It�s not going to happen

You know how when something seems too good to be true it usually is? The phone rang around noon and it was the luthier. Where are you? I asked. I�m in Ottawa, he replied. Hubby was out whupping someone�s ass at tennis. There�s a problem with the guitar, the luthier said. One of the potentiometers (the knob that controls the volume [called a �pot�] for the pick-up) is not doing what it�s supposed to do. I tested it with two different amplifiers, and it either works when it�s cranked up to the top or not at all. What does this mean? I asked. It means, he replied, that I can�t deliver the guitar today. I have to reorder the part because they sent me the wrong one and reinstall it.

He called back about an hour later, after Hubby had returned from his game, stripped naked, hung his laundry out on the line, and wandered around in the kitchen in this totally unclad state while I chitchatted with a friend online. Talk about a conversation piece. He also prepared an omelet for his lunch for which he fried jalape�o peppers, practically blinding himself by accidentally getting some juice near his eye (yogurt to the rescue). It was true, the guitar was not coming today. Instead we will pick it up on our next trip to (or from) Ontario, which will be on the Labour Day weekend.

In the meantime, the guest room is ready for a guest who will not arrive, the refrigerator is stocked with too much food considering we are going away for five days, and we are all a little sad that the new guitar is not coming.

Little Princess won�t be joining us for supper because she is dining with her boyfriend and his family in a restaurant to celebrate his (21st, I believe) birthday. I am a little concerned, to be honest. Her boyfriend�s parents are evangelical Baptists, her boyfriend is not. Originally they were Mennonites (of an evangelical sect, which I was not aware even existed) but since moving to this part of the country joined a Baptist church because there are none of the former here. When he started university, the BF discovered that the world was not the way he had been taught it was, that in fact there was much more out there than he had ever hoped or dreamed. He discovered the joys of alcohol and (thanks to Little Princess) sex, and liberal thought. He�s an intelligent young man with an enquiring mind (which I personally think is being wasted as he pursues a business degree). His mother insisted that he continue to go to church, so he does, but he chose the church himself.

Recently some controversy has arisen regarding his relationship with my daughter. He spends a lot of time at our house, eating several meals a week with us (I don�t mind, he�s housebroken and very polite). It turns out that at his house, for dessert, he gets lectured about reading his bible and praying. His mother is very concerned that his girlfriend is not a Christian (Little Princess told her she was Jewish, which technically she is, as she figured she would be more amenable to that than �godless heathen�). She told her son that he should have Little Princess over to dinner more often because she didn�t want to end up babysitting grandchildren when she didn�t know their mother. BF answered that it was going to be a long time before grandchildren were an issue, if ever, and his mother said that she didn�t want grandchildren from this girlfriend anyway. That was pretty harsh.

So, Little Princess is having dinner with these fine, upstanding Christians, and I just hope they don�t totally estrange their son in the process.

Hubby bought a beautiful blue pottery platter from Lucy who informed him that the house across the street from her was burglarized and her car was stolen out of her driveway (hotwired). When you hear news like that it makes you a little leery about going away. However, if our Volvo were stolen out of our driveway, we could always get the insurance for it and count ourselves lucky, not that I�m suggesting anything�

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