What’s That Wine?

When you work in a wine shop like I do, you get some interesting questions from customers. Here are a few I’ve gotten in recent months:

“Have you heard of a wine called Cob Sob?” (This customer was eventually steered to the Cabernet Sauvignon section, where the wines are sometimes referred to as Cab Sauvs.)

“I’m looking for a wine with a sports-theme label.” (This person was shown — and purchased — the Quarterback Shiraz from Australia. Variations on this question include wines with horses on the label, labels that feature other animals, funny labels appropriate for small gatherings of women friends, etc. Luckily, wine labels collectively cover a lot of territory. One of my favorite labels features a drawing of a frog in lipstick and a long, ruffled dress dancing the can-can.)

“Is there a difference between Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc?” (Umm, yes, the former is a red wine and the latter is white, and they’re made from different grapes, using different processes.)

“Can you help me?” (Customer bursts into tears.) “Our pet rabbit died last night.” (After a few moments this customer asked for and was given a big wooden wine-shipping box in which to bury the longtime family pet. Her offer to pay for the box was steadfastly refused.)

“I don’t really like wine, but when I go to Communion, I like the wine the priest gives you. What kind of wine is that?” (I was unable to help this person.)

Violet Is Found!

At 1:30 a.m. we got a call from neighbors who said they had come home late and found Violet trying to get into their house. Five minutes later they delivered her to our door, dehydrated and covered with burrs.

What surprised and annoyed us was that the neighbors’ house is less than 1/4 mile from ours. We’ve walked her down the road that way on numerous occasions, to give her a feel for the neighborhood. Apparently those walks left absolutely no impression in her tiny brain.

Welcome back you dumb dog.

Why'd you run away?

Violet Runs Away!

She bolted through an open door to the garage and out an open garage bay door, and took off at top speed down the gravel driveway toward the road, despite Mrs. SR 013’s repeated shouts to come back. We spent hours looking for her and several of the neighbors even volunteered to help. After repeated visits down the road in both directions, whistling and calling her name, we finally had to give up.

She has run away before, but never for this long. When we got back to the house after our final search, Mrs. SR 013 broke down and cried.

Sunday Afternoon

A cool, lazy Sunday here in our rural patch of southern Ohio. As the afternoon waned, Mrs. SR 013 and I took to bicycles and rode down the deserted roads. Along the way we saw wide fields of young corn and soybeans just starting to come up, planted late after a rainy spring. Here and there ducks waddled down the still-muddy rows, searching for tidbits in puddles.

No cars = good bicycling

As we passed a pond, a white swan glided across the surface and disappeared into some reeds, while horses grazed nearby. Further down the road, a rabbit sat motionless in the grass as we coasted by, hoping we wouldn’t see it (didn’t work, dude!). In 45 minutes we saw perhaps half a dozen vehicles, not counting a man giving his young daughter a Sunday ride on his tractor.

More Ohiospeak

Here are some other local nuances of speech I’ve noticed:

When people here want to convey that you haven’t inconvenienced or offended them, they say, “You’re fine.” This is the equivalent of the West Coast colloquialism “No problem,” or the Australian-influenced “No worries.”

Often after explaining something, Ohioans will say, “You know what I’m sayin’?” This is more or less the same as the West Coast version, “You know what I mean?” not to mention older versions from other cultures, such as Mexico’s “Comprende?” and Italy’s “Capiche?”

My previous post on the Ohio vocabulary is here.

Rabbit Hash Hosting Browngrass Festival

That was a headline in the Cincinnati Enquirer today. A kind of country music festival, apparently, organized by two residents of Rabbit Hash, KY, who happen to own the town’s mayor. That would be Lucy Lou, a border collie. Here’s a link to the article: Rabbit Hash Hosting Browngrass Festival