One of Miss C's crazy life stories.

I used to have neighbors from Estonia. They were serious party animals and a good 20 years younger than I. The female half of the couple was very outgoing and friendly. The male half was quiet and didn't speak much English. She used to take me to movies and dinner and they drove me and another neighbor to a wedding in the woods. The Estonian expats are a close knit group and would all party together regularly. They would go to the beach and party too hard and get kicked off the beach. There was a lot of vodka drinking and they all smoked a lot. The guys all looked like assassins and the girls looked like movie stars.

One night they had a party and I was invited. Everybody was a lot younger than I and the other women were not friendly. A few of the guys were talking to me and I asked them if they ever got used to the incredible beauty of their women. "No," he said. "That is why we all want to go back to Estonia!" Well there. One of the guys looks at me very seriously and says, "I don't care so much about looks, that is not very important to me." So I say, "In Estonia you don't have to choose between looks and brains or looks and a nice personality, because it's a given that the girls will be good looking, so you can pick the smart pretty one or the nice pretty one. They are all pretty" He laughed, but of course he was the one that asked me out, hardly flattering as he had stated looks were not important to him. His name was Ringo.

One night he calls me and asked me to a party. On the way to the party we stop to pick up Ringo's Estonian friend, Elvis. So I am in the car with Elvis and Ringo. We drive up into the hills, to a beautiful house. There lives another Estonian friend. These guys all work in construction for a Russian contracter. The guy whose house we are going to is one of the house painters. His name is Yanick. Yanick is about 25 and living with a 40 something school teacher named Greta. She is very cute and nice. Yanick looks like Axel Rose. He has a do rag on. He is charming as hell and reminds me of my dad. He paints and draws and he is writing a book. He has a huge collection of eclectic music and he and I know all the words to the Pogues CD he has on and we are singing in Irish and nobody knows what the hell is going on, but Yanick and I are feeling like we know each other really well.

Greta and I and her other female friend, who is with her boyfriend, another teacher, who is very uptiight and gets upset when we all start dirty dancing, are on her beautiful porch and Greta is telling us how Yanick loves older women and how he charmed her on their first meeting. I saw in the kitchen that Yanick had written love notes and taped them on to the kitchen cabinets, saying "Yanick loves Greta, every minute of every day" It is cute stuff and bound to make other women jealous. So then Yanick asks if I want to see the artist's studio he is kitting out for himself in a room Greta was going to rent out for money, but he convinced her he needed, instead.

Stupidly/hopefully, I go with him. Of course he attacks me in a passionate way. I fight him off diplomatically and explain to him how this is not right as he has it going on and Greta does not deserve such treatment at the hands of someone she has taken in to her posh digs. He says, "Yes, Greta is great, she's great." I slide my way out to mingle with Greta and the folks. But it does not end there, oh no. Yanick will lean over to me and and in full view of a smiling Greta, tell me what wonderful indignities he would like to perform in and on my person and the different uses he has for my body. He drank tall glasses of Vodka. (They laughed at the Estonian Vodka being advertised in magazines, they said they all drink Russian Vodka) Finally, we left the party. The Monday after the party I get a call at the library and of course it is him. He is very naughty on the phone, very, very, very naughty. Again I fob him off with excuses and try to read him the riot act and tell him that Greta took me and him into her home and that he is an ungrateful wretch.

I tell my Estonian neighbor what is going on and she tells me that Yanick was set to star in a movie in Estonia opposite their most famous supermodel, but that Yanick had gone of on a drunken, drug binge and voided his contract. She said that in her opinion Yanick was near genius and crazy and uncontrollable as hell. He came to the library a few months ago and asked for Charles Bukowski books. I unloaded him on a Librarian, male, although no one is safe with Yanick, I fear, I thought he would enjoy talking about Bukowski with, then I booked.