2002-04-08

Weekend With Lino

I think a huge portion of my problem is that I don't get out enough. I mean, here's my week: get up, go to work, come home...get up, go to work, go to band practice, come home...ad nauseum.

And weekends? Please. I'm lucky if I get laundry done.

This weekend, though, was different. My friend Lino Rulli was in town, and I got to play Tour Guide for much of the weekend.

Lino, it must be said, is one of my very valued "virtual" friends, meaning that I contacted him through his website, we found out how much we had in common via many emails, and now we're excellent pals.

Saturday night we took him through the North End (Boston's "Little Italy," and he was totally enchanted. Along the way, we developed our Theory of Comedy:

Point Number One: small dogs are funny. The smaller they are, the funnier. Bonus points for small dogs in sweaters: We were walking up Washington, through Downtown Crossing, when we noticed some guy dragging along a mixed breed Small Dog, and I said � three times rapidly (because stating the obvious is always funny if you repeat it three times rapidly) � "Small dog in a sweater, small dog in a sweater, small dog in a sweater!"

Lino: "Did you see the look on that dog's face? It's like he knew I was laughing at him."

The North End was, as always, beautiful and serene. We wandered up and down the streets, and came across Saint Leonard's, which has Sunday Mass in Italian. Well. There was no question where Lino and I would be going the next morning. We went in to inspect the church itself, when a very elderly woman of indeterminate national origin approached Lino and said, "Ooooohh, I know you. You on the teeveeee!"

(If you haven't clicked on the link attached to Lino's name, you need to know that he hosts a program geared towards Catholics like myself).

"Yes. Yes, that's me."

"Yesssss. I see you on the teeveeee. I see you on the teeveeee too much!"

"Oh. Well, I'm....sorry?"

Later on, we decided that perhaps the language barrier was to blame; she meant to say that she saw him on the teeveeee "all the time."