Love that dim lighting.

Before renovating my apartment three years ago, I told my architect that the most important thing to me was good lighting. The sconces she chose for the living room provide a total of 40 watts of light. I believe it's called "mood lighting," but, it might better be called "bad mood lighting" or better yet " lighting with which comes with a companion "life alert" button. I've spent three years in a low level of annoyance at the dimness of living room. Today , I became grateful. On Tuesday, when I went to boil water for my coffee and none of my burners would light, I realized that the building had shut off the gas to my line. The building had posted a notice about the shutoff, but I had read it cursorily and hadn't realized it applied to my apartment. The super, Val, said my upstairs neighbor had smelled gas, the gas was accordingly shut off and work to find the leak would begin on Wednesday with plumbers---the same ones who had caused a flood in my apartment due to their ineptitude-- taking apart my newly renovated kitchen. I wasn't thrilled but I was less thrilled with the idea of my apartment blowing up. So, I told Val, "I'll be home and they can come anytime." I sent an email cancelling my Thanksgiving dinner because I could see that the likelihood of having a working stove in a week was slim to none. A crew of three Ecuadoreans was in my kitchen all day Wednesday and Thursday breaking my walls. But for the fact that it was disconcerting to see my recently installed cabinets and decorative moldings being removed, it was pleasant honing my Spanish with them. This morning, the crew went to destroy someone else's kitchen , leaving only a handsome young apprentice in my apartment whose only job was to see if the hand on the pressure gauge moved. That left him plenty of free time to chat with me in Spanish. We exchanged names--Anderson/Carol, where we were from--Eduador/New York , how long he had been working for the company--2 days and ages...yes ages. He told me he's 23 and asked me how old I was. I instructed him that you should never ask a woman's age, but ok, if he promised to keep it a secret, I'd tell him. Staring at me in the extremely dim light he told me I looked much younger and that I have beautiful eyes. "Do I live alone?" he asked. "Yes," I answered, "I've been married, but I prefer my freedom." "Would you want a boyfriend?," he asked. "No, " I answered," because the men who would be interested in me are too old. " "Well what if a young man wanted to be your boyfriend?" he persisted. "That's very unlikely,?" I said. I'm no Sherlock, but I suspected where he was going with this line of questioning. It seemed so preposterous, I rejected the suspicion. He then said, "I'd like to be your boyfriend. I'm younger. I think you're beautiful. " I said, reluctantly(both because I hated to admit my senior status and because I'm unlikely to ever get an offer like this again,) "I'm old enough to be your grandmother." He lowered his eyes."I've never kissed anyone. You know how to kiss, right?" "Yes,"said," but I can't teach you. You're handsome and charming and I'm sure you'll find someone your age who will love you and be happy to teach you." Love that dim lighting!! And, oh, did I mention that our interchange was entirely in Spanish and that my Spanish, though serviceable for shopping, is not up to the minute in slang. So, I am not sure if he was asking me to teach him to kiss or to f**k. Either way, love that dim lighting.