May 2007
Serendipity
10 May 2007 14:48
Two odd things happened this
week.
Monday was a full day: two school shows with Ballet Creole, followed by a rehearsal with the bar mitzvah band I’m currently waiting to go onstage with. My good neighbour Walter McLean did both school shows. Afterwards I had only enough time to run home, eat a quick supper, kiss the family, and zip out again to Geary Avenue where the rehearsal was happening—and where I saw Walter’s van parked on the street. Walter had lately been making a big deal of us being neighbours, but I thought this was pushing it a little.
That wasn’t the odd
thing, however. The rehearsal went really late: we were supposed to
end at 11 but went until 12:45. When I finally got home and checked
my voice mail, the message from Walter was the odd thing. He was
asking for a ride to the next day’s school shows because just
earlier, his van was stolen from the spot on Geary Avenue I saw it
last.
The following day was full again: three Ballet Creole shows, the last being the evening’s end-of-year recital for the Professional Training Programme students. It had been a beautiful day, it was a balmy evening, and balmy evenings are even sweeter when there are plenty of trees around to rustle their freshly budded leaves in the wind as they were doing in Cabbagetown. In a generous mood, I gave Alejandra, Ingrid, and Hudson a ride home, driving with the windows open for the first night this year. It was heading up Nairn Avenue to Ingrid’s house that the second odd thing happened.
[I’ll tell you what it was in a second. Tony Hawk is about to skate a 30-foot half-pipe here at the bar mitzvah, with Kevin Robinson and four other skaters. I’m not joking. I heard this coming-of-age party cost two and a half million dollars.]
It was a couple of blocks up Nairn Avenue that I noticed a blue Caravan very similar to Walter’s. I guess, in the nineties, the Caravan was similar to the Model T: incredibly popular and any colour you like as long as it’s blue. It was only as we got close enough to see the licence plate that I jammed on the brakes. I was looking at Walter’s car again not twenty-four hours after it was stolen.
All’s well that ends well; Walter recovered his own car two days after losing it, with nothing lost but the ignition. He’s considering attending church with me.
Monday was a full day: two school shows with Ballet Creole, followed by a rehearsal with the bar mitzvah band I’m currently waiting to go onstage with. My good neighbour Walter McLean did both school shows. Afterwards I had only enough time to run home, eat a quick supper, kiss the family, and zip out again to Geary Avenue where the rehearsal was happening—and where I saw Walter’s van parked on the street. Walter had lately been making a big deal of us being neighbours, but I thought this was pushing it a little.
That wasn’t the odd
thing, however. The rehearsal went really late: we were supposed to
end at 11 but went until 12:45. When I finally got home and checked
my voice mail, the message from Walter was the odd thing. He was
asking for a ride to the next day’s school shows because just
earlier, his van was stolen from the spot on Geary Avenue I saw it
last.The following day was full again: three Ballet Creole shows, the last being the evening’s end-of-year recital for the Professional Training Programme students. It had been a beautiful day, it was a balmy evening, and balmy evenings are even sweeter when there are plenty of trees around to rustle their freshly budded leaves in the wind as they were doing in Cabbagetown. In a generous mood, I gave Alejandra, Ingrid, and Hudson a ride home, driving with the windows open for the first night this year. It was heading up Nairn Avenue to Ingrid’s house that the second odd thing happened.
[I’ll tell you what it was in a second. Tony Hawk is about to skate a 30-foot half-pipe here at the bar mitzvah, with Kevin Robinson and four other skaters. I’m not joking. I heard this coming-of-age party cost two and a half million dollars.]
It was a couple of blocks up Nairn Avenue that I noticed a blue Caravan very similar to Walter’s. I guess, in the nineties, the Caravan was similar to the Model T: incredibly popular and any colour you like as long as it’s blue. It was only as we got close enough to see the licence plate that I jammed on the brakes. I was looking at Walter’s car again not twenty-four hours after it was stolen.
All’s well that ends well; Walter recovered his own car two days after losing it, with nothing lost but the ignition. He’s considering attending church with me.
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