To find the type of sage I need, I go to Banyen Books and Sound, a spiritually oriented store in Vancouver, and buy a dried chunk, maybe 6 inches long and four inches thick. The smell of sage is the ancient smell of the earth.
Make sure you’re alone—you don’t want to be labeled a total nutcase. Open a window or door, so that unneeded forces can find an exit. It’s essential that there be a way for air to escape to the outside when you smudge. Disable smoke alarms. Light the herb with a match, and when it’s caught, blow out the flames. Wave the smoke over your body. You can use your hands or the feather from a non-endangered species like a turkey or pheasant, making sure to include your arms and legs in the smoke.. Then turn to face each of the four directions, holding the smudge up and away from your body. Wave the smoke, saying a prayer of gratitude and healing to North, South, East and West. Then offer smoke upward to the sky and downward to the earth. Imagine sunlight flooding the space.
Sounds nutty, right? But science has found smells induce altered states of awareness because of their connection with specific parts of the brain, and the ceremony allows not only the space to be purified and healed, but also one’s feelings about the troubled individual
CHAPTER EIGHT
There’s only one of us here
My next guest was also on a mission.
Juan Carlos Sanpedro was from Madrid, a slender, strikingly handsome young man who arrived on a late flight and slept most of the first day of his visit.
He surfaced late in the afternoon, and I made him coffee and toast, with a side of yogurt. I’d had to ask him to write down the English translation of “jogaire” before I could figure out what it was he was asking for.
“I am here to finding a job and house,” he informed me in enchanting accented English. “I will then to bring my family.” He pulled out photos of them, a beautiful wife, a seven year old daughter, and a chubby two year old son, all breathtakingly attractive.
“I have make great trouble in my family, my mother and father and aunts and uncles are very much against this move,” he confided, his lovely dark Latin eyes sad. “In Spain, family is everything. But Madrid, it is not safe anymore. You have heard about the train bombings?”
I didn’t watch the news—I considered it group meditation on disaster--but even I knew of the horrific events of March, 2004.
“I am usually on that train, but I was unwell that morning with—how do you say?” He mimed sore stomach, vomiting.
“Flu,” I supplied. Fortunate flu, in this instance. “Will immigration be a problem?” I’d heard that it could be a pain in the butt.
He shook his head. “I am very fortunate, I was born in Toronto. My parents, they were touring, and poof, I decided to be born. I was two months when they take me home to Madrid, but now I have—“ a small voir dire here as we hashed out what he intended to say--“Dual citizenship,” he pronounced proudly.
Juan spent five days exploring possible jobs, shipping options for furniture, real estate prices and schools. We had long discussions about families, children, finances, furniture, food, marriage, religion and the Church. Juan was a Catholic atheist.
Halloween came while he was visiting, and he got right into the spirit of the thing, insisting the angels, ghosts and space creatures at my door perform a song or dance before they got their handful of miniature chocolate bars and drink boxes.
Most of the kids in my neighborhood were first generation Oriental or East Indian, just beginning to learn English, which made it doubly confusing for the poor little creatures when he tried to teach them the Spanish words for trick or treat and thank you. But with true newly Canadian politeness, they did their best.
Juan was an interesting, exceedingly polite and colorful guest, and when he asked if I’d consider having his wife, kids and teenage sister in law—who was coming along to help with the children—stay with me for a short time until he found housing, I agreed, as long as my three upstairs bedrooms proved adequate.
“Si, si, perfecto,” he assured me. “Muchos gracious.”
We parted with a warm hug and a deep sense of friendship, but as usual, what with a steady stream of new guests and the oddities of day to day living, I almost forgot about Juan Carlos. Winter passed, and with spring came an email from him requesting a reservation for three rooms for several weeks. I blocked it off on my calendar.
The day of the Spanish arrival arrived, and with it a phone call from the airport from Juan.
His English had improved about as much as my Spanish, and it was tough to sort out what he was asking. It seemed that Juan had made friends on the plane with a young Spanish physician, Carlos, who was coming to Canada on a six month exchange program to work at Children’s Hospital. The doctor’s accommodation plans had somehow fallen through. Would it be possible for all of them to share the three upstairs rooms, just until other plans were made?
I said yes. What was one more person for a day or two, after all? But they’d have to figure out the sleeping arrangements themselves, I told Juan.
“Si, si,” he assured me. “Gracias, muchas gracias.”
I started having second thoughts when a limo and two oversize cabs pulled up outside. Men, women, children, a teenager, several babies and about a half ton of luggage came tumbling out. Louie came out of his house, Sammy in his arms, to goggle in amazement at the Spanish Armada.
It turned out that Carlos, the doctor, had a Mrs. Carlos and a baby Carlos in tow, all of them breathtakingly beautiful to behold. But oh, God, the luggage!
As a tag team, hindered by Louie and the cat, we managed to transport everything from the front sidewalk into my living room, which now overflowed with people and huge suitcases. The men set to, moving everything upstairs accompanied by rapid fire Spanish, crying babies, and much shouted encouragement—or maybe not—from the ladies.
After a while, Mrs. Carlos found a chair and settled in to nurse her baby, Juan’s serious little eight year old daughter took charge of her baby brother, the gorgeous, languidly long legged teen age sister in law went upstairs presumably to begin unpacking, and Mrs. Juan followed the men up and down the stairs, maybe giving moral support along with rapid fire directions.
Totally overwhelmed, I stayed in the background, offering homemade soup, fresh bread and tea while wondering with a sinking heart exactly what I’d gotten myself into.
Gradually the chaos subsided somewhat, at least until Louie came banging on the back door, supposedly looking for Sammy but actually fascinated by the quantity of people he’d watched pour into my house.
I introduced him to everyone, and they all smiled and nodded with perfect politeness and complete incomprehension as he went into his usual diatribe about Sammy’s diet, bowel movements and general brilliance. Fortunately no one could understand a word he said, and eventually I managed to nudge him out the door again.
I was afraid to even ask where all the luggage had gone, much less where five adults and three children were planning to sleep. Also, three women would be sharing one bathroom, and one of them was a stranger to the other two. What if they hated one another after the first hour? They were all fairly volatile. Did my insurance cover murder?
There was also the question of food. I was a B&B, so only breakfast was on the menu. They had no transportation, and while bus service and several restaurants were only blocks away, Vancouver was in the midst of a spring downpour. Dragging tired babies out twice a day for lunch and dinner seemed inhumane, so with a few misgivings, I told Juan they could use my kitchen to prepare their meals. I was on deadline for a book, I explained, and would be spending most of my time out in my studio anyway. Which was a good thing, because there was hardly any space left in the house.
During the next few days, we learned about each other’s patterns, and a workable lifestyle emerged. Everyone got along, which was a blessing.
I was an early riser, and all of them—including the babies—slept late, so I had a few precious hours in the morning all to myself. Breakfast
for the Spanish proved a no brainer. I prepared fresh fruit salad, set out cold cereal, yogurt and bread for toast, made some muffins or scones, set a pot of coffee to brew and left it all on the dining room table. That was that. They were very late risers, so I had the morning to myself.
From my studio as I worked during the day, I heard their laughter and the lovely cadence of rapid, musical Spanish. It was easy to understand why it was considered a romantic language.
After breakfast every day, they went out, wandering down the street in a noisy group to the bus stop. About three, they made lunch and invariably invited me to join them, teaching me how to make a real Spanish omelet, asking the English words for real estate terms, with Juan translating. I loved having lunch prepared for me. We talked of philosophy and religion and customs and cooking.
I ate dinner at five or six, and they didn’t begin to consider cooking until at least nine at night. The dining room was next to my bedroom, and over the next weeks I’d be lulled into sleep by the rhythm of their soft conversation and the babbling of the children. There was always wine, and after the two babies were fed and bedded, the rest of them spent several hours over a leisurely, boozy dinner. It seemed so civilized to me, if impractical. It would make getting up early to go to work pretty difficult.
The two weeks Juan and I had agreed upon expanded to five, and then six, as they struggled to find suitable housing in a city where prices had gone ballistic. Carlos began his stint at Children’s Hospital, and he and Juan each bought secondhand cars. I introduced the women to Costco and Ikea, and inevitably, to Eric.
Eric fell head over heels in love with Juan’s sister-in-law, who unfortunately didn’t feel quite the same about him. Every morning there was a black garbage bag on the deck with her name on it, holding bottles of perfume only slightly used, DVD’s of the current rappers, barely scratched, and, one memorable morning, fifteen pairs of dainty high heeled shoes, all her exact size. I tried not to feel jilted.
Carlos’s adorable baby girl took her first steps on my living room carpet. Louie and Sam wandered in and out and around about, pretty much lost in the crowd. Sam took to sneaking in and sleeping on one of the upstairs beds, encouraged by Juan’s somber little daughter, who’d unaccountably fallen for the bad tempered cat.
No one was even slightly perturbed by Louie’s nocturnal wandering in the garden. The Spanish, poor trusting, misguided souls, accepted everything at the Blue Collar as their introduction to typical Canadian culture.
Eventually the day came when both couples found houses, Juan purchasing and Carlos renting. They paid me much more than I asked for, and Carlos and Juan made innumerable trips to transport the luggage and the not inconsiderable new acquisitions their wives had made at Costco and Ikea.
Juan’s furniture had arrived from Spain, but Carlos was trying to furnish his apartment as reasonably as possible. I took him to the Salvation Army outlet, where he bought a respectable couch and two chairs, and a supply of dishes and pots and pans. Eric asked what was lacking, and the next morning we awoke to find a full set of quite good dining room furniture plus two beds reclining on my front lawn.
Eric never said where the stuff had come from or how he’d transported it on his bike, and I never asked.
On a sunny May morning, I was thoroughly kissed on both cheeks by everyone and hugged till my ribs ached. The secondhand cars drove away for the last time, and for the first time in weeks, the house was empty and silent.
I ventured upstairs. The women had done all the laundry and remade the beds. The kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms were pristine, the storage space under the sloping ceilings empty of both suitcases and—thank the lord--gerbils.
They’d bought me a beautiful card and a huge salt lamp, explaining that the light it gave brought calm to any room and its inhabitants. I turned it on and cried.
Sometimes silence is highly overrated.
THE ARMADA’S SPANISH OMELET
Gather together in a friendly fashion:
1 cup really good olive oil
½ mild onion, chopped
5 or 6 potatoes, thinly sliced and sprinkled with salt
2 cloves garlic, chopped
5 eggs
Heat olive oil in a big frying pan. Add potatoes carefully. Separate the slices so they don’t stick together. Don’t make the pan too hot. Cook about 5 minutes, until almost soft. Add garlic and onions, cook another three or four minutes. Carefully drain into a bowl, leaving some oil in pan.
In another bowl, whisk the eggs. Add a little salt, then pour over potatoes, stirring to coat. Put this mess back into the frying pan, into the hot oil, covering every inch of the pan. Lower the heat and allow to cook, shaking frequently to keep from sticking, until beginning to set up. (About half cooked.)
Cover the frying pan with a plate, invert the omelet and add another tablespoon of oil to the frying pan. Slide the omelet back in on the uncooked side (manual dexterity needed here.) Cook until completely set. Cut in wedges. Yummmm.
CHAPTER NINE
You’ll have bad times,
And he’ll have good times,
Doing things that you don’t understand.
(Tammy Wynette, Stand By Your Man.)
With the departure of the Spaniards, it dawned on me that I had no social life of my own. I hadn’t been out on a date in months, so when summer was over and my steady stream of guests slowed to a trickle, I decided to register with a Vancouver dating agency.
I met with a vivacious redhead who claimed to have set up the agency as a result of her own difficult search for a suitable partner. I assured her I wasn’t in the market for marriage. I was looking for a companion, someone content enough with their own life they didn’t need me to transform mine to suit them.
She assured me there were plenty of guys out there of a certain age with exactly the same aspirations.
So I did the personality testing, which revealed me as an INFP—idealistic, curious, wanting to understand people and find ways of fulfilling human potential, with a high dose of stubbornness and impatience tossed in gratis. Oh, yes, and apparently I was also inclined to be impulsive. Who knew?
I supplied a flattering head shot, handed over $800, and went home to wait—impatiently--for the phone to ring.
The first entry in the dating sweepstakes was Donnie. An aspiring actor, he fostered dogs for the SPCA, worked as a handyman, was divorced with two estranged daughters and a vengeful ex. He was a recovering alcoholic with a full year of sobriety under his belt. He attended AA meetings religiously.
He was also of Scottish descent, wrote poetry (truly abominable, I soon found out,) and liked to wear a kilt to formal gatherings. He had a sailboat and enjoyed live theatre. He loved dining out at interesting restaurants. He confided all this at our first meeting, a walk around a nearby park dragging a dog of uncertain origin whom he was fostering.
I don’t mind dogs. I’ve loved a few but never owned one, because keeping animals seems to me akin to being responsible for a prisoner. This one growled low in her throat when I tried to stroke her, and so I kept my distance, sizing up Donnie while trying to keep out of the dog’s way.
Donnie was considerably shorter than me, with a totally bald, tanned pate, round glasses emphasizing dancing green eyes, an actor’s deep, vivacious voice, a workman’s sinewy body, and the face of a wicked leprechaun. It was barely like at first sight, but, heaven help me, I decided to give it a try.
He turned up for our first date with the damned dog in tow, which should have rung a warning bell. “I’d leave her in my van, but its cold out and she has short hair,” he said in an apologetic, wheedling voice. “Do you think we could lock her in your downstairs bathroom? She doesn’t bark.”
I agreed a little reluctantly. I had guests upstairs, a quiet couple from Denmark. But we were only going to a nearby movie theatre to see an experimental arts film. What could happen in two hours?
The movie was a dud, and the moment I opened my front door two and a half hours la
ter, I could smell the dog. Or rather, the dog shit.
With Donnie hot on my trail, I raced in and ripped open the bathroom door, or what was left of it, gagging at the smell as a piece of molding hit me on the head.
The dog—whom Donnie belatedly admitted was part pit bull--had shit on every conceivable inch of the bathroom, including inside the tub. She’d unraveled the toilet roll, wound it around the room, and then torn off all the molding around the door. She’d chewed sizeable holes in the walls, right through the drywall to the rafters. The bathroom was a disaster area.
My poor guests were traumatized—they’d barricaded themselves in their room, believing the house was being burgled by criminals with loose bowels.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Donnie kept repeating as I ranted. “I’ll clean everything up and repair the bathroom if you’ll only let me.”
Let him? What choice did I have? I wasn’t about to clean up after the dog, and although Eric would probably do the repairs for me, why should he have to? It was Donnie’s responsibility. It was Donnie’s bloody dog.
The personality test should have indicated that I sometimes make serious errors in judgment.
“I never want to see that animal again,” I hissed as Donnie carried the dog out to his van. She gave me a triumphant look and growled in passing. He came back and asked for a bucket and some disinfectant.
“I’ll clean this up and be here first thing in the morning with new molding and drywall,” he promised. “What shade is the paint?”
“Lambskin duvet. Benjamin Moore.” And fiercely expensive, I thought with malicious satisfaction.
He scrubbed and disinfected, gathered up clumps of drywall and lengths of molding while I opened windows, sprayed room deodorant and reassured my Danish guests that things were under control.
How Not To Run A B&B: A Woman's True Memoir Page 5
