What a week! Sand storms and...kidnappings?!

Monday afternoon walking home from work, I walked through a sand storm. I didn't know there was one when I set out from the office. When I turned the corner to our neighborhood where it is open out to the fields, I was hit by a blast. A literal blast of sand and dirt. It turned dark and swirls of sand like little tornados were in the air (not strong like that but twirly shaped). I had to stop and turn my back to it for a minute. I finally put on my sunglasses, so I could see through the dust particles to walk the last two blocks home. Really weird. Apparently some climates have these regularly. We've had to dust and vacuum and mop really thoroughly this week.

Wednesday, we went to the mall and looked at the portable air conditioners. When we left, I had one of those amazed moments of realizing we'd conducted all our business in Spanish. It's a challenge mind you, but still surprising when it works. We bought one ac unit - to be delivered Friday. Wish I had it now, sweating at 10:45 pm. Won't have one in the office anyway, so it wouldn't matter.

Thursdays I work at home, usually on the website since I don't have the right tools at work. The last few weeks of 90s + temps I've taken advantage of Thursday mornings to get a walk in before the hot temperatures hit. This morning I did this too. I was in the neighborhood just below ours and saw a construction worker guy (they all wear blue work pants here) go calling to his girlfriend (or some girl) up the street near our neighborhood. At first I thought she forgot her keys or something. She didn't get in the car she was about to take a ride from (like a car pool pick up). They started fighting audibly.

By now, they were standing on the corner I had to walk on to get home. It was escalating and I thought I'd have to walk through some domestic violence and was wondering what to do. They were yelling in Romanian. (I know you're saying how does she know, there are a lot of Romanians here.) So I couldn't understand them.

As I approached another guy appeared and they grabbed the girl. A car pulled up and they covered her mouth and grabbed her by the arms and started dragging her, kicking, fighting and screaming to the car. By this time, I was on the same corner and only a few feet away from all of this. Standing and staring, probably with my mouth open. I was thinking I had to do something, and how on earth would I be able to explain this in Spanish because I would have to call the police if they drove off with her.

The driver of the car started saying, "No, no, no" when she started screaming. They were covering her mouth. The driver began to drive off without letting them put her in the car, at which point they let her go. She walked over to me and I said in Spanish. Come to my house. As we walked, she was visibly shaken. I asked did she know the men and she said yes. I think we were both a bit shaken, and I couldn't really make my Spanish work. She thanked me for staying and explained that she worked for a neighbor of ours whose husband is with the police. So, she rang their bell and went in their house. I went home. Dar thinks I should go to the neighbors and ask them what this was all about.

Dar and I were speculating about human trafficing, white slavery, and illegal immigration scams. They obviously thought she owed them something.

Needless to say, today I locked the gate and the door. Then in the afternoon, a guy came by in jeans and t-shirt with an invoice asking me to take 2 cases of wine for some neighbors who weren't home. It's like a wine of the month club. I felt strange and did not take it. I think if my morning hadn't been so odd, I would have held the wine for the neighbors. I was reticent to unlock the gate for a delivery I had no assurance was legitimate.

Then tonight, we had to take back the fan we bought Wednesday because it had one wrong leg. Our Spanish wasn't up to explaining, "I will just exchange it if you can prove to me the other one has all the right parts." Finally we left with a new fan that we opened up to check parts. The clerk said to the security guard (in order for us to get out of the store), the other one had the wrong "paw", not foot. No wonder they didn't understand me. I was using the wrong word. Such is life on foreign soil - this week anyway.

TGIF - what it looks like from here

Tomorrow will be a little different Friday for me. We have to be downtown (in Alcala not Madrid) at 8:30am to meet our lawyer type person and go to the police station. We will start stage 2 of our identity process tomorrow. Even though we've had our card only since March, it expired on our arrival date in the country. So we start with the papers again.

But my normal Friday is a day at home. The ladies in our office tend to take a day off for household maintenance, so I do too. I love being home all day. Dar has been majorly helping with the house stuff lately and it has been a huge gift. It allows me time to pick up on some of the writing things that have gone begging for years. I'm really excited about getting back into the writing groove. It's so great that he has helped carve that out for me. He knows I'm a slow cleaner, and I kept getting caught up in cleaning and then running errands on Friday and not getting to anything else.

Now, I get up and do my part of the cleaning. Then I try to spend several hours at the computer getting familiar with my words again and finding places to market stuff. The last few weeks I've been submitting things I've written that never got a publishing home. I've sent out a few queries on my second novel too. So far rejections from everything, but it feels good to at least be trying again. I've started working on an old short story that I want to turn into a novel too. It's amazing what you can do in a few hours if you will just stick with it.

Then I usually eat a late lunch and run a few errands or sometimes vice versa, if my errand destinations are at risk of siesta-ing on me. Fridays are now extra good thanks to Dar.

Vacation for the 4th

Every one seems to have done their report for what last weekend held. I'm a week late, but I'm feeling pressured to tell how it went. ha.

We took a vacation day to make it a 4-day. Drove to Tarragona where we went to language school, about 5 hours away. Stayed with future co-workers, who are in language school, in a high rise apartment building over looking a half moon, crystal clear pool.

Saturday - went to Arrabassada beach. Beautiful breeze, cool mediterranean waters, and only a couple topless people. Drove over to La Mora beach where we used to live and ate beachside for under 10 a person. I had bifstec, fries and a salad. It's a real cheap cut of steak that is sometimes tender, like this time. Cleaned up went into Tarragona downtown, ran into a little festival on the rambla (main walking/shopping street). Marhsal arts performers, drum band, stilt walkers and only a handful of observers. Walked the old city and went home late.

Sunday - we got a very slow and late start. Decided to drive into Barcelona, one hour or so. Parked the car, hopped the metro. Shopped in a big bookstore with English books and magazines. Ate lunch at Hard Rock Cafe, oh yeah, American eats and large beverages - with refills! Took a tourist bus tour, which we'd never done, and it was everyone else's first and perhaps only trip into Barcelona. Worked out nicely, you see a lot but are not exhaused at the end of it. We did the rambla thing - walking and watching street performers. Then by popular demand Starbucks, are we a bunch of American's or what?! Got home at the very Spanish hour of 1:30am.

Monday - grocery run at the very crowded equivalent of Super Walmart to prepare for a BBQ. A couple hours at that beautiful swimming pool. Cook side dishes and head to a BBQ at the language school complex. Visit with friends we haven't seen in six months. Ate lots of good food. The Tarragona fireworks festival happened to start this night. We were late getting away so we were driving like mad to get to the beach and glimpsing fireworks through the trees. We still saw about 10 minutes worth when we got to the beach. It's a competition each night so they try to out-do one another. A good show. 30 minutes worth of traffic afterwards.

Tuesday - alas vacation is drawing to an end. We did 2 hours at the beach, then cleaned up and headed out. Arrived home in time for Dar to watch the world cup match that was on television.

It was nice to be away. You relax differently when you're away from home.

My song blog

I know several of you are really into music and this will seem perhaps silly, but it's my turn to blog about music.

Dar and I like to think up song compilation ideas. We had one going for itineration for a while with lots of road songs and travel songs. We never actually go create the proposed compilation but we have fun making the list and thinking of it. The aforementioned one helped pass many hours in the car on our way to some church.

Recently I had the idea that you could do a work compilation. Now depending on your perspective of work, your song choices might not be as, shall we say, dark as mine. This grew out of a day when I was being micromanaged and I felt like my value as an experienced professional was, ah, not on the radar. The first song on the list occurred to me at this point. Then Dar and I started batting around songs that occurred to us in other work settings or circumstances.

I know all you song aficionados surely can come up with some work related songs either in theme or in lyrics. Is there a cd to create for frustrated workers everywhere? I'm wondering what Golden would come up with in light of the recent training challenges and the soon coming hiatus. What are your additions to the list?


I'm alright, don't nobody worry 'bout me...Kenny Loggins

That's the way you want it... Journey

Dirty Deeds done dirt cheap...AC/DC

Dirty Laundry...Don Henley

Dust in the Wind...Kansas

Working Man...RUSH

Live and Let Live...Bon Jovi (Not sure about this one, what do you think?)

Summer Solstice

A red bike.
A dirt road.
Fresh cut stalks of wheat
lying shiny on the ground.
A pink-gold orb of sun
sinking behind a rim of cloud.
Magpies and bunnies jump,
startled by my evening ride.
Twanging overhead lines
announce a coming train.
Welcome inexplicable
cool spots in the air.
The whir and thrumming
of the season's first cicadas,
the crunch and slip
of rocks beneath tires.
Gray twilight encroaches
on the yellow dusk.
Sweat trickling on my skin,
the scent of honeysuckle
hanging sweet around me.
Almost there,
but 4500 miles from home.

Fiesta de Villalbilla

The little burb we live in here had a fiesta last weekend. It actually began Thursday night. Each night there was a mass scheduled. Turned out the mass was occurring in the tiny ancient little church around from the miniature town square. The square, plaza if you will, is so small I never noticed it even though I had driven past it dozens of times. It was just a paved area outside an anonymous building until now.

They put up your typical little stage with construction lights to shine on participants and a sound system. Thursday night was a local dance school recital type thing. I didn't stay just sort of passed through the plaza and headed on home. I was self conscious alone - Spainards tend to do things en masse.

Friday night Dar and I went down and one of our co-workers who lives around the corner came out too. There was a procesione after mass. A band of brass instruments and drums strolls, nay, drags along to a funeral dirge. Behind them came the kids who were doing first communion this year. Girls were dressed up in fancy white or cream dresses (a la Honor Star) and the boys had new suits or sailor/commander type suits. Not very many of them, less than 10. Then the local priest in fancy cape under a little canopy. Then came the congregants. We heard the music and skedaddled around the corner to watch not knowing which way they were going. We realized we were behind them and if we walked that way basically we'd become part of the parade. Not being members of the local parish, we opted to go back around to the plaza and wait for them to come by. It took awhile as the beat and thus the forward movement was limited by their mournful music and small steps.

A little while later the band came back without the church following this time, much more upbeat. They marched into an open area by tables. Everyone hanging out seemed to know that we were all supposed to move over there. After we were the only ones still sitting in some chairs, we decided we'd go over too. Apparently the tune is one that a local dance is done to and a slightly crazy tiny little woman was trying to get people to dance with her. Yes, I did. I'm not sure I got the steps but we had a good time.

After band-time, was free refreshments time indicated by "Apertivo" on the schedule. This was about 9:30pm or so. They set plastic plates of cheese puffs, potato chips, lunchmeat and cheese on the tables and you could get a free cup of soda or beer from a little bar they had set up. We were intrigued by a large group of people all reaching into plates with their fingers. Not sure that would fly in the U.S. at an official city event. Everyone suddenly knew it was time to go sit down in the chairs in front of the stage.

An operetta ensued. The dictionary had fish casserole or operetta as the definition of the word, so Dar kept referring to it as the Seafood Spectacular. It was a good show. Lots of traditional costumes (No! I didn't bring my camera!) Dancers between sets did traditional dances with the long ruffly skirts and castenettas. Every act or group had a costume change each time they came out, so it was pretty elaborate. The opera part was an actual troop from down in Alcala the bigger city nearby. People talked in the back, dogs fought, people shushed the teens who got loud, and came and went with none too soft goodbyes and greetings. This is Spain. At 11:15 pm, they announced an intermission, so another hour + was in the wings. We decided to head home.

Saturday morning Tif and I went to the choclotada. Free churros (like a donut with no frosting) which you dip in the hot thick chocolate drink they give you. The evening activities were rained out. We did a puzzle.

Sunday night "Fuegos Artificiales" were on the agenda. We guessed this was fireworks. I figured it'd be rinky dink from a little town. As we walked toward the plaza, we saw that the soccer/basketball court half way down the hill from our house had the fireworks set up. We sat on the sidewalk directly across the street from it. No one shooed us further away, it's that not major league on the safety thing again. We laid back on a Spanish sidewalk and were barraged by the concusion of the effects leaving the ground and again when they exploded in the air. We were so close they were bigger than what you could see at times. Other moments you were busy dodging the chunks falling out of the sky. Definitely a display I'm going to remember. I tried humming Stars & Stripes forever, but I was drowned out by the immense sound of the fireworks.

One would think this was it, right? On Monday night, I don't know why, they served a traditional stew at 9pm. You just stood in line and got a bowl of stew, basically big lamb or mutton meat chunks in a greasy broth. Plates of group French Fries stood on the tables. I asked a guy if that was his plate, he gestered and spoke enthusiastically that no, no, no, take some, take some, please go ahead. He was adamant. I wasn't really hungry but I was curious to see what all the events were. The stew wasn't bad, I'm not a big fan of cordero (lamb). It's a regional stew they told me each area has their own typical thing they serve. I probably won't be looking the recipe up for that one, but what a moment. It would be like being in some little town in Kansas on their special city day and you're the only tourist. By the end I was recognizing the people, so I wonder do they recognize me as that one American girl that's been coming?

Adventures on the road

Honestly, when I knew I was spending 11 days continuously with everyone I work with I was nervous. That's a long time to be cooped up with co-workers, whatever the belief system you all share. I was pleasantly surprised that there weren't major incidents and only minor irritations that were swallowed without much extra water. Getting to drive our own car was a blessing. We could control our own environment and could run to the store or bank without depending on someone else to take us. More stressful for Dar since he did most of the driving, but I think we trusted his driving more than anyone else's anyway. We missed one turn-off for a different highway because Dar, wisely, didn't cut in front of a semi and follow the lead car (a la Italian job and the subway train). One turn off missed in 3700 kilometers, not too bad. We doubled back within 5 minutes or so.

A part of France looked exactly like Florida. The part that has the huge pine trees and the sandy soil. Even some of the houses looked Floridian. It was very interesting and we weren't the only ones who noticed it. That was near the coast.

Then we drove through a corner of the Loire valley. Very green, picturesque farm land, a bit like Missouri. We had fun remembering our trip to look at chateaus there about 12 years ago. Alas, our time in France this trip only involved toll roads and truck stops. The truck stop food in France leaves a lot to be desired. I recommend if you go to France get off the toll roads and explore, it's lovely out there. The producer who is British was saying by the end of the trip the worst chicken he ever had was in France, the second worst chicken he ever had was in France (both this trip in truck stops) and the third worst chicken he ever had was in Delhi, India.

Dar has blogged about the actual work. It was terrific to be part of what we worked so long and hard to be here for. So much of life is mundane office work, the production days are really rewarding, if somewhat exhausting.

In Holland, they have special roads for bicycles with their own street lights in some cases. Everyone rides bikes, old grannies in skirts, young girls on cellphones, guys smoking cigarettes, you name it. The bikes have a very tall profile. I noticed hardly anyone had a bike that they had to lean into the handle bars.

One of our young associates kept bugging me that we should go ride bikes. I don't know why but it was somehow up to me to organize it. I wanted to do it too, so finally the last few days I talked to the hotel about bikes. For E5.70 you could have a bike for the DAY, and it took a day's notice to get them so we were down to bicycling our last night in Holland. We worked all day, packed the equipment for the trip and manged to get out of the Bible Museum at a reasonable time and took to our bikes. One guy who came in from the states, the young associate, a 13 year old nephew of someone in the group, a summer college intern, and me!

The bikes in Holland are tall. Even with the seat all the way down I had to leap on and off, like riding a neighbor friend's bike when you were a kid. The handlebars are higher up and so if you were taller than me there would be little or no leaning involved. Being shorter, I had to lean a little but less than my normal bike. They also had very hard seats, I'll let you take what you will from that.

The little roads made riding a breeze, smooth, flat. We got off those and rode along a cannal for a little while. We saw sheep and hot air balloons. It was really a wonderful final night in Holland. We were about 50 yards from the hotel and somehow in that short distance we lost the intern. She's very young for her years and naive. We'd just passed a strip club (that sort of thing is common and legal in Holland) and I was worried she was being kidnapped and sold into the black market. Okay, I wasn't sure that was what happened but didn't feel like I could turn in for the night until we found her. We split up and went up all the side streets looking for her. As the only official "missionary" in the group I felt responsible for losing the intern. She turned up and a couple of us were a little harsh telling her she had to let people know where she was when she's in a foreign country, it's a safety issue. She'd been making a flower necklace in a church yard. It was 10 pm and still twilight, but we called it a night. Two days of driving were ahead.

The power of scent

I was wrestling a flowering shrub out front tonight, tying it to the porch railing that it is suppose to grow up and cover. From moving the branches around so much a scent came off the plant. It was a green outdoors slightly fruity smell. I was instantly in the "old neighborhood" where I was a small child. We were tearing up bits of leaves and plants making a "stew." I think it was an game of Indians.

Isn't it funny how smells can be so powerful to memory?

Others smells that come to mind:
honeysuckle - 3 separate memories pop one after the other
a certain cologne - reminds me of dating Dar
cigarettes and perfume at the same time - reminds me of my grandma hiding the fact she smokes with lots of perfume.
the smell of breakfast cooking - I'm being taken care of (grandparents, parents, husband)

I think I thought of more when I was outside, but they're gone now. What are you're scent memories?

Adventures with utilities

Some days the hot water won't arrive at the bathroom tap. Usually there's a good reason. Sometimes I have to turn off the shower for a minute and try again. Sometimes I use the sink to get warm, then start the shower. I'm trying to trick it into letting me have a normal temperature shower.

Today poor Dar was standing in the tub, ready to shower shall we say, and he called to me to go downstairs and check the breaker. We have this issue where the washing machine, microwave, dryer, and a power strip with appliances conflict with one another. No, they are not all in the same plug. They are in different places in the house even. Anyway, when one too many get started; it all goes...away. The instant hot water system (also our heater) is over the washing machine/microwave area. It goes too.

Today the breaker wasn't flipped. Dar told me to do a re-light thing that involved flicking buttons on the water heating device. I flicked. The light with the gas symbol with a slash through it lit up. Dar had a cold shower.

Then Dar tried everything the landlord showed him. No dice. No gas. The landlord suggested talking to the neighbors. Somehow I found myself in the street. I tried to talk to the first person I saw. He was older and had a convuluted accent. I was getting maybe 20%. He was trying to get someone or something about a key. These are not my best Spanish moments. I can't put it all together under pressure. I was saying, "Tenemos gas." Then realizing I'm saying it wrong and trying to find other words...Another neighbor came out. I said again, "Tenemos gas." What did I say with some force and enthusiasm? We have gas. We have gas. (Aren't the neighbors glad I'm announcing this in the street!?) The new younger neighbor looks at me and says, "You can speak English..."

He found another button on the outside of the house. We have gas again.

Easter past

I went to one of the Easter Procesiones. Parade is too strong a word. Each church has "imagenes" - yes that's images. The penitents carry the images on great gold platforms through the streets. Some of them wear no shoes, others have on slippers. The platforms sometimes weigh in the tons. The penitents walk maybe 200 yards, then rest. Other people who are also pentitents wear pointy hats with faces covered and proceed before and behind the imagenes with candles (yes, think KKK type get ups). A couple of church "bands" go along with each imagene and play a tune. The one I saw was mournful music for Jesus. Slightly more upbeat for the procesion of Mary.

The 7pm procesion didn't actually arrive in the Plaza Mayor until 10pm. Me and a few thousand of my closest Spanish friends had been lined up creating an aisle through the plaza since 8:30. My legs hurt from standing still so long. A sudden vacuum occured around 9 or 9:30 creating an open space in front of me. Suddenly all these thousands of people rushed forward to reposition to the new aisle. It was a scary moment.

Other than that moment it was an orderly crowd in general. Lots of families. One woman waiting by herself was very nice and answered my questions. She decided I should have her spot so I could see better because she had seen the imagenes before, so she shoe horned me into a nonexistent space between her ample tummy and the man in front of her. You can see from the photos I didn't have a great view.

Four older ladies settled in behind me and narrated the event for me. They were very impressed with the decoration on the, for lack of a better word, floats. The Mary float did a little dance. It was much lighter so the guys carrying it could move backwards and forwards to the music. There was a delighted ahhh from the crowd. Applause errupted for those carrying the imagene or the imagene itself when it arrived in front of people. It was a reverent or maybe awe struck moment which I found a little freaky. An odd plaster Jesus manikan and a ornate pile of gold, candles and flowers. Just stuff and symbols, not the substance of relationship. Very interesting.

my view of the pointy hats


Jesus enters to a gasp from the crowd. The odd thing about people carrying the float on their shoulder is that it looks as if the statue is walking at a distance.


If you look close you can see the faces of the pentitents carrying the float.


That's a lot of gold and silver.


That's the back of Jesus and he had long hair. (Plaza Mayor)


Mary & pointy hat penitents


Saturday I ran across a float being removed from a CITY building. It was funny watching the guy holding onto the imagene in a tight embrace to keep it from falling. Though it was covered with a cloth so it wasn't irreverent, I suppose.