Throw Me a Scone!
There's something kind of amusing and kind of lonely about hanging out with non-native speakers of English all the time. After 2.5 weeks in Ireland, I've finally met my first Irish person yesterday. Giovanni lives with Alexandra (from France) and Louise (from Ireland), but the latter was MIA ever since I got here until this past weekend. I've spent time with a good number of Italians, French people, my one friend in Cork who's Belgian, and even an Omani!
Of course I'm overjoyed at all the cultural enrichment, but do wonder if it wouldn't be a bit enlightening to meet an Irish lass or lad while here on the Emerald Isle. Of course I've seen and heard real, genuine Irish people on the street here in Cork, but without frequenting pubs, and I've yet to be in a pub so far (blast!), it's not easy to chat anyone up on the street. Plus, being acutely sensitive to anti-American sentiments, I am trying to pick up attitudes appropriate to an urban European environment as I normally do when I'm abroad. It doesn't seem to be all that common to chat with someone you're waiting in line behind, or to make much conversation with strangers. I suppose this is true in San Francisco too, but maybe less so.
This weekend, Giovanni and I went to Galway to stay with Giuseppe and Maryam, an engaged couple of non-Irish people who are making their living here. We ate fabulous Omanitalian home-cooking including risotto with a tomato and tuna sauce with Omani curry spices, delicious fluffy pancakes, and sort of Mexican fajitas (guacamole à la Robyn) and enjoyed their company. Sunday we went to County Mayo to Ashford Castle, and after a long walk around the immaculately manicured grounds, our stomachs began to growl. The Italians, the Omani and I circled around the castle that houses a five-star hotel and equally ranked restaurant and caught a glimpse of the basement kitchen through ground-level window. I offered that we should just scurry over to the window and ask for a quick bite to eat or two: "Hey, why don't you throw me a scone!" Ha ha haha haa, and I found myself laughing alone and then beginning to explain my clever little play on words. But such explanations never do justice to humor. I shouldn't have expected them to throw me a bone, so to speak. So I recount it here, in hopes I can share my cheesy line with some native English speaker.
Similarly, later that evening as the four of us were preparing our internationally inspired fajitas in a kitchen too small for two, Maryam complained that Giovanni and Giuseppe were kicking a bottle that was on the floor as we all shuffled around each other in the famous too-small kitchen-and-too-many-people-in-it dance. I quipped, "At least they're not kicking the bucket," and made my own buh-dum-bum-chhhhhh to underline my stupid humor. "What, at least we're not kicking the bottle?" "No...to 'kick the bucket' means....ahhh, nevermind." At least I'm amusing myself.
