Tales of Home [8]

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Streakers, on a Scottish golf course- have you forgotten the midgies! }}}

What do they eat when they can't get Scotshobbit?

Eldorion wrote:What do they eat when they can't get Scotshobbit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_midge

Female Highland midges are well known for gathering in clouds and biting humans, though the majority of the blood they obtain comes from cattle, sheep and deer.
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Midges tend to hate dry cloudless conditions, and are thus prevalent in humid, wet and cloudy conditions. Rain does not put them off, nor does darkness. However, they tend not to go into houses or buildings, but will enter tents.

They don't seem very logical. Why would tents be okay but not buildings? Tents let in more light, but they don't care about darkness. At the size of a midge, fabric should be just as much a barrier as a slat of plywood.

They certainly have no trepidation about buildings

Well then I'm glad we don't have the little buggers.

I'm on the bus down to Washington DC, where most of my friends still reside (I wish there was a hidden political meaning to that, but there ain't). Going to a concert by Lisa Fischer, who was one of about a dozen backup singers for every band you've ever heard of from the 70's - 90's.

I always pay a few extra bucks to reserve the front seat at the top of the double decker bus, for a panoramic view. Wifi for once is working, and between the scenery and the vehicular vibrations I'm very relaxed. Should have thought to fill up a hip flask with scotch or something.

the weather is unlike the rest of europe this spring, gorgeous! and my roomate has his birthday today, but he refuses to go out and have a beer... like. utepils... ??????

As I was shopping yesterday..



Entrance to a small indoor shopping......... place. I think it looks so pretty.

{{I like that!

-been unseasonable here too Norc, my bits are sunburned }}}

Spent part of the weekend with a friend who had been posted to Rome with the UN.  She's from Russia, spent the previous 6 years in the US, you'd think she'd love the change to the Eternal City.

She hates it.  Says, the food is wonderful, but the only thing the Italians are interested in eating is Italian food.  Can't get Indian, Mexican, Chinese, etc, etc.  It begins to grate on you.  She used to give Starbucks the cold shoulder as a corporate chain, now after months of nothing but espresso she craves it (I used to look down on Starbucks until I discovered its enlightened corporate culture, now I'm a booster even if I rarely drink coffee).  

She recently spent a few days in Glasgow and loved its more open culture.

I wonder if Figgs felt confined by the provincial Italian attitude; what it took to get past it, how much of a difference being married to an Italian made.

{{Ah well if they are Russian doesn't surprise they feel more at home in a northern European city with an industrial root than a southern European country. }}}

Has your Italian squeeze shown any interest in eating anything other than Italian food?

{{Actually now you mention it- no, not really. I mean even when she doesn't make something thats strictly traditionally Italian, she sort of makes it more Italian.
She does occasionally make me something non Italian- but I get the feeling its done out of niceness and with some inner disdain at serving less than a perfectly balanced Italian meal!
Still turns out I can live with that! (well so long as she keeps disguising the vegetables so I dont know they are there that is!) }}}

Well I can well understand not wanting to cook anything outside one's bailiwick. The real test is if you are wandering down a distant town street, both feeling full-on peckish with no prospect of getting home and cooking anything soon. So you turn to her and say brightly "hey, how about dropping in yon shop for a nice plate of curry? I've heard this place is the best." Will she perk up, or try to drive you towards a decent Italian restaurant?

{{{Mmm well last time such an occasion arose I dont think there was an Italian restaurant- place we did go to she had a salmon bisque- which is french in origin but obviously in this case made with local Scottish salmon.
Not so sure if that shows willingness to eat outside the Italian box, or the fact it was the least Scottish thing on the menu! (ok salmon is pretty Scottish we got tons of that, but bisque ain't)}}}

I would've gotten the salmon bisque too. Jury still out.

halfwise wrote:Spent part of the weekend with a friend who had been posted to Rome with the UN.  She's from Russia, spent the previous 6 years in the US, you'd think she'd love the change to the Eternal City.

She hates it.  Says, the food is wonderful, but the only thing the Italians are interested in eating is Italian food.  Can't get Indian, Mexican, Chinese, etc, etc.  It begins to grate on you.  She used to give Starbucks the cold shoulder as a corporate chain, now after months of nothing but espresso she craves it (I used to look down on Starbucks until I discovered its enlightened corporate culture, now I'm a booster even if I rarely drink coffee).  

She recently spent a few days in Glasgow and loved its more open culture.

I wonder if Figgs felt confined by the provincial Italian attitude; what it took to get past it, how much of a difference being married to an Italian made.

How long you got?   It was a HUGE culture shock being a totally undomesticated Mancunian hippy type the Italian way of thinking was bizarre at first, and then I grew to appreciate parts of it. Basically its like living in the 70s, family is all important and men and women still have traditional roles, for me it would have been a prison and at first it was impossible to adapt, I felt my entire essence being put in a cage and tamed, but I rebel inside and it never 'got' me. The first years of my marriage were one long fight, he wanting conventional, ie right shoes for right occasion, and me saying, Screw That! one red sock and one green one will do just fine thanks! But slowly he changed, became more relaxed, let me be me, laughed at my eccentricities, accepted me for the free spirit I feel all Tolkien lovers are, deep down. I changed too, I learned to be less selfish, think of others, do the dishes without thinking that I was caving in to domestic servitude, I relaxed too. its give and take with the Italian culture, some of it is great some of it drives you barking. But yeah Starbucks is ok.

Ha! You broke him down. I'd expect no less, even if you had to give in some yourself. I suspect he found your lack of domestication to be part of the attraction, but had to learn over time how to let go of his cultural expectations.

yep he is an anglophile 80s Mancunian music lover so he got the anarchic sarcastic side straight away. A straight up Italian male wouldn't have worked. He calls me his female Johnny Rotten, says it all really. 

Mrs Figg wrote: He calls me his female Johnny Rotten

That's both sweet and terrifying

{{Makes absolute sense to me }}}

Dam right !!

Took a while but winters finally come.

Got some rain this week 20° and sunny today thou. ☀︎

yeah winter... that's what we call a  good summer

Used to the warm weather now, not sure if i could handle months of cold.
Always looks good thou.