I want to say this in ringing tones—nay, I want to declare
this as fiercely, as ardently, as passionately as did the Christian martyrs,
avowing their faith even as the crowd jeered at them, hissed at them, spat upon
them, and even as the lions raged towards them, their open mouths lusting for
blood!
I stand ready at any time, at any moment, to meet the Dalai
Lama!
Nor am I alone in this courageous stance, since I have just
gone to check in with Lady, who was taking a moment’s respite from redesigning
the storefront’s window, since it’s Christmas time, and the original design
nobody liked.
“Hey, would you meet the Dalai Lama?”
“Sure….”
We are, you see, unhampered, unfettered by fear and pusillanimity,
undaunted by the economic might of China, even though we stand as the merest
motes of dust as compared to that country. And in my case, at least, I’m a
considerably diminished mote, since I seem to be battling everything, and guess
what? Everything is winning.
I have a crazy Spaniard, for example. The owner of the floor
below us, he makes a pretty penny—actually, it should be a luscious
penny—renting the space to a shoe store, part of a chain, whose headquarters is
in Omaha. So every time there is a problem? Omaha writes to him, and that’s a
problem, since his English is rudimentary. So he calls the store, and then he
calls Raf, and whom does Raf call?
“You have to go home right away, since the plumber is there,
and it’s major, and they think it’s coming from above.”
“Oh, and call García and tell him you’re there.”
García being the Spaniard….
OK—go home, after first telling the manager of the store that
I am home, and that the gate to the foyer is open. Oh, and where is the
plumber?
“On the way….”
A plumber on the way comes as often as Santa Claus in July,
so why is my day being disrupted?
Right—so what should have been a morning spent writing now
becomes a day waiting for the plumber, so what to do? I decide to clean the
dining room, which means washing an polishing two large buffets, two china
cabinets, two small tables, eight chairs, the table itself and what can only be
described as The Old Curiosity Shop’s entire inventory of bric-a-brac.
The plumber, a charmer, comes at five PM, which means that I
had to cancel my class at the island’s largest bank—a client I would like to
keep happy. But he does what he does in fifteen minutes, and tells me that it’s
completely dry downstairs—just some old water stains, nothing emergent, now
cascading torrents of brownish water—as had been described by the manager via
Omaha via García via Mr. Fernández. So I pay 135 bucks and send Juan on his
way.
Oh, but there is a problem, since Juan discovered that part
of the sink is broken. So water was in fact spewing over our kitchen floor. And
does Juan have the part? Of course not, so he will come back “tomorrow
afternoon.” Given that today is Friday, that “tomorrow afternoon?” Next
Tuesday, at the earliest. Still, I gave the plumber my number, and promised to
have my cell phone next to me at all times, residing perpetually in my
peripheral vision.
So I was grouchy this morning, since I hate it when a cat is
at the vet, partly because Mr. Fernández really hates it, and that makes
us both cranky. So I had just told him that I didn’t know if I was going to buy
the damn turkey that his mother wants him to cook for Sunday supper, since we
are celebrating the arrival of a sister.
“I’m having my coffee in peace and quiet and I’ll let you
know about the damn turkey,” I told him. So he goes off to work and then is
shouting at me from downstairs. Why? There’s a note from García saying the
plumber is on his way!
Yeah? The same plumber who has my number and was gonna come
in the afternoon? Then I get it—García wants to put me under house arrest, so
that I can open the door to any putative worker who might need to show up.
So I break the world’s record for the highest ratio of swear
to non-swear words in my response to Mr. Fernández, and then I go to the café,
since that was the deal, and no—I’m not gonna spend another day waiting for the
plumber, who makes Godot look like the soul of punctuality itself.
So there I am, and the phone rings and I conscientiously try
to answer it, but guess what? I’d forgotten that while I can make calls
on my wonderful new phone, I can’t for the life of me receive calls, so
that means I have to call back one of Rafael’s sisters. And what happens?
There are people, Gentle Readers, whose voice can induce an
insurrection, and is it her fault that she has one? Nor is it her fault that I
am engaged in an insane transaction with…well, who? That, at least, is my
problem, since I know that I bought an apartment as an investment but also as a
place for a caregiver to live. And there’s a wonderful caretaker—the apartment
is right next to the parents’ apartment—and everything is fine. Except the
electric bill is too high, and maybe we should find a caretaker who would
consume less electricity. Whatever happened to the romance of candlelight?
So now that’s a problem, but the other problem is that my
brother, a lawyer, pointed out that—however logical this whole deal may seem to
minds swept by gentle Caribbean breezes—it’s a little half-cocked. Who, for
example, am I renting to, if anyone at all? And if the caretaker gets hit by a
falling kitchen cabinet—John had a case just last week of that—well then, do I
get sued?
So now I have a day with an impending plumber, a turkey that
needs to be bought, an entire house that needs to be cleaned, and a stomach
that is raging because I forgot to buy my medicine—as I always do, and then
remember when guess what? You got it.
So I completely go off on my sister-in-law, who only wants
to know if I have a charger for the MacBook Pro, since hers is broke and it
costs about 90 bucks at Best Buy—oh, and it’s not just the charger who is broke.
Well, Robertson Davies once said that the person you have
become is just as true as the person you were—all those years ago before you
became the reigning diva of the Metropolitan opera, and began speaking of your
pied-a-terre in Paris. So what does that mean? It means that a six feet three
gringo is screaming, telling sis that this family has got to come up with a
plan for their aging parents and I cannot be getting calls from six siblings
and two parents all asking, demanding, pleading for things that have to be done
right away. Remember that plumber? So of course I behave completely
irrationally, and tell her that I AM NOT coming to any family gatherings this
year, or until everybody gets their act together. Is this reasonable? No. Did I
ever say it was?
No.
So now it’s time to go talk to Lady, and get her to call me,
so I can do Telephony 101—how to receive calls. And Lady, as she always does,
has the answer. You don’t press the little green telephone, but instead swipe
it, towards the little red telephone. Oh, and if you don’t want to take the
call, you swipe the red telephone….
So now I’m totally annoyed with everybody, and what has to
happen? I have to worry myself again about the Vatican, since it appears
that the pope may not meet the Dalai Lama, for fear of offending China. Here’s The
New York Times on the subject:
The action provoked a boycott by other Nobel laureates.
Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu, the South African winner of the 1984 prize for his battle against apartheid,
responded to Mr. Zuma’s action by saying he was “ashamed to call this
lickspittle bunch my government.”
And what had the “lickspittle”—first good thing to happen in
my day, thanks!—bunch done? Denied the dear old Dalai a visa to attend the
Nobel laureates convention!
Lady drifts by, and I have to make sure.
“You’re not gonna renege on the Dalai Lama, are you?”
Lady is wise beyond her years: she knows when it’s better
not to ask.
“Nope,” and goes off to find some Christmas ornaments for
the front window.
Oh, and if the Dalai Lama wants to come on Christmas Eve or
New Year’s Eve?
I’m available!
