It’s May. Are you excited? I am.
Here in central Maine, the COVID-19 numbers may be climbing, but so are your spirits. Embrace them. We’ve had the first 80-degree day. Grab a rake.
This morning at 1:34, I awoke from a good night’s sleep, took off my slumber mask, put on my K95 special and groped my way to the bathroom.
Yeah, I sleep in a mask. I know, I’m covered with bruises from bumping into doors, and sometimes I drop my toothbrush into the toilet.
Why? Because I sleep with the windows wide open now — you never know what new variant is hanging in the air, you know what I’m saying to you here?
If you’re in town from Fairfield, Winslow, Oakland or Albion, watch your step: those curbs are higher than around your streets.
Wow! Look at that. The $18 million Paul J. Schupf Art Center is shaping up. Go ahead, take a selfie.
Oh, oh. Former Gov. Paul LePage has been spotted here and there around town, gathering votes like the flowers of May, salivating over plans to unthrone the sweet Janet Mills. Is anybody taking the temperatures of those candidates? Seriously.
Let me add that I’m still groggy from watching that annual White House Correspondents’ Association bacchanal at the big Hilton Hotel in Washington this past week, jammed with 2,600 scribes, 2,600 backroom dealers and whistleblowers.
Wasn’t it fun to see our favorite journalists and politicians, joyfully unmasked, kissing, hugging, French-kissing old friends, and dining on petite filet, roasted sea bass and wild mushroom risotto?
We’re told that all of the 2,600 were “fully vaccinated and soaked in boosters.”
But how about those hundreds of “after” parties all over town, where masks and caution were left at the curb, and party hats and secrets littered the carpets?
It’s no secret that Amy Calder and I were all ready to take a spirit flight down there, but wouldn’t you know, the cleaners misplaced my Armani tux and Amy’s stunning black gown.
Our President Joe, in an abundance of caution, skipped all of the grub, but he’s Irish, you know, and I’m betting he swallowed a hit or two of something before leaving the men’s room. Those boosters can make a fella thirsty, I can tell you.
Oh, I understand the mask dump, can’t you? How can anyone drink four or five martinis after a dinner with a K95 covering their lips?
Come to think of it, I would forgo a mask to have petite filet and five martinis. Send me in, coach.
But that’s all over now. Things are bustling in our nation’s capital this week. Dr. Jill Biden and the completely-vaccinated-secretary-of-state-yet-infected Antony Blinken, are back from Ukraine, as is the recovering-from-COVID-19 Nancy Pelosi. But along with tanks and rockets, we’re sending our most secret weapons: our celebrities.
It’s like the Golden Globes in Kyiv. Angelina Jolie, without her 79 kids; Bono; Sean Penn, who practically lives there.
The real leak out of SCOTUS? Justices Sam Alito and Amy Coney Barrett are prepping for the “Dancing With the Stars” debut. You didn’t hear it from me.
J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.
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