‘I’m going
to look at houses with Sue’.
I hear that clarion call
to adventure most Sundays in springtime. The phone
will ring. June will answer. There’ll be a
crisp and efficient exchange of dialogue. Usually
in that sing-song cadence, unique to the tight,
tribal circle called, ‘friends of Sue’…’Can
I just say-y-y-y’…Hell-l-l-o-o-o-o-o-o…
Oh, an 820, 000 thousand dollar one bedroom, fixer
upper, no parking, needs work, on Beech? I’m
there’
And she’s off…
sporting a zeal for a real estate fix, with pupils
dilating crack mom hungry.
Sue comes girded for battle,
conducting her house hunting sorties with a tight,
military precision, that’d get the anal retentive
sphincters of West Point drill sergeants snapping
with glee!
I’d expect nothing
less from Canada’s number one producer and
cult status warm up siren, who has paid the kind
of dues that earn a top-of- the-food-chain view.
Why, as a young AD on the legendary Tommy Hunter
Show, she ripped a strip off Hank Snow when he showed
up for rehearsal an hour late, shit-faced, saucy
and toothless!
Sue mean business baby! There’s
no middle ground! This is war!
She arrives at 1100 hours,
with the Volvo purring!
She’s wearing slip-on
shoes to facilitate fast entry/exit through the
domicile!
The hot properties have been
downloaded from Remax and listed in alphabetical
order in descending price…( with ‘dogs’
below $700,000 highlighted, just in case there’s
an impulse for ‘slumming’.)
The ‘attack plan’
has been systematically co-ordinated to a GPS grid,
being fed to a NORAD computer, for which three civilians
have the password. She got it from a connection
in the Privy Council (ex LOVER!), in exchange for
comps to Canadian Idol and a box of Sass Jordan
CDs she found backstage.
Once in the homes, Sue will
mark her passage with the diligence of a lioness
in estrus. Every door and closet is opened. Every
tap turned and light switch flicked. Every room
given that thorough, razor sharp assessment reserved
for rookie Insight PA’s, caught hanging too
damn long round the honey table. It would be the
kind of look that says, ‘I’m 50.
I’m cool and Bernie Sahlins said I had the
best ass in show business… in 1983…and
I still do! So look busy or you’ll be gone
before the coffee’s cold! And another thing...WHO
OK’D THE CRISPY CREMES? THEY’RE FIRED!
FIRED!’
June returns from a day of
an Open House snoop with Sue, story flush with adventure:
of seeing the million dollar dump with knob and
tube wiring and Sue brazenly breaking with Beaches
real estate protocol to let the agent know.
‘Can I just say-y-y-y.
You’ve got a better chance of dumping this
pig if you had a sign saying ‘Murder/Suicide…
Reduced to Clear’. (Ok. She never said
that. I’m just looking for a cheap tag.)
June is traveling in the
company of a pro-active-set-your-watches-cause-the–invasion-starts-NOW-sapphire-sharp-chick-on-a-mission.
June’s lucky. We all
are. To have a warm, welcoming neighbour, whose
contribution to the ‘hood’ has made
the winters shorter and summer’s sweeter.
We’ve communed in her home for suppers aplenty,
watching our kids spontaneously erupt in talent
shows. Sometimes mothers do too. Like the night
Sue made a beeline for her couch from the supper
table and literally SPRANG into hand stand action
against the windows ala Nadia Kominic. No reason.
Just cause. And upside down, with blood rushing
to her head said…
‘Don’t forget
June. We’ve got to see those houses tomorrow’.
Happy
Birthday Neighbour!
Love Ron,
June, Cayley and Gracie.
