a hot time in the old town

Last night as I was driving down our little one-way street looking for a parking place, I came face to face with a fire engine. Apparently someone in our building saw steam coming from the boiler room and called the fire department. You have to hand it to the firemen. It was a quick operation, but they pulled out all the stops, including a ladder to the roof for this false alarm. A little evening excitement.

is there an I Love Lucy reference for everything in life?

Just wondering. I know I bought the DVDs (for my daughter, really) and some episodes are fresh in my mind, but lately it seems like Lucy references are everywhere.

A friend posts some photos and video of adorable baby chicks and the episode where Lucy tries to raise chickens in the "country" (Connecticut) comes to mind.

There's a loud party going on upstairs and all I can think of is the "breaking the lease" episode end hope I don't end up wearing plaster like Fred and Ethel. I'm writing this late at night. I've been known to throw a loud party or two myself in a previous life, so can't get too annoyed. Ahhh...city life.

I've been spending part of my week off updating our genealogy on ancestry and scanning in some really old family photos and remembering Lucy's Scottish highland fling and her disturbing discovery about her roots. And I don't mean her brunette ones, but the "McGillicuddy Curse."

I guess it could be worse.

At least I'm not sunburned and trying to wear an extremely itchy designer wool suit, or getting locked in my walk-in freezer, or trapped on the subway with a trophy stuck on my head...

That bass sure is loud, though. That plaster's coming down...

wanted: Pied Piper

I saw the mouse tonight. Once out of the corner of my eye, as it ran behind the stove. I said "yikes," or something to that effect and scared the kid. Rats. Maybe not the best choice of words...

After my daughter was tucked in I saw it again, darting across the nook off the kitchen, in that confused, scared, vermin sort of circular dash, and then behind the living room couch, I think. I got a really good look at it this time. This whole situation is grossing me out and pissing me off and all I can hear in my head is DeNiro as Capone, "I want him dead, I want his family dead..."
Yeah, I know, that's terrible to think, let alone type, right? Well, imagine finding mouse poop in the bottom of your toaster after you made your kid an English muffin. Try falling asleep at night imagining this little creature in your bedroom, in your child's bedroom, sniffing around for food, maybe setting up camp in her dollhouse. And what if he has friends? Shudder.

Last week I had the building come up again to look for the entry and they finally found it, after pulling out the kitchen cabinets next to the stove. I lived in a fool's paradise for a few days thinking maybe we actually had solved the problem without anybody getting hurt. So they didn't find all the holes or they sealed him in with us. Either way, this has got to end soon, and I'm afraid it won't be pretty.

Years ago, when I lived in Brooklyn and I had just moved upstairs in the building to a nicer apartment, I had a dream on one of my first nights in the place that my cat, Baby, had brought a mouse to me and was rubbing it against my cheek. It was soft. When I got up that morning there was a dead mouse in the middle of the kitchen floor. Gulp. I never saw another mouse in the house after that.
A few years after that, when I was living in Manhattan with M we had a recurring mouse situation, which he tried to solve with steel wool around the sink, etc. One night I felt myself being shaken awake by M. I was lying on my back, spread eagle, and there was my cat Henry, playing with a mouse on top of the covers between my legs. Yikes. We saw him playing with another mouse on a chair another night. After that, no mouse problem.

Unfortunately, Baby is long gone and Henry is now too old to probably help with this situation. He has lived in "the country" for the past year at my cousin's because the kid and I needed to remove all of our allergy triggers. I've been told that not all cats are mousers, so it might not help to even get a "loaner" when all that might accomplish would be runny and itchy eyes and congestion. And still, the mouse. Hopefully, mouse singular. And even more hopefully, not our uninvited guest for much longer.

the Yiyo

When I lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn I used to stop on the way home from the subway at a little grocery store, called the Yiyo. You could pick up just about anything you might need, from the basics of milk, bread, and toilet paper, to other essentials such as roach motels, birthday candles and shoe polish. Ahhh, city life.


It seems no matter where I've lived since there has been a little store like this. Overpriced, for sure, compared to the bigger grocery store four or five more blocks away. But you are paying a premium for the convenience and also helping support a small business, as most of these stores are family-owned.

I think that in my head subconsciously they've all been Yiyos. The little store downstairs on Ludlow Street, N.Y., the "Manhattan Market" on Connecticut Avenue in D.C. Even the Cumberland Farms on Route 9 in Waretown, N.J., which we walked to when we were kids to pick up snacks like Hostess fruit pies, Dannon yogurts, Bravos or Slim Jims. I think that store is in its latest incarnation as a Wawa.

As I look around and see so many storefronts shuttered or empty I can't help but hope that the Yiyos won't be affected. It's tough times all over for sure, and I could probably pick up that can of Progresso soup cheaper somewhere else. But I wouldn't get to exchange pleasantries with the store owner. And my daughter wouldn't get the occasional free Twizzler slipped in the bag. It wouldn't be the Yiyo.