I'm Your Handyman
I had just been emailing my karaoke buddy, Goldilocks, who does a mean version of Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground, to ask if he wanted to go to the White Stripes concert at the Molson Amphitheatre in September — they played here last summer but it sold out before I could get tickets — and telling him how it's too bad I don't have friends in high places at the Amphitheatre who'll give me free tickets to shows, like I do at the Air Canada Centre, when an email arrived in my inbox from my FIHP at the ACC, asking if I wanted a couple of tickets to see James Taylor at the Amphitheatre. That night. Like, in three hours.
So it seems I do have an FIHP at the Amphitheatre. Or at least an FIHP who has an FIHP. Which is just as good, almost.
I live on the lake right across the marina from Ontario Place, so the Amphitheatre is a five minute walk, and a very lovely walk on a summer evening indeed, and the Amphitheatre itself, being, after all, an amphitheatre, is open-air, and so is even more lovely on a summer evening. And though I was much too young in the early seventies to have lost my virginity to James Taylor — it may have been The Buzzcocks, or possibly Gang Of Four, but I digress — and though it's not like I'm a big James Taylor fan, but I don't mind him, and the sort of mellowness he plays seemed a perfect fit for the weather that evening.
Besides, I had nothing else to do.
So I went alphabetically through my cell phone's address book, looking for someone who'd be available on three hours' notice to go to the show with me. I didn't mention it to Goldilocks because he doesn't seem like a James Taylor fan. Then again, I like both Connie Francis and Green Day, so one never knows.
First on the list was Lynne, who's one of my best friends that I haven't told you, Gentle Reader, about yet. She answered on the first ring, squealed when I told her I had tickets for James Taylor, then cried when I told her they were for tonight. She has friends visiting from out of town.
I tried Lana, but couldn't reach her. I caught Zee on her cell phone, but she was up north (by that I mean, north of the 401) with Darryl — yes, they're back together, though cautiously, and on eggshells.
Remember Janice? Well, last weekend Sara and her new husband — we have to refer to them exactly that way, Sara-and-her-new-husband, for at least a year — were in town and the four of us went out for brunch and to my surprise I've actually begun to like Janice, so we exchanged phone numbers and vowed to get together soon. I called her next but discovered that the number I'd programmed into my cell phone for her was incorrect.
I scrolled through the list. I made a couple more calls, but everyone was either unreachable or too far away to make it on such short notice.
Then I thought of Boz. Boz is a neighbour, one of the original owners in this complex, like me. He's either independently weathly or just doesn't work; I don't know; but he's around all the time, like me. Just the other day, in fact, I'd been outside, leaning against the one of the black posts that supports the chain which provides the only barrier between our property and the marina, smoking a cigarette and watching the baby ducks, when Boz wandered by and we got into a discussion about the fire escape stairs.
Yeah, well, it's interesting if you live here.
We bet a beer on the outcome of the proof of a point of disagreement — I said you couldn't get onto the roof from the fire escape stairs, he said you could — and I lost. So I owe him a beer.
Boz is 6'3" and awfully cute. Not that that has anything to do with anything. Hey, a bet's a bet, and I'm no welcher. And though I've vowed never to ask a man out on a date again as long as I live, after what happened with The Viking, I reasoned that this isn't the same thing, he's just a neighbour and I owe him a beer and making good on that debt at an outdoor concert that just happens to be a stone's throw from where we both live, well...
So I knocked on his door.
And was both relieved and disappointed that he wasn't home.
So I walk back out to the marina side of the building, and I'm looking down at my cell phone still scrolling for ideas but running out of them, when I look up and see a sailboat has pulled up to the boardwalk — which isn't a boardwalk at all, but a very wide concrete pedestrian walkway running along the west edge of our building &mdash and there are two men crouched on the boardwalk, one at each end of the boat, tying it off. As I approach, the one who's back is to me stands up, sees me, and says,
"Hi!"
It's Boz.
Did you ever see that episode of Will And Grace where Grace falls down and bumps her head, and when she looks up there's Harry Connick Jr. climbing down from a white horse to help her up?
I don't know why that went through my mind just then.
Anyway, Boz starts telling me about how he's crewing on this boat and that there's an international regatta going on this weekend at the National Yacht Club and they're racing in it. They'd just tied up for a minute to lower and fold the sail, then they have to get back to the slip and ready the boat for tomorrow.
I tell him that I'd just been looking for him, and I tell him why.
He can't, he says, and he looks kinda disappointed. He has some James Taylor albums. He likes James Taylor. I'm not sure that's a point in his favour, but now is not the time to ask about his feelings toward Green Day.
There'll be time for that when I pay him the beer I owe him.
* * *
In October, Sass will have an opportunity to do just that, but because she learned last winter that she sucks at asking guys out, she's going to obsess about it first, and ask for help. The next story in sequence is another chorus of Working for the Weekend, in which Postmodern Sass thanks her readers.
So it seems I do have an FIHP at the Amphitheatre. Or at least an FIHP who has an FIHP. Which is just as good, almost.
I live on the lake right across the marina from Ontario Place, so the Amphitheatre is a five minute walk, and a very lovely walk on a summer evening indeed, and the Amphitheatre itself, being, after all, an amphitheatre, is open-air, and so is even more lovely on a summer evening. And though I was much too young in the early seventies to have lost my virginity to James Taylor — it may have been The Buzzcocks, or possibly Gang Of Four, but I digress — and though it's not like I'm a big James Taylor fan, but I don't mind him, and the sort of mellowness he plays seemed a perfect fit for the weather that evening.
Besides, I had nothing else to do.
So I went alphabetically through my cell phone's address book, looking for someone who'd be available on three hours' notice to go to the show with me. I didn't mention it to Goldilocks because he doesn't seem like a James Taylor fan. Then again, I like both Connie Francis and Green Day, so one never knows.
First on the list was Lynne, who's one of my best friends that I haven't told you, Gentle Reader, about yet. She answered on the first ring, squealed when I told her I had tickets for James Taylor, then cried when I told her they were for tonight. She has friends visiting from out of town.
I tried Lana, but couldn't reach her. I caught Zee on her cell phone, but she was up north (by that I mean, north of the 401) with Darryl — yes, they're back together, though cautiously, and on eggshells.
Remember Janice? Well, last weekend Sara and her new husband — we have to refer to them exactly that way, Sara-and-her-new-husband, for at least a year — were in town and the four of us went out for brunch and to my surprise I've actually begun to like Janice, so we exchanged phone numbers and vowed to get together soon. I called her next but discovered that the number I'd programmed into my cell phone for her was incorrect.
I scrolled through the list. I made a couple more calls, but everyone was either unreachable or too far away to make it on such short notice.
Then I thought of Boz. Boz is a neighbour, one of the original owners in this complex, like me. He's either independently weathly or just doesn't work; I don't know; but he's around all the time, like me. Just the other day, in fact, I'd been outside, leaning against the one of the black posts that supports the chain which provides the only barrier between our property and the marina, smoking a cigarette and watching the baby ducks, when Boz wandered by and we got into a discussion about the fire escape stairs.
Yeah, well, it's interesting if you live here.
We bet a beer on the outcome of the proof of a point of disagreement — I said you couldn't get onto the roof from the fire escape stairs, he said you could — and I lost. So I owe him a beer.
Boz is 6'3" and awfully cute. Not that that has anything to do with anything. Hey, a bet's a bet, and I'm no welcher. And though I've vowed never to ask a man out on a date again as long as I live, after what happened with The Viking, I reasoned that this isn't the same thing, he's just a neighbour and I owe him a beer and making good on that debt at an outdoor concert that just happens to be a stone's throw from where we both live, well...
So I knocked on his door.
And was both relieved and disappointed that he wasn't home.
So I walk back out to the marina side of the building, and I'm looking down at my cell phone still scrolling for ideas but running out of them, when I look up and see a sailboat has pulled up to the boardwalk — which isn't a boardwalk at all, but a very wide concrete pedestrian walkway running along the west edge of our building &mdash and there are two men crouched on the boardwalk, one at each end of the boat, tying it off. As I approach, the one who's back is to me stands up, sees me, and says,
"Hi!"
It's Boz.
Did you ever see that episode of Will And Grace where Grace falls down and bumps her head, and when she looks up there's Harry Connick Jr. climbing down from a white horse to help her up?
I don't know why that went through my mind just then.
Anyway, Boz starts telling me about how he's crewing on this boat and that there's an international regatta going on this weekend at the National Yacht Club and they're racing in it. They'd just tied up for a minute to lower and fold the sail, then they have to get back to the slip and ready the boat for tomorrow.
I tell him that I'd just been looking for him, and I tell him why.
He can't, he says, and he looks kinda disappointed. He has some James Taylor albums. He likes James Taylor. I'm not sure that's a point in his favour, but now is not the time to ask about his feelings toward Green Day.
There'll be time for that when I pay him the beer I owe him.
In October, Sass will have an opportunity to do just that, but because she learned last winter that she sucks at asking guys out, she's going to obsess about it first, and ask for help. The next story in sequence is another chorus of Working for the Weekend, in which Postmodern Sass thanks her readers.
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