Only Heaven Knows [part II - fin]
Continued from part I
I met Angela two years ago, and during our first conversation she told me she was looking for a husband. Most women who haven't already found one are, I've found, though they're rarely so ingenuous. Too, I've found, most women who've found, then lost one, are in no hurry to find another.
Men are a lot of work, you see.
When Angela goes on dates — and she goes on a lot of dates — she evaluates each experience, each man, on the husband scale.
"Do you tell them that's what you're doing?" I asked her.
"No, but I ask them if they want to be married one day, and if they want children," she replied.
Angela doesn't go on many second dates.
The first time I was at her place for dinner I noticed her books are all of the category the bookstores call "self help" and "new age," and I call "crap." There are plaqued posters in her bathrooms and hallways, displaying such vaguely ESL-sounding homilies as
Reminds me of that book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten.
Angela is a Life Coach, you see. I'm required to state her designation in capitals because that's what it says on her business card. She's been trained by Landmark Education, an organization that is best described as scientology meets Amway, because, from what I've seen, she gives them all her money and she invites her friends to indoctrination meetings thinly veiled as social functions.
Like the party she invited me to last spring, just before she left to spend the summer taking an intensive Landmark "course" in San Francisco. Tuition for that one was $10,000. U.S., mind you. Plus she had to live there for six months on her own dime.
There was a man named Dan at this party, who gave a short extemporaneous speech about "the whales" — no particular whales in any particular part of the world; no description of a specific plight threatening them. Just whales in general. "We have to save the whales," implored Dan.
And just about everyone at the party gave him a cheque.
Dan has something to do with Landmark, though what, exactly, was never made clear. Ever talk to someone who does Amway? Like that.
As the party wound down, Angela solemnly handed each departing guest a slip of paper, with the bold heading, "Pass this on to people you know that have small children and pets." She encouraged us to read it, and if we didn't have pets ourselves, to make sure to tell those we know who do. She said she was very worried about her own two cats.
A quick glance at the paper told me it was one of those email-circulated urban legends, but I folded it and put it in my pocket, and told her I'd be sure to read it later. I did. It was that ridiculous story about the Swiffer Wetjet that's been circulating since 1999.
What Angela does, to be able to afford to live in the end-unit townhouse in our building, the one with the west-facing windows, overlooking the marina, only heaven knows.
* * *
"I have Boz's number," I tell Angela as she pours us a third glass of Amarone Della Valpolicella.
"What do you think, Leo," says Angela, addressing her Persian cat. "Do you want to say goodbye to Boz before we leave?" Then, to me, "OK, I call him."
"What does Daphne think?" I asked, referring to Leo's companion, Angela's other cat.
"She do whatever Leo tell her. She knows who is the boss in the relationship."
When Boz arrives, Angela asks him if he can fix the fireplace. I'd already tried, but couldn't get the pilot light to stay lit. It's a gas fireplace, and the pilot is supposed to be on all the time, even when the switch to power the flame up is off, but Angela turned it off somehow at the beginning of the summer, and now she doesn't know how to get it going again.
When I say Angela turned it off what I really mean is, she must have had someone turn it off for her. Angela is old world Italian; the kind of woman who needs a man to do everything for her. I love her to death, don't get me wrong, but I doubt she can work a can opener without help.
Boz kneels in front of the fireplace and removes the panel. I sit on the floor beside him and show him how I tried to restart the pilot light. Together, we fiddle with Angela's knobs for a while.
"It's no use," says Boz, finally. "Unless there's a breaker off, and it's just not getting electricity to start up. But I think she's going to have to call Enbridge for service."
"Why don't we check the breaker box, just to be sure?" I suggest.
The breaker box is inside the closet in the small guest room at the end of the hall. As we walk toward it, Boz explains to me how circuit breakers work, and I pretend I don't know.
Maybe there's something to that old world mien.
Angela has ushered us into the room but now leaves us, and half closes the door. Boz's back is to her; he's already scrutinizing circuits, so he doesn't see her glare at me and toss her head in his direction, giving the globally understood signal for go for it.
"You see here," Boz is indicating one of the circuit breaker switches, "This is the one that controls the power to the fireplace."
I lean in for a better look. "Mmn hmn, yes."
"See how it's aligned with all the others? That means it's working. If the cicuit had blown, it would be flipped the other way, like this."
He flips the breaker switch off, then back on, to show me.
Gentle Reader, I don't mind telling you, but no way am I going to tell Boz, that a few years back I helped my cousins Markus and Nate rewire the basement and install a new breaker panel in my grandmother's house.
"So, Boz," I say, all cool-as-a-cucumber and casual-like, "That hockey game I mentioned to you, the Boston game, is next Monday. Would you like to go?"
He is so engrossed in the breaker box I'm not sure he heard me.
"I don't think I can. I've got so much going on the next couple of weeks..."
And he does go on, and tells me about a proposal he's writing, and how he may have to go out of town for a few days. He's all business, that Boz. And then he says:
"But that's not to say that we won't still go out on the boat."
Boz has a sailboat, and he's been promising me since July that he'd take me out on it.
* * *
I went to the hockey game, Boston at Toronto, that Monday night, with my cousin Markus. He's my favourite cousin for so many reasons, not the least of which is he loves hockey and we have the same taste in music. But more to the point today, he's closest to my age and he's a member of that other species.
So I told him about Boz.
"What do you think?" I asked Markus.
He nodded knowingly, then said, "Guys with boats are like that."
* * *
In the next story, Sass is procrastinating again. But stay tuned: Angela is about to make a reprise. And it turns out Markus was wrong about Boz. Still, it's wonderful to has a cousin who is knowledgeable about certain things, like, say, building and repairing fireplaces, for those occasions when one spends a crazy weekend with a hot chef and ends up causing damage to one's aunt's home.
I met Angela two years ago, and during our first conversation she told me she was looking for a husband. Most women who haven't already found one are, I've found, though they're rarely so ingenuous. Too, I've found, most women who've found, then lost one, are in no hurry to find another.
Men are a lot of work, you see.
When Angela goes on dates — and she goes on a lot of dates — she evaluates each experience, each man, on the husband scale.
"Do you tell them that's what you're doing?" I asked her.
"No, but I ask them if they want to be married one day, and if they want children," she replied.
Angela doesn't go on many second dates.
The first time I was at her place for dinner I noticed her books are all of the category the bookstores call "self help" and "new age," and I call "crap." There are plaqued posters in her bathrooms and hallways, displaying such vaguely ESL-sounding homilies as
DEFINITION OF INTEGRITYand
Integrity is nothing hidden, being truthful and honest, doing complete work, working from an empowering context, doing very well what you do, doing it as it was meant to be done and without cutting corners.
RESPONSIBILITY
No one can make you responsible, nor can you impose responsibility on another. It is a grace you give yourself — an empowering context that leaves you with a say in the matter of life.
Reminds me of that book, Everything I Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten.
Angela is a Life Coach, you see. I'm required to state her designation in capitals because that's what it says on her business card. She's been trained by Landmark Education, an organization that is best described as scientology meets Amway, because, from what I've seen, she gives them all her money and she invites her friends to indoctrination meetings thinly veiled as social functions.
Like the party she invited me to last spring, just before she left to spend the summer taking an intensive Landmark "course" in San Francisco. Tuition for that one was $10,000. U.S., mind you. Plus she had to live there for six months on her own dime.
There was a man named Dan at this party, who gave a short extemporaneous speech about "the whales" — no particular whales in any particular part of the world; no description of a specific plight threatening them. Just whales in general. "We have to save the whales," implored Dan.
And just about everyone at the party gave him a cheque.
Dan has something to do with Landmark, though what, exactly, was never made clear. Ever talk to someone who does Amway? Like that.
As the party wound down, Angela solemnly handed each departing guest a slip of paper, with the bold heading, "Pass this on to people you know that have small children and pets." She encouraged us to read it, and if we didn't have pets ourselves, to make sure to tell those we know who do. She said she was very worried about her own two cats.
A quick glance at the paper told me it was one of those email-circulated urban legends, but I folded it and put it in my pocket, and told her I'd be sure to read it later. I did. It was that ridiculous story about the Swiffer Wetjet that's been circulating since 1999.
What Angela does, to be able to afford to live in the end-unit townhouse in our building, the one with the west-facing windows, overlooking the marina, only heaven knows.
"I have Boz's number," I tell Angela as she pours us a third glass of Amarone Della Valpolicella.
"What do you think, Leo," says Angela, addressing her Persian cat. "Do you want to say goodbye to Boz before we leave?" Then, to me, "OK, I call him."
"What does Daphne think?" I asked, referring to Leo's companion, Angela's other cat.
"She do whatever Leo tell her. She knows who is the boss in the relationship."
When Boz arrives, Angela asks him if he can fix the fireplace. I'd already tried, but couldn't get the pilot light to stay lit. It's a gas fireplace, and the pilot is supposed to be on all the time, even when the switch to power the flame up is off, but Angela turned it off somehow at the beginning of the summer, and now she doesn't know how to get it going again.
When I say Angela turned it off what I really mean is, she must have had someone turn it off for her. Angela is old world Italian; the kind of woman who needs a man to do everything for her. I love her to death, don't get me wrong, but I doubt she can work a can opener without help.
Boz kneels in front of the fireplace and removes the panel. I sit on the floor beside him and show him how I tried to restart the pilot light. Together, we fiddle with Angela's knobs for a while.
"It's no use," says Boz, finally. "Unless there's a breaker off, and it's just not getting electricity to start up. But I think she's going to have to call Enbridge for service."
"Why don't we check the breaker box, just to be sure?" I suggest.
The breaker box is inside the closet in the small guest room at the end of the hall. As we walk toward it, Boz explains to me how circuit breakers work, and I pretend I don't know.
Maybe there's something to that old world mien.
Angela has ushered us into the room but now leaves us, and half closes the door. Boz's back is to her; he's already scrutinizing circuits, so he doesn't see her glare at me and toss her head in his direction, giving the globally understood signal for go for it.
"You see here," Boz is indicating one of the circuit breaker switches, "This is the one that controls the power to the fireplace."
I lean in for a better look. "Mmn hmn, yes."
"See how it's aligned with all the others? That means it's working. If the cicuit had blown, it would be flipped the other way, like this."
He flips the breaker switch off, then back on, to show me.
Gentle Reader, I don't mind telling you, but no way am I going to tell Boz, that a few years back I helped my cousins Markus and Nate rewire the basement and install a new breaker panel in my grandmother's house.
"So, Boz," I say, all cool-as-a-cucumber and casual-like, "That hockey game I mentioned to you, the Boston game, is next Monday. Would you like to go?"
He is so engrossed in the breaker box I'm not sure he heard me.
"I don't think I can. I've got so much going on the next couple of weeks..."
And he does go on, and tells me about a proposal he's writing, and how he may have to go out of town for a few days. He's all business, that Boz. And then he says:
"But that's not to say that we won't still go out on the boat."
Boz has a sailboat, and he's been promising me since July that he'd take me out on it.
I went to the hockey game, Boston at Toronto, that Monday night, with my cousin Markus. He's my favourite cousin for so many reasons, not the least of which is he loves hockey and we have the same taste in music. But more to the point today, he's closest to my age and he's a member of that other species.
So I told him about Boz.
"What do you think?" I asked Markus.
He nodded knowingly, then said, "Guys with boats are like that."
In the next story, Sass is procrastinating again. But stay tuned: Angela is about to make a reprise. And it turns out Markus was wrong about Boz. Still, it's wonderful to has a cousin who is knowledgeable about certain things, like, say, building and repairing fireplaces, for those occasions when one spends a crazy weekend with a hot chef and ends up causing damage to one's aunt's home.
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