My hands smell like leeks...

It's kind of distracting.  Here I am, trying to review the catholic counter-reform as it applies to baroque literature in the 1600s, and I keep thinking mmm.... dinner must be almost ready, it smells like leeks!  and then realizing that it's just my hands, which are under my nose because I'm taking notes.  *sigh*

The reason for this is that I spent several hours this afternoon digging up leeks at La Talea (the organic farm where I work a few hours a week).  I also met Charlie (technically I met Charlie last week, but today we got to hang out for several hours digging up leeks, which is entirely different than being introduced in passing), who works there several times a week.  He's from Peru, and has been in Italy for the past two years working; our Italian is at about the same level, and we had lots of fun comparing new-language/new-culture stories.  We also talked about siblings, the leaning tower of Pisa, and transgender chickens.  He swears that male chickens, when they get old enough, sometimes lay (infertile) eggs.  I'm dubious. (has anyone else heard of this phenomenon?).  Also, it has been decided that I will teach him English and he will teach me Spanish and/or one or two local dialects of Peru.

And then I collected some carrots and leeks to take home with me, tromped up through the olive orchard, scrambled up and over the wall (this is not as easy as it sounds--some day I will take a picture of the wall for you), and walked my muddy (I remain incapable of staying clean when working in, on, or near dirt/mud), cheerful self back home, admiring the sun setting over the fields.  La Talea is rapidly becoming the highlight of my week.  I had a long morning (I spent most of it either in class or on a bus.  It is in theory possible to make it from my university class to my Wednesday morning smith class and be on time, but there's a very limited window of bus schedule that will make that happen, and one of the crucial buses was late by five minutes, which meant I had to take a later bus from the station, and that later bus never showed up, which meant I took an even later bus, and I was late to class), and was feeling overwhelmed by midterms and tired of buses, but after the farm I felt much better.

I took a shower when I got home, but my hands still smell like leeks.  Don't get me wrong: I like the smell of leeks.  But it makes it difficult to concentrate, particularly since it's nearly dinner time and I'm hungry!