Opposites Attract

Our first date was at the local Starbucks.  I am a bit of a coffee connoisseur and always hoped that my future wife would share my tastes for coffee.  I had heard that while in high school, she worked at Tim Hortons which gave me some hope that she would be a coffee lover.  My hope was that someday we would sit together sipping our coffees while listening to some Puccini or while having a discussion about the Victorian era. 

Courtney met me at the door of Starbucks and introduced herself in a soft, doe-like voice.  “Hi, I’m Courtney.”  We headed to the counter to order and Courtney suggested I order first since she wasn’t sure what she was going to get.

“I’ll have a tall bold coffee, please.” I said.  I looked at Courtney hoping that she would say something like “I’ll have the same” or “add a couple of espresso shots to mine please”.  Instead she ordered a ‘strawberry-mango-passion fruit-watermelon-blackberry-cumquat-kiwi-tazo-tea.’

The barista prepared our beverages and slid them over the counter.  My coffee smelled rich and deep and the colour was a beautiful ebony.  Courtney’s tea was passed to her and I cringed.  The colour was fluorescent pink and reminded me of Mattel.  It smelled like a scented candle and no doubt could double as potpourri as well. 

It quickly became evident over the next couple of weeks that Courtney was not the quiet, intellectual, NPR listening, school-loving, book-reading girl that I thought she was.  This was driven home to me on a beautiful summer evening.  She said she was going to meet me at my apartment so I waited outside for her arrival.  While I was waiting, I heard a noise coming from down the road.  I strained to hear what the sound was.  It sounded like an ice cream truck but ice cream trucks did not venture out into the country.  I listened again and then heard the distinct lyrics of Willoughby Wallaby Woo.  I could also recognize Raffi’s voice accompanied by a girl’s voice that sounded suspiciously like Courtney’s.  Suddenly her green Sunfire roared into view.  She shut her beloved Sunfire off and came bounding out of the car.

Note the matching hat and shirt.  Classic.

“Guess what!  I just sold all of my books on Kijiji!” she said proudly.

I was still stunned from Willoughby Wallaby Woo and had a hard time understanding what she had just said.

“You sold your books?  Did you run out of room on your bookshelves or were they doubles?”

“Nope.  They were cluttering up my room so I got rid of them.  Perfect eh?”

We went inside and I made Courtney some kind of fruit tea, and made myself a cappuccino.  As I busied myself with the drinks, Courtney sat down on the couch.  

“What are you listening to?  It sounds so screechy!  I think my ears are bleeding.” she commented.  It was one of my favourite pieces too – Ave Verum Corpus.

I brought her tea over to her and sat down on the couch with my cappuccino.  Courtney, who had turned off the music and was now humming Down By the Bay, got up and plopped down practically on my lap.  My cappuccino went flying and splattered across the couch – the foamy richness would never be experienced or enjoyed and was lost for all time to the floral cushions.

It was at that moment that I came to two conclusions: first that we were total opposites and secondly, I was perfectly fine with that.  She was funny, pretty, and kept me guessing.  I never knew what was going to happen next with Courtney.  

Today is our two year anniversary – not a big deal for some of you veterans who are pulling up on twenty, thirty or forty years – but at the rate time flies, we’ll be there soon.  I look forward to spending the rest of my days, however long or short, with my Courtney.  God in his infinite wisdom knew that Courtney was the one for me, even though we are opposites in almost every way.  I’m very thankful for my soul-mate and friend and thankful for our opposite traits.

The Hose that Got Away

 Courtney has an old beater of a car.  She’s had it since she was 16 years old and it has served her well.  The car will be making that long and final drive to the wreckers this spring where it will be crushed into oblivion.  It is an interesting car to look at – each dent and crack tells a different and compelling tale.  A new dent was added this week.  It’s a very small dent, but probably one of the more memorable blemishes.

It was quite late in the evening when Courtney arrived home from Bible Study.  I was downstairs, but I could hear the sounds of her taking off her boots, putting her keys on the counter and closing the closet door.  I also heard another sound.  Was she crying?  I was hearing a wailing noise from upstairs.  It must have been quite the Bible study!

She came down and I braced for the worst.  

Courtney wasn’t crying though, she was laughing.  It wasn’t just a chuckle either; it was full on hysterical laughter.  After a few minutes she calmed down and the story came out.

The gas gauge on her car was hovering above empty so Courtney pulled into the corner gas station on her way to Bible study.  It’s a full serve gas station and it was recently taken over by a new family.  The gas attendant lady put $20 of gas in and Courtney went inside to pay.  When Courtney came out, the lady waved goodbye to Courtney and told her to ‘come again!’  Little did they know that Courtney would be back that night under the cover of darkness.

Courtney started her venerable Sunfire and lurched out of the gas station.  She failed to hear to clunk-like sound as she pulled away from the pump.  That could be due to the tick her car makes or because the power steering makes a whining sound or because her gas cap door does not click shut or because she had Steve Green blaring away over the speakers.  We may never know.

She arrived at the church and headed inside.  One of the other study participants, who came in behind her, asked her if someone was playing a joke on her.  Courtney was confused and didn’t know what he meant.  He explained that there was a gas hose hanging out of her car.  Courtney rushed out the door to examine her beloved car.  The rest of the group was hot on her heels.

It was at this point that Courtney started laughing and didn’t stop until she somehow fell asleep (probably out of sheer exhaustion).  When she woke up in the morning, the laughter continued, and I suspect continued sporadically throughout the day.

The Bible study group also found this to be extremely amusing, and one of the group members even got a friend to snap a picture of the gas pump and dismembered hose.  There was one person though who showed concern over the mishap.  

“Look, there’s a small dent by your gas tank.”  

If the Bible study group had been looking at the car in the light of day, this person probably would not have bothered to mention this small dent.  They say that the rings of a tree have many stories to tell – stories of harsh winters, forest fires, and bug infestations.  Courtney’s car is like one of these ancient trees of the forest.  There are plenty of dents, scratches and cracks and each one has a story to tell.  The complete lack of hubcaps does not help the situation either.

After Bible study, Courtney jumped in ol’ faithful and roared off for the gas station.  It’s a good thing she wasn’t pulled over on her way back to the gas station. She was still laughing hysterically at that point and was approaching butterfly net territory which probably would have netted her into a padded room.

Thankfully for Courtney, the gas station was closed and she could drop off the gas hose and burn rubber out of there.  In all fairness to Court, it wasn’t her fault.  The new owners of the gas station had waved her off after she had paid up inside and so she thought her car was ready to roll.

Her car must have been quite the sight though as she cruised through Vineland that evening with the gas hose swinging behind her like the tail of a kite.

Garbage Day on Brown Drive

In the Slingerland household, it has historically been the husbands job (aka ‘me’) to take out the garbage and recycling on Wednesday nights.  When Thursday mornings dawn, the household wakes to the peaceful cooing of mourning doves and the rumble of the waste management vehicles (aka ‘garbage trucks’).  This narrative did not exactly happen this week.

Thursday Morning:

The mourning doves began their beautiful ‘ode to morning’ on the sill outside of our window on this fine frosty November morn.  The husband finds the gentle cooing of the doves melodic and soothing.  What a great way to wake up in the morning!

The wife is not an ornithologist, but rather an ornithophobic.  The wife does not like birds (though she does like the golden roasted varieties that come out of ovens).

“If those birds wake me up again tomorrow morning, I am going to glue their beaks shut!”

The husband chuckles at his wife’s sense of humour – what a kidder he married!

The wife’s school starts earlier then the husband’s school, which means that she is out the door earlier.  As the husband got ready, his wife kissed him goodbye, glared maliciously at the majestic dove on the sill, and left.  

The husband was knotting his tie when he heard a dragging sound.  He wondered what that noise could be.  He then heard the far off rumble of the garbage truck.  The husband looked out the window and noticed with great alarm, that the wife was dragging the garbage out to the curb.  The husband had forgotten to take out the garbage and now the wife, who was nicely dressed (and had smelled nice up to this point), was bringing the garbage out.  The husband felt bad not only because of the wife doing the husband’s job, but also because she was already running a little late.  The husband thought of ways to make it up to the wife.  He racked his brain.  He looked around and finally spied the dove on the sill.  He imagined his wife’s delighted face as he presented her with a stuffed dove in a shadow box or something.  The dove seemed to sense the change of mood and flew off.

The husband’s attention turned to the plight at the end of the driveway.  The wife had put the garbage in place, but was now staring at something at the end of our driveway.  During the night, the wind had blown the neighbour’s garbage bags over to our driveway and were now blocking the wife’s way out.  The husband briefly reflected that maybe it was blessing in disguise that he forgot to put the garbage out seeing as how the wind wreaked havoc on the neighbours’ garbage.

The husband probably should have run out to help clear the garbage bags from the end of the driveway, but he was paralyzed with suspense.  What would the wife do?  

The wife turned and headed back to her car with a determined look on her face.  The husband had seen that determined look many times before.  Her car roared to life and the headlights flamed brightly.  The husband held his breath as he watched the wife rocket out of the driveway.  The garbage bags put up no resistance as the car backed over them and plowed them out of the way.  The husband noticed that one of the bags was flattened like a pannekoek and the other one was caught in her front wheel-well.  

The husband could almost see his wife’s slender foot stamp the gas pedal to the floor.  The venerable car shot forward like an Atlas missile.  The garbage bag stayed with the tire for a couple of revolutions and then was discharged into the air.  It flew from the car and came to rest on the curb (albeit quite a ways away from the intended place on the curb).  After the cloud of exhaust smoke cleared and the wife’s green machine careened out of sight, all was as it should be in the peaceful neighbourhood.

Epilogue

Moments later, the garbage truck lumbered up to the curb and the garbage collectors retrieved all of bags and emptied the various receptacles.  The dove, who had been watching all of the proceedings in open-beaked awe, resumed his melodious cooing.

The Winds of Love

I will start with two unrelated observations:

1. It is very windy outside (seriously).

2. My wife comments from time to time that I have never blogged about her.

Now I will craftily, yet subtly, intertwine these two ideas. Try to keep up.

It is a howling night out tonight, and my wife is gone to Bible Study. I am at home recuperating after a day of teaching. Because Courtney does not share my love for certain types of classical music, I am now blaring Nimrod from Elgar. She would be plugging her ears right now if she were here.

It is a cozy night for writing. Beautiful music is playing, soft lamp light fills the room, and the wind beats against this house. My memory takes me back to another windy occasion. (Here’s where I phenomenally connect point one and two).

Courtney and I are in Ottawa. We are dating and we are in love. It is spring. Before you get the idea that we are running hand in hand together in slow motion through daisy fields, let me fill you in on the scene. We are there with 15,000 other people to protest abortion. It is a very windy, rainy day, much like today.

I notice that Courtney does not like getting the bottom of her pants wet and furthermore she does not like to step on the wet hem of her pants either as we walk through the streets of Ottawa. I slowly get used to stopping every twenty steps to re-roll her wet pant legs so that she does not step on them. We join the protest on Parliament Hill and join the throngs as we begin to parade through the streets of downtown Ottawa. Courtney and I are walking hand in hand. We each have an umbrella, and Courtney is particularly proud of hers because it is full of polka dots. The umbrella is useless, we realize, as the wind turns the umbrella into something a newly neutered dog would wear around its neck.

We are about half way through the march. We are falling behind because of those wet pant legs of Courtneys’ and the need to roll them up. I notice with alarm that we are in front of a large group of people that are carrying a banner that stretches across the street. They are walking in perfect unison and their street-wide banner is perfectly straight. We are in the middle of the road and Courtney decides that it is time to roll up her pant legs once again. The banner is suddenly upon us. The banner then surrounds us. The middle banner people half to stop so that Courtney is not trampled, but the people who are holding the ends of the banner missed the memo saying that they are stopping for a girl who has to roll up her wet pant legs.

We make it back to Parliament Hill. We are being pelted by the driving rain, but that doesn’t really matter. We are not there for our enjoyment – we are simply there to remind our Government that we have not forgotten about those little babies in the womb who have no voice or no protection.

It is good to be there on that windy day. It is good to be there with Courtney and to know that she is the one for me. We like to laugh about her holding up the march and almost getting trampled by a giant banner.

Now as the wind blows, and as Adagio in G blasts through my speakers, I look forward to Courtney coming home and telling me about her day.

The end.