit. For last week's dinner at Rehoboth's famed Blue Moon Restaurant penance is an extra 27 miles.
So obviously, watching your calories goes hand in hand with walking for weight loss. I've been watching my calories for yearsâwatching them go directly into my mouth without actually bothering to count them. Now, I'm a little more attentive. While it's hard to crave a Hershey Bar when you know you have to walk to Virginia to burn it off, sadly I can still do it.
Since my walk on the wild side began, I have strolled two miles on a Florida beach, twenty blocks at a time in Manhattan, and frequently the two miles up and back on the Rehoboth Boardwalk. I try to walk early in the morning, before the Funnel Cake place has time to open.
Once, doing my mile on a trip to Maryland, I came to understand how lucky we are not to have a measurable hill in all of Delaware. The same distance I breeze through at home is like climbing Kilimanjaro there. A Sherpa with oxygen tanks and Gatorade would have helped.
On most days I take an iPod along but I have to be careful. Anything with a disco beat has me walking and pointing like John Travolta in
Saturday Night Fever
. Persons not hearing the music see this and think I have imaginary cooties. Show tunes are even worse. It's amazing how frightened people can become seeing somebody exhibiting Ethel Merman body language. Listening to
Cats
could get me picked up by animal control.
Actually, one day last spring it was a very good thing I was in fighting trim for a walk. I was near the boardwalk enjoying a
martini (96 calories) when it started to rain. Then pour. Then deluge. I had to be at the Convention Center in twenty minutes and, having no raincoat or umbrella, my only choice seemed like arriving wet and wild and not in a good way.
With no let-up in sight, I found a large plastic trash bag, cut neck and arm holes and slipped it on like a mu-mu. A pal grabbed another bag for my head, wrapping me in a Gloria Swanson,
Sunset Boulevard
turban. I gulped the rest of my vodka and headed out.
Turbaned and ziplocked, a veritable Glad bag lady, I marched down the street, ignoring mobs of rain-coated tourists staring and laughing. Thanks to my daily walking regimen, my trip in Hefty Bag chic took less time than it might have, eliminating humiliation exposure. I arrived high
and
dry.
So this walking thing has its benefits. I'm losing weight, listening to more music and breathing easier. Now that I've made deadline with this article, I'm off to walk. Besides, Cruela the Walker will be calling any minute to see how I've done today. I can't wait to tell her I've learned to walk and chew gum. Progress.
T
HE
T
ONY
A
WARDS
, UP C
LOSE AND
P
ERSONAL
“Cast to your opening positions.”
The booming voice comes over the sound system at 9:55 a.m. I'm sitting halfway back in the orchestraâwhich, considering this is the enormous art deco cavern that is Radio City Music Hall, is a considerable distance from the stage.
Around me hover TV cameras, boom operators, sound engineers, and a two-story revolving crane hoisting a camera to catch celebrities in their seats and winners coming down the aisles. This is dress rehearsal for the 67th Annual Tony Awards, and I'm fascinated by every single thing happening around me.
I last went to the Tony Awards in 1971 for the 25th Anniversary of the Tonys. I was just out of college, having scored tickets with a friend. Apparently, it hadn't been a banner year on Broadway because the entire show featured classic performances from the recent Golden Era of musicals. I saw Yul Brynner do a scene from
The King and I
, Carol Channing sing from
Hello, Dolly
!, and the highlight for me, Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur reprise “Bosom Buddies” from
Mame
.
Now it's more than 40 years later, and thanks to a friend who knows the producer, I'm back at the Tonys. Well, the dress rehearsal, which, I know will be even more interesting than the real thing.
“We will be using all effects, all elevators, everything. This is dress rehearsal. 45 secondsâ¦stand by⦔
And there's Neil Patrick Harris, launching into one of the most spectacular opening numbers ever, complete with circus performers from
Pippin
, newspaper boys from
Newsies
, orphans from
Annie
, and great big, glorious drag queens from
Kinky Boots
. There are lyrics about Billy Porter's ass, drag queens, and Broadway being swarmed by child actors,
proving once again, that the Tonys are indeed the gay Super Bowl. Neil Patrick Harris' opening number last year was “The Tonysânot just for gays anymore!” but frankly who are we kidding? The show is gay, gay, gay.
All of the nominees and celebrity ticket-holders are still in bed on this Sunday morning in New York, while stand-ins hold their assigned seats so cameras can practice pick-ups. Stand-in actors also play presenters, filling in for the likes of Tom Hanks and Cuba Gooding, Jr.
“And the winner isâFOR THIS REHEARSAL ONLY⦔
The stand-ins announce random names, and give phony speeches, thanking their mothers, agents, and lovers, some pausing to make a case to the audience for going to Broadway shows early and often. One handsome actor, standing in for a phony
Kinky Boots
winner (although I sit here hoping
Kinky Boots
will take it tonight) said, “I'd like to have one of those cute
Newsie
boys to take home.”
We all laugh. By all, I mean me and Bonnie and the hundred or so gay men sprinkled throughout the orchestra. There are a smattering of straight couples, obviously in the business, and a few hapless much-older straight men on the arms of well-dressed women who have had lots of “work done.” But seriously, the crowd is overwhelmingly, fantastically gay.
After suffering though a big number from the musical
Matilda
, which by the way I hated, although the critics raved, I get to see Jane Lynch gleefully belt out a number from
Annie
. The big musical number from
Pippin
shows that the 1970s musical has been re-imagined with acrobats, magic acts, and jugglers.
Pippin du Soleil
.
Jessie Tyler Ferguson shows up to rehearse his lines, asking for the correct pronunciation of one of the nominee's names. “Glad I came to rehearse,” he says.
Actually, as the hour gets later, more celebrities show up to try out their presenter speeches, including some casually dressed prosâSally Field, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, Matthew Morrison, and more. Even the dog from
Annie
makes
an appearance, providing our emcee with a face full of dog slobber.
The show proceeds in real time, with breaks for commercials where techies scramble to get the scenery ready for the big musical numbers. One or two set pieces slide on stage, but the backgrounds are projections. Clever!
“Back in five seconds, can we have some applause please?” We obey.
The boom camera sweeps the gigantic theatre like a graceful giraffe, the base of its neck sporting weights to keep it grounded. Uh-Oh, there's a glitch! The curtain isn't in place.
“Did you wake up this morning and wonder why we have a dress rehearsal? This is why,” quips Neil Patrick Harris. A hundred stagehands come running and fussing and rigging.
Then comes the most moving part of the rehearsal. The words “In Memoriam” appear on an upstage screen and Cyndi Lauper and her band file on to do a sweet rendition of “True Colors” with photos and names appearing behind them.
Cyndi's up for a Tony for best music and lyrics for
Kinky Boots
. I imagine she's nervous. But, her performance is poignant and perfect.
Two last “winners” for this rehearsal only come up on stage, mumble their faux appreciation and the sparkling emcee says, “That's it folks!!! Goodnight.”
What? No closing number??? Guess not. And out we go.
By 6:30 p.m., after a late lunch at Carnegie Deli, a walk through the Village, and checking in at the Chelsea Pines Inn, we go to the owner's suite at the hotel, where we've been invited to watch the Tonys. The hotel owner, if you have not heard this story, is my former high school prom date, now the proprietor of the number two B&B in NYC, according to Trip Advisor. The hotel is gorgeous, his apartment there, magnificent. And he's still as adorable as ever, I might add.
From the ceiling comes a huge movie screen projecting the CBS annual
Tony Awards
presentation. There's the
opening number, compete with close-ups, brought to life by those big boom cameras.
Nathan Lane, David Hyde Pierce, and Harvey Fierstein sit where their doubles had been; Cuba Gooding, Jr., stumbles over the names of the nominees because he slept in this morning; smooth, professional readings rise from Patti LuPone and Sally Field; Tom Hanks smiles from his seat, held that morning by an exuberant older woman; everything goes like clockwork.
Jokes which fell flat this morning are gone; a couple of awkward presenter's comments are MIA, and damn, if that dog from
Annie
didn't slobber on cue again for the real show.
And this time the awards are not for this rehearsal only.
Kinky Boots
dominates with six Awards, including Cyndi Lauper for her words and music;
Matilda
doesn't win for Best Musical (Yay!) and
Kinky Boots
does. Cecily Tyson is crowned Best Actress; the cast of
Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe
does well, and
Pippin
shines in the revival category.
But wait! There IS a closing number. Neil Patrick Harris manages to sing enormously clever lyrics about all the winners! They must have written the number featuring every single possibility, frantically crossing out non-winners from the wings. That really IS show business! It was a tongue-twisting triumph of a closing number, adding to the glorious production. I loved every single minute.
I think I'll wait less than 40 years to go back.
