As usual I fired off a morning email to CCC. It was entitled: Don’t Need Your Services CCCMe: Good morning! I do not need your services – so there, so there, so there! Mario and I are driving up the coast to Mendocino. Lunching and art gallerying and then driving back. Who needs a concierge but I still miss you. The Virgin Queen.
CCC:As always you are too kind to me ………….. NOT anyway have a fun day driving with “Super Mario”
But then I started to write the blog of the morning and oops….
Me: Drats! – now I find myself needing you after all. How do you spell the name of the hotel across the street Shangrai-La????????I need it for my blog/book. Thank you CCC! I would tip you but I am too far away!
CCC: Shangri-La Vancouver
Me: CCC TO THE RESCUE, yet again.
But my strange relationship with CCC was somewhat preceded by my relationship with Mario whom I am visiting in Sea Ranch. Here are some examples of our email exchanges.
Mario: You arrive on the 2nd and leave on the 4th. Get a car with GPS to help you navigate because you might end up in Portland…….if you remember how you got lost that day of our dinner.
To be totally honest I do not remember the day I got lost finding his place – oh maybe I do. It was probably about six years ago and I was on foot and my cell phone was inoperative. But then, in a subsequent email, Mario laid down the rules of the house. (By the way, Mario is not clairvoyant, he is a daily reader of my blogs.)
Mario: This is not the Trump Tower. My home is in process of remodel, so I know you will be patient with the disruption. You will have your own bedroom with attached bath. Unlike your cousin, I DO NOT IRON SHEETS.
I would like to know what you have for breakfast. I do not do waffles or eggs Benedict.
Looking forward to your arrival. Safe driving.
Me: I eat ANYTHING for breakfast, coffee an essential . Cold cereal fine. Kisses, Lexie
Mario: You get eggs!!!
So I rented a car and drove to Sea Ranch. I have not been driving for years as I was in London and I do not have a car in Vancouver. But I did discover (much to my relief) that driving is like riding a bike – it does come back. I arrived on time without GPS but Mario had to act like an air traffic controller and wave me in to his delightful home in Sea Ranch. It is a precious place. But things are not going well between us.
Mario: I can’t stand to be around you. If we were married I would kill you and it would be a slow and painful death.
Me: Spare me the details.
We have been fighting like ‘cats and dogs’ – whatever that expression may mean. It is highly unusual for both of us. Go figure! (I have no idea what that expression may mean either). But between yelling matches we drove up the coast to the Botanical Gardens. It is beautiful and the picture attached to the blog is me in my new hat with the dahlias. The hat cost a fortune, the woman said that it had an spf of 50 an so it was worth it.
Me: Big deal! I live in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
She: What difference does that make?
Me: The sun hardly EVER shines there.
There is a picture also of a sculpture found in the garden. It is not Mario, although the guy is armed, perhaps for the slow and painful death.
So the end of the book will wait until tomorrow. I am too sad to write it today. I confessed my sadness to a man already this morning in a faraway place. He did not respond, perhaps not yet. because he is in a different time zone. A very, very different time zone.
