![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dec. 7th, 2012 11:41 pm
Auf der Daley Plaza
"Let's ask them to do 'Irish Rover'."
"'The Wild Rover'? That's one of me favourite songs. She likes it, too."
I made that tongue-in-cheek suggestion even before I knew that the diminutive leader of the amateurish lederhosen-clad three-man combo would end up plopping down next to me to ask, "What next?" And it turns out that they did know "Wild Rover" though--as I suspected--not under that name. When my initial request drew blank looks from the burly man with the squeezebox, I said, "'Auf der Nordseeküste'!"
"Wie heisst das Lied?"
"'Auf der Nordseeküste'. Kennen Sie das?"
They conferred a bit and launched into a completely unfamiliar tune. But as I kept listening to it, it mutated and eventually the faces of the Irishman and Italian woman we were sitting with broke into smiles of recognition. And then, almost as soon as they had verbal confirmation from me that that was indeed the song I had in mind, they stopped playing it.
I can't remember if this was before or after I bet your woman a pizza that the etymology of "wizard" was, in fact, Old English and not, as she insisted, Old Irish. (Naturally she lost--that's what happens when you go up against the language nerd who's spent the last thirty years compulsively reading dictionaries!) It hardly matters; I doubt I'll see the payoff, but who knows? Your man took![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
innerdoggie's card because he was interested in a Python users' group she told him about. Of course, no second meeting could measure up to the joy of grabbing the first empty bench available only to discover you're across from a stylish Milanese professional translator and a computer programmer with school Irish and an interest in jazz. Nuphy's gregariousness and knack for serendipity come through again!
Afterwards, he predictably hustled me over to the Gage and introduced me to their resident mixologist. I was sorely disappointed that I couldn't allow myself more than a sip of his wares (the Aviation was decent--I prefer Sapphire to the Nolet's he went for--but I would love to return for a full dose of one of his Last Words), and he consoled me with a dash of Jerry Thomas Own Decanter Bitters in my tonic. Mmm, spicy! All in all, things turned out much better than I expected about five hours earlier, when I was fighting off a cold and wondering how on earth I was going to rendezvous with everyone with my phone dying and unable to get a signal in the middle of fucking Chicago.
If this does turn out to be my last visit to the Christkindlmarket this year--and it's looking that way, given that Nuphy would rather do Italian before Elisir d'amore--then I can say I left it on a high note. I didn't even need the Glühwein to put me in a mood where I could ignore the heat, the noise, the press of people around me; pork, sweets, and good companionship were enough to do that.
"'The Wild Rover'? That's one of me favourite songs. She likes it, too."
I made that tongue-in-cheek suggestion even before I knew that the diminutive leader of the amateurish lederhosen-clad three-man combo would end up plopping down next to me to ask, "What next?" And it turns out that they did know "Wild Rover" though--as I suspected--not under that name. When my initial request drew blank looks from the burly man with the squeezebox, I said, "'Auf der Nordseeküste'!"
"Wie heisst das Lied?"
"'Auf der Nordseeküste'. Kennen Sie das?"
They conferred a bit and launched into a completely unfamiliar tune. But as I kept listening to it, it mutated and eventually the faces of the Irishman and Italian woman we were sitting with broke into smiles of recognition. And then, almost as soon as they had verbal confirmation from me that that was indeed the song I had in mind, they stopped playing it.
I can't remember if this was before or after I bet your woman a pizza that the etymology of "wizard" was, in fact, Old English and not, as she insisted, Old Irish. (Naturally she lost--that's what happens when you go up against the language nerd who's spent the last thirty years compulsively reading dictionaries!) It hardly matters; I doubt I'll see the payoff, but who knows? Your man took
innerdoggie's card because he was interested in a Python users' group she told him about. Of course, no second meeting could measure up to the joy of grabbing the first empty bench available only to discover you're across from a stylish Milanese professional translator and a computer programmer with school Irish and an interest in jazz. Nuphy's gregariousness and knack for serendipity come through again!Afterwards, he predictably hustled me over to the Gage and introduced me to their resident mixologist. I was sorely disappointed that I couldn't allow myself more than a sip of his wares (the Aviation was decent--I prefer Sapphire to the Nolet's he went for--but I would love to return for a full dose of one of his Last Words), and he consoled me with a dash of Jerry Thomas Own Decanter Bitters in my tonic. Mmm, spicy! All in all, things turned out much better than I expected about five hours earlier, when I was fighting off a cold and wondering how on earth I was going to rendezvous with everyone with my phone dying and unable to get a signal in the middle of fucking Chicago.
If this does turn out to be my last visit to the Christkindlmarket this year--and it's looking that way, given that Nuphy would rather do Italian before Elisir d'amore--then I can say I left it on a high note. I didn't even need the Glühwein to put me in a mood where I could ignore the heat, the noise, the press of people around me; pork, sweets, and good companionship were enough to do that.