nun versus girly

Rome.
Mid afternoon.
A nifty little metallic blue Fiat pulled up to the kerb outside the church of San Giovanni in Laterano.
I was standing right there.
The window wound down.
A girly girl was behind the wheel.
I thought it was Christmas.
She'd concealed a little of her Italian beauty with blonde hair dye but she was still well able to carry off the whole youthful energy proclaiming life routine.
She was wearing a strip of a dress that showed more than it concealed.
Indeed she was a girly girl.
A work of art.
Fully equipped with standard female attachments including mischievous lips, tapering fingers, flashing eyes.
All this I saw.
Just before she let rip.
Screaming.
Beeping the horn.
Waving her hands and jerking in the seat so that her blonde tresses flew dramatically hither and yon.
She was cursing up a storm in her native lingo.
By the way, maledizione is the Italian word for swearing.
She was maledizioneing to beat the band.
It sounded quite beautiful when you didn't know what the hell it all meant.
I stood for long moments savouring this perfect piece of Italian street theatre.
Strange to relate, the object of her attentions was not me.
Ahead of her another car was hugging the kerb.
It also was a Fiat.
It looked to be around 1970's vintage.
Held together with twine.
The driver was an elderly nun.
The nun was wearing an old style black habit.
Her face was serene and unperturbed.
She allowed her car to crawl forward a few inches but otherwise gave no sign of having heard the girly.
The girly kept shouting and beeping.
The nun would have won the Saint Francis of Assisi award for imperturbability.
Not a hair did she turn.
Presently she moved her ancient automobile another half inch forward.
Probably as a gesture of Christian respect towards the apoplectic girly in her rear view mirror.
I looked at the girly curiously.
When people get this angry in cars it's often because the weather is too warm, or they've had a bad day at the office.
This was more.
Now I thought I understood.
Minutes had passed.
Minutes is a long time to maintain a tantrum.
Take it from the master.
Still I watched.
Here's what I thought.
The girly wasn't really beeping at the nun.
When she looked at the nun she saw her own choices in life.
She saw an image of herself.
Something she had chosen not to be.
Just for a moment she was thinking.
She was thinking of what she had lost.

On First Looking Into Groening's Homer

Much have I wandered on television's roads.
Many cowboy and detective serials and sitcoms have I seen.
Round many re-runs of Cannon have I been,
Which the networks in fealty to Quinn Martin Productions hold.
But never did I breathe the pure serene
Until Matt Groening begin syndicating The Simpsons loud and bold.

Then felt I like some watcher of Desperate Housewives
When a new plot twist swims into his ken,
Or like stout Eastwood when with eagle eyes
He looks at a street punk with a wild surmise
And shoots him over and over again.

under new management

This pub on main street Athy in the heartland of South Kildare, was originally called The Canalside Inn.