Poached!

It seems that a young female at an Italian bowling arena is a hot commodity. While I’d like to claim that my talent is prodigious, after a mere four Sundays of playing the game with grumpy old men, this is not the real reason for what happened:

In the middle of a heated game, men gesticulating wildly and arguing extremely heatedly (ensuing after I rolled quite a killer of a bowl, if I do say so myself) about the distance between our team’s closest ball to the kitty, and the opposition’s closest ball to the kitty (isn’t that what the damn yardstick/giant compass thingy is for? Why fight when you can measure? Or is that just not the Italian way?), some mysterious old man hisses at me and calls for me to come over. So, I walk on over, ready to inform him that I have a name, and it’s not “Hssssss!” He’s abrupt and abrasive, through, so I don’t get a word in edge-wise.

“Youuu! Whatsa youngk gehrl like joo doingk plehying bocce wit de old men, eh?” “I see joo, joo have style for such a youngk one, jor talents is wasted here!” “Come plehy wit us de lawn bowls, much a more civilized, no fightingk, many more a ladiez plehyingk too!” “Joo hav no fyootoor here at bocce, eh!”

After the game, he and his friend bought me drinks, we chatted (as far as Italians can actually chat rather than ‘discuss heatedly’) and they convinced me to give the more traditional English bowls a try one of these weekends (there’s a team based at the Wop club too, which is more representative of nationalities – and genders - than bocce is). So I’m considering myself poached! Oh, the glory!

On two asides:
1) Mike finally popped the question to Nan – congrats guys! Pretty please let me be a bridesmaid!
2) quote of the week: “My ass is the sexual event horizon”. From a book I bought this weekend, where a woman waxes lyrical about how anal sex brought her to find true love, and God. I plan to use this sentence this week, I love it. A bit tricky to work into general conversation, though.