quaint, actually
in the park, laughing at David Sedaris stories.
Right now I should be lining up summer work and sorting things out for the next school year. With weather like this, though, it’s hard to think beyond the next gelato. It’s a trap of this properly seasonal climate: all winter you sit smoking and thinking, coiled tight around your ambitious schemes with nothing to distract you. Then just as the time comes to put all your plans into action, the sun comes out and the most complex thought you are capable of is gaaaaaah, daisies. My idea of forward planning is ordering limes and mint from my local greengrocer (no shops sell them, he says he'll hook me up next time he's at the wholesale market) so I can make mojitos at home.
Sarah’s in the Aeolian islands now, having volcanic mud baths. Last week we spent a day in Florence. I was late to meet her (noooo, Katrina, you don’t say?) and so she waited at Ponte Vecchio and eavesdropped. A bulldog-faced Texan woman pointed her camera at the Arno and said with pugnacious satisfaction, ‘Ah, now, this is quaint. This is actually quaint.’ Which will of course be our secret password from this day forward.
She’s met a lot of my students since she’s been here, actually—she caught the end-of-second-term restaurant season. It’s distressing how many of my students insist on ordering ‘a large cock’ whenever we practice our restaurant language. I should point out, however, that the way most foreigners pronounce penne means that they are basically ordering a plate of penis. I like the symmetry of that. If you want to avoid the mistake, by the way, be sure to pronounce the double-n with emphasis. If, however, your waiter is cute and you’re up for a little misunderstanding, ‘penay’ away.
Right now I should be lining up summer work and sorting things out for the next school year. With weather like this, though, it’s hard to think beyond the next gelato. It’s a trap of this properly seasonal climate: all winter you sit smoking and thinking, coiled tight around your ambitious schemes with nothing to distract you. Then just as the time comes to put all your plans into action, the sun comes out and the most complex thought you are capable of is gaaaaaah, daisies. My idea of forward planning is ordering limes and mint from my local greengrocer (no shops sell them, he says he'll hook me up next time he's at the wholesale market) so I can make mojitos at home.
Sarah’s in the Aeolian islands now, having volcanic mud baths. Last week we spent a day in Florence. I was late to meet her (noooo, Katrina, you don’t say?) and so she waited at Ponte Vecchio and eavesdropped. A bulldog-faced Texan woman pointed her camera at the Arno and said with pugnacious satisfaction, ‘Ah, now, this is quaint. This is actually quaint.’ Which will of course be our secret password from this day forward.
She’s met a lot of my students since she’s been here, actually—she caught the end-of-second-term restaurant season. It’s distressing how many of my students insist on ordering ‘a large cock’ whenever we practice our restaurant language. I should point out, however, that the way most foreigners pronounce penne means that they are basically ordering a plate of penis. I like the symmetry of that. If you want to avoid the mistake, by the way, be sure to pronounce the double-n with emphasis. If, however, your waiter is cute and you’re up for a little misunderstanding, ‘penay’ away.
posted by Katrina @ 4:04 PM
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