Day in the life.

Being in a foreign environment can easily turn an average day into an adventure. Took a trip to the grocery store where I went out on a limb and bought some cheese. I was looking for some stuff called burata - which is semi-solid and tastes like heaven when smothered in olive oil and sprinkled with pepper. I couldn't remember the name so I approached the situation similar to the way I decide what move to make in chess - I poked packages of cheese and struggled to remember the name for about 10 minutes, and then chose one at random and hoped for the best. I'm not such a pro at chess, so this ended up the way you can imagine. What I chose wasn't exactly cream cheese, but it wasn't exactly bad in any way at all. In fact it was the best not-exactly-cream-cheese I've ever had. God, the grocery store here just brings tears to my eyes. The first time I saw that wall of dried salted meats and every type of cheese imaginable it was over for me...

I decided to take Amanda and Zeno's dog, Bobo for a walk today. He hadn't been out in a while so he was a bit ecstatic about the situation. At a certain point in the walk, we reached a park that was about 3 feet above street level - so there was this little 3 foot wall dividing sidewalk from nature. Bobo decided he wanted to walk at park level. So he jumped up on this skinny little structure (he had maybe 3 inches in width between the iron fence and the ledge within which to walk) and pretty soon I was walking him at eye level. It felt a little weird, like holding a balloon on a string rather than walking a dog, and I got some weird looks, but if the pooch was happy, so was I.


[This is Bobo]

Late in the evening, I went to the bar to meet up with my friend Stefania who was leaving the next day for Calabria to go on holiday and visit her family. Our other friend Tone, originally from Sweden, were having beers and chatting when this very drunk woman comes bumbling up to the bar, dog in tow. She’s tiny, dressed to impress in a cute little dress and giant heels –maybe in her mid-twenties. She was at the level of intoxication I like to refer to as "Bambi drunk". You know the type- like a baby dear on new legs. Her dog was this little white ball of fluff that only weighed about 9 pounds and it was attached to a pink retractable leash which was un-retracted and jumbled up in her arms with the dog. The stool she chose to plop herself down upon was in the middle of a small aisle- the only one leading to all the rest of the places to sit. It also happened to belong a man who had been sitting at the table behind hers with his friends, and he was approaching to reclaim it when she swept in and obliviously claimed it for herself.

Leaning down, she placed her dog under the table directly on top of someone else's purse, and then in her mind I think she tried for a time to tie the leash to someone else’s purse in order to keep the dog in one place. From everyone else's perspective, she was just jumbling the leash up more and pushing the purse around until eventually she decided that it had taken long enough, gave up, and ordered a drink.

Meanwhile, the dog goes sniffing around the floor, under people’s feet. He starts wandering farther and farther from her. Eventually he realizes he's free and tries to run, but the sound of the leash handle dragging on the cobblestone startles him. He's running and stopping and running and stopping. Everyone else at the bar is watching this except for Drunky and her friends. I get up to go the bathroom, and as I'm climbing over her to get out of the seating area, I let her in on the scene unfolding behind her. 'Hey, Honey. Your dog is running away." She stares at me blankly. She doesn’t speak English.

"Sua Cane?" I say in Italian, pointing. She leaps into action, mumbling an obscure dialect of drunk hobo Russian and running after the dog, all Bambi legs through the cobblestone streets.

Later that night, I became a rap video hoe, but you already know about that.