Friday, October 2, 2009

New Roomate-New Experience for the Life Bag

Ching-Ching the doorbell for the apartment rings. It is one of the many weird European sounds like the ambulance or the police siren. Eamon pops up hoping it is the rather attractive girls from upstairs looking for salt again. He reappears, slightly disappointed, and says, shoulders shrugging,"It's John the landlord." I steal a quick look at my indiglo Timex watch and it says 21:15. Is it possible that John is interrupting our family time as we watch the TV series 24 (you remember it came in our care package)? Besides CNN Europe, our dvd, is the only English that comes out of the loudspeakers on our TV.

John apologizes for the interruption, his hair is tossled and he looks like a guy that lost his best friend. He says "I have problem" and I think to myself "So does Jack Bauer on 24!" History tells me that John's problem could be everything from he doesn't want me to leave the windows open when we leave the apartment to the kids leaving the scooters on his new hardwood floors. It's late so I am hoping that it's something simple since my tea is getting cold and Seamus is eyeballing the last Danish Butter Cookie in the tin, the one with the sugar on top. I say "John, what's the problem?" He says "I double book the apartment upstairs on the 3rd Floor." Hmmm, this is not unusual because Team Glavin is on its way to Istanbul,Turkey on Tuesday since John booked OUR apartment because he got his "rent" days mixed up. The pain on John's face reminds me of the look when you get into a car accident with your dad's car. I ask John "How can I help you?" He says "Can the guy from the 3rd floor stay in your apartment Friday night, he leaves on Saturday?" Now lets see if I got this right, you'd like to have a stranger stay with Ann, the 3 kids and me. John says, in his best salesman's pitch, "He's American and a language professor." I look at John and say "Maybe a priest too?" He doesn't get my joke.

Well, if you asked me 4 months ago to give an answer to this question "Can a total stranger stay with you and your family in your apartment in Vienna?" I would have said "Are you out of your freakin mind?" but tonight I simply said "yes." I am growing as a person over here in Europe!! John's relief is just like the feeling you get when your health insurance cost stays the same this year vs last year. He takes me up to the 3rd floor apt. It is the same apartment where I swiped the toaster last time I visited it with John. Who knows maybe I'll get a roommate and a WOK this time around.

I meet Mike Corley, our new cohabitant for Apt 1-4 Shubertgasse. He is not quite 80 years old. He comes down to meet all of us and see his room. We will kick Eamon out of his bedroom so the octogenarian is close to the bathroom. In a mere 20 minutes we learn that Mike's son is the lead tenor in the San Francisco Symphony and outperforms the orchestra, his wife who is 53 years old had surgery for a brain tumor and to correct 2 eyeballs that weren't lined up right after brain surgery, he taught at a community college in Northern California and loves to fly fish. Imagine what we'll learn over 12 hours.

I escort Mike back to his 3rd floor apartment and make arrangements for him to join us the next morning. As I re-enter the 1st floor apartment I can't help but hear the giggles and the loud uproar coming from the living room. I ask "What's so funny?". Seamus almost in tears and Eamon barely able to contain himself yelps "He sounds just like pop-pop Glavin." Did you hear him? "His son is the best in the orchestra, like our Jake in football or me on stage or Pearse in baseball'!!" "He's awesome."

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