Rebellion brewing

Believe me, I know I'm losing my audience. I realize that it is essentially my job to continue to provide you with amusing morsels and that I've been slacking. I got a testy email on the subject today. What can I tell you, people? I got nothing. Truly. I've been trying to think of something. I loiter about in restaurants and on street corners in the hopes that someone will say something eccentric, but it's been a dry time.

Today a colleague was interviewing an insurance salesman in my office (I don't know why. She does have an office of her own.) At one point I thought he said something about the policy covering "out of body expenses" for the insured. I think it was just sloppy diction, but I hope not. I'd be curious to know how pricey those out of body expenses are.

In other news, while at my friend's house for a southern dinner (which basically means that everything involved staggering amounts of Crisco) her water heater sort of exploded and shot flames out the top. No damage, but I think we barely escaped with our lives. A Crisco-based meal and an errant open flame? This is not a good combination.

That's all I have for you. Please don't storm the castle. I'll try to do better. I may dust off the last Italian anecdote for you.

Okay. I'll give you that one

Often I am too curmudgeonly to be excessively charmed by the antics of animals. However, when I walked out into yet another grim August day (is it fog? is it rain? hard to say), and saw the neighborhood Great Dane gambolling down Cole Street with an excited Dachshund, I admit it. It was joy inducing.

Some might call that proof

My formerly surefire "are you a crazy person" test must be updated to take into account the new proliferation of hands-free cell phone devices. That is, many people who appear to ranting to themselves as they walk down the street are actually having a phone conversation. Annoying perhaps, rude perhaps, but not necessarily crazy.

In any case, I assumed the young woman with the pink hair and tattered jacket walking up Masonic this morning was a cell phone person. Ah, but no. Wrong category. Plenty of chatting to...no one. As she walked past me she treated me to this little snippet of song:

"Dear father, if Jesus esists, how come I sucked his dick? Yeah, yeah yeah."

Now, for all I know, this is some major hit and not the ramblings of a deranged street person. Nevertheless, crassness aside, the lyric has a significant flaw in my opinion. After all, is it possible to suck the dick of someone who doesn't exist?

Just wondering.

Hello from the construction zone

So, it's true that no one is required to wear a hard hat at work anymore, but there are new challenges.

Today's question: How long does the fire alarm need to go off during a "test" before it's pretty clear that it's working just fine?

The new fire alarm goes off in blasts of three deafening buzzes, followed by a little pause, then three more deafening blasts. Apparently this can continue for any length of time--five minutes feeling roughly equivalent to an hour. In case you are deaf (which at the moment seems a pleasant fate) there is also a very bright flashing light--the kind that I think would induce an epileptic fit in some.

Morale, needless to say, is very high.

Dov'e?

I know. Promises, promises. Where are these oft discussed anecdotes? I've been back from my travels for nearly a month now. You probably don't even remember I was gone, but I was. And amusing things happened while I was elsewhere. Really. The thing is that I'm terribly lazy. I don't mean to be, but there it is.

Amusing Anecdote #1

One day, Marja and I got up in the morning and headed off to the tourist office. True, we had nothing particularly urgent to do there, but the fact of an actual plan involving a specific destination made us feel rather busy and important. I promised Marja that we would find her some coffee on the way, which seemed a certainty except that the route to the tourist office seemed strangely devoid of cafes. When we finally passed a tabacco shop/bar there was no time to waste. There was a bit of a caffeine emergency in the works.

It was an ideal location, in fact, because although I don't drink coffee, I did need stamps. I left Marja at the bar and I headed to the back where, by speaking Close-Enough Italian, I was able to purchase some francoboli for my carte postale to the Stati Uniti. When I came back, Marja was standing at the bar* drinking her cappuccino.

* NOTE: My Italian teacher particularly stressed the important fact that in Italy you may either drink your coffee standing at the bar, or you may drink it while seated at a table. BUT BE WARNED: you will pay a great deal more for sitting at the table. This was imparted with the gravity of a true insider tip. Clearly no self-respecting local would pay the exorbitant "table sitting" surcharge. However, being tourists with little or nothing to do other than sit at a cafe table, we were generally willing to pay up the extra Euros. But obviously, on a morning where we had such big plans, there was no time for that sort of thing.

"Hey." I said. "Look at you. Standing at the bar. How'd it go?"
"Well," she said, "it went pretty well up until he asked me if I wanted to drink it here or at a table. At least I think that's what he said. I just smiled and shook my head a lot."

While standing there, I decided I would get a pastry. Fortunately, I knew how to say "I would like a pastry," so that was pretty easy. The man got it for me and I was prepared for him to tell me that it was 70 cents, because, well, that's how much it was. Whatever he said though, was something entirely different. I didn't really concentrate on what it was, I just thought "Ah ha! This is the part where he asks me where I want to eat this. Luckily, Marja forewarned me." Immediately, the word for "here" evaporated from my brain, so I just kept saying it in English. "Here," I say. "Here. Um...Here." I began pointing elaborately from above my head to indicate the very place I was standing. "Here. Right here." I got the giggles. I looked at Marja helplessly. This seemed to go on for ten minutes.

Finally, the bewildered man furrowed his brow and says "A Lucca?" In Lucca? Well, yes. I would like to eat it in Lucca, but far more specifically, I would like to eat it right here, standing at your bar, not even taking one step toward your very expensive tables. I was puzzled. He was puzzled. He turned to his son for aid. The son slowly, but very clearly translated his father's original question. "Where are you from?"

Oh. So I've been insisting for ten minutes that I'm not only from Lucca (despite the fact that I don't speak Italian), but that apparently I was born right here on your bar? Here in your tabbacco shop? Yeah. Well, I was just kidding.

Here's your 70 cents.