Painting
I don’t have too much to write this week. I have spent the whole week painting the façade and metal storm doors. The façade went pretty quickly but the storm doors dragged out until yesterday. There was a lot of cutting in to do which made it take much more time than I thought it would. But now it is all done. It got kind of tricky at times having wet paint on our tiny porch with guests coming and going all day. I still need to caulk the cracks and paint them. I have asked a couple of people how to say caulking in Italian but I get blank stares. It is not looking good. I won’t be happy if I can only find silicone.
I’ll find out soon enough. Tomorrow I go down to do our second re-supply. We are hoping to only have to do this flight to last us the rest of the season. As soon as I get the rest of the materials (including a sander) I get to move on to the roof. This place is going to look brand new by the end of the season. At some point in the next couple of weeks we an look forward to visit from Vasco and Co who usually leave the place looking worse than before they arrived. I am waiting to paint the area where they will be working in anticipation of destruction.
I may be meeting another friend from Antarctica tomorrow. She is hiking the Tour de Mont Blanc with some friends and is going to be in Val Veny tomorrow. This has been the summer for friendly visitations. We recently discovered that a friend we worked with at the AMC in NH is now living and working very close in Switzerland. She is planning a trip up sometime in August.
Still nothing from our Antarctic employer about our medical clearance. We asked our dentist to FAX a signed statement declaring that the requested work had been done but have heard nothing from either him or the medical department.
In closing, I want to lie to rest my World Cup coverage. Italy won the if you hadn’t figured that out by now. People are still talking about the now-infamous head-butt given Materazzi by Zidane. In Italian you could say he made a brutta figura. This literally means he “made an ugly face” but its meaning goes deeper. Its true meaning is more akin to making a fool out of oneself. The score was tied, France was playing very well, and this was to be Zidane’s last game before retiring from soccer. When, in front of the world, in the finale of one of the most followed sporting events in existence, he decides to make a blatant statement which results in his expulsion from his last game, that is a brutta figura. I believe that Italians’ sense of self-control is rooted in the concept of the brutta figura. I think this is how Italians can get away with not having a drinking age (I think they have one but no one can tell me what it is). Americans love to make brutte figure when they drink. It is pretty much part and parcel of the experience. Image is everything to Italians. It is very important to remain composed in social situations because making a fool out of yourself in public risks irreparably damaging your reputation. When Italians drink they tend not to exaggerate for fear of making a brutta figura. So you can imagine: a blatant brutta figura during the world cup final = media coverage for weeks.
Tags: Rifugio Boccalatte
Luke