Uva Rara

Last Friday night Josh and I decided to try our hand at a quaint wine bar in Trastevere. When we walked in we soon realized that the attractive young woman (how do Josh and I always manage to drink around such great ladies) spoke beautiful American English. It became quite appetizing to have a causal conversation with another American who is not studying architecture or trying to figure out how to get to the colleseum. Eventually we discover that our wine nymph doesn't like wine, but is dating the owner. So as she procures our bottle, we know a good show is unfolding. To begin with she uses a foil cutter, but creates a jagged scarring gauge at the improper location on the bottle. Next she thrusts the corkscrew in with vigorous determination, futiliy trying to make up for her previous sloppiness. She steps the corkscrew out...first pull...second. Now typically the cork should be free by now and she should be smelling it. But no, not our little Californian. She yanks and pulls, rotating the bottle around violently trying to jimmy the cork free of its five year grasp. Back and forth she jostles the cork, coaxing it out with grunted verbiage. "Come on little fellow, come on work with me." As she is doing this she bluntly proclaims her fear of breaking another cork off, but quickly reassures us that she is fully trained to remove broken cork. How many times has she done this? No time to ask. SNAP...well the cork is broken sitting mockingly in the neck. However, she is quite good at removing a broken cork. At least she gets a lot of practice at it. But as this little spectacle is unfolding my mind wanders to where all mens' minds wander...sex. Phallic references are easily drawn from what I witness and combining that with her soothing sentences yields a truly divine mental image. Continuing along this train of thought...SNAP...I begin to suddenly feel sorry for her boyfriend. None the less witnessing another random American floundering helplessly in the Italian culture like I do was refreshing. Because of this I am sure I will be back. She definitely is an Uva Rara (try not to say that without a growl).