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epitome of incomprehensibility
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Two weeks ago, Mrs. Sz of the smiling face and grey ponytail accosted me in the church basement and said, "I've heard the most wonderful news! Can you guess?"
I could, because I'd heard the tail end of her conversation with my mother, but I shook my head.
"You have a boyfriend! An Englishman!" She seemed particularly delighted with this nationality. She herself is from Europe. Hungary.
"Well, he's also Canadian. He's just doing a, an academic project at Oxford."
She leaned forward. "Can I ask...is it serious?"
She meant the relationship, not the project. So I smiled, a little abashed at the question. "I...I hope so."
Then she asked when he was finishing his project, I said the end of next year, and she went, "And then, wedding bells!"
That was a little silly, granted, but it warms my cold heart that she's as friendly as ever, even though her husband had a feud with my dad in 2012, accusing him of
a) pushing him out of his job (there are reasons he thinks this, but misunderstandings abounded) and
b) stealing a filing cabinet (no evidence whatsoever).
He still won't talk to my dad. I tried to get them to stop this a few years ago (when I was more hotheaded) by grabbing their arms and telling them to apologize to each other at once. It was at some kind of church-basement lunch function.
Now, Mrs. Sz is made of...whatever's a tough material that's also pliable. We were at their cottage once and she swam serenely in water that made me shiver when I dipped my toe in.
She has six children, all older than me, one of whom I was friends with in my pre-university days. She seemed eager to see her daughters married, like a less agressive Mrs. Bennet, and now I guess I'm to have marriage-related comments aimed my way. Potentially irritating, but better than the whole Sztorm Rider vs. Librarian Ayatollah showdown (those are their MMA names).
Anyway, I thought of her because I was writing about Hungary before, sort of.
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