Jan 2008

~Pre-Christmas, Lauren wrote me some cool words…”I’m coming home”! She has always said I am her home, regardless of where I live!

~For Christmas, Lauren collaged a card for me with these words: HOME is where the river flows Pushing past the willows Home is milkweed in your hair With hemlock moss your pillow Home if only you could know Is any place I see you It’s in my heart And from the start I’ve known my home would be you.

~Christmas, New Year’s and the 3 Magical Kings have come and gone…and I never did finish my annual Xmas poem! 26 years of tradition…I’d better get at it. It’s not like I have nothing to write about this year…

~Since last I wrote you…I have skied thrice, attended Spanish Mass twice, obtained a black eye, hosted 4 post-adolescent Canadians, introduced 2008 in Basque Country and as a result of one CRAZY month, received a whopper of a cold!

~The traditional Christmas turkey dinner, which goes without saying, was yet another Spanish cooking adventure. Trying to reproduce familiar tastes without turnips, cranberries or skewers made it challenging…but nothing is impossible! First, I had to buy a roasting pan which would fit inside my Spanish-sized oven (one forearm length in width), then I had to search and difficultly pre-order 2 small turkeys from a local butcher shop…seems turkeys only come in one size here, small, which I almost forgot to pick up Christmas eve day! Then without skewers or even a needle and thread, safety pins will hold stuffing in…in a pinch, sort of, as one turkey kind of exploded as the stuffing I made with an improvised seasoning expanded, a lot. And had I not found a platter and serving bowls in the garbage the week prior, we’d have been serving from the pots! Homemade placemats and place markers made from homemade paper, candles in wine bottles, twinkly Christmas lights wrapped around Simon and Garfunkle my 2 little potted evergreens, lights I formed as a shooting star on the ceiling, Christmas music, repeated a lot, as I only had 2 Christmas CDs, pinecones adorned with little red bows hung everywhere hang-able…and tah dah…the best make-shift Canadian Christmas imaginable!

~And Santa found us here in Jaca! 2 couches and a floor full of gifts! An unexpected Christmas morning for the “kids” and cats! Carb didn’t get his wall-to-wall carpeting as he had hoped, but he did get 6 new toy mice…all of which have disappeared. Gas was simply happy for all the shadows 4 houseguests could make while visiting! And me, I was happiest of all, having my kid “home” for Christmas!

~I forgot about life with Lauren. Long Lauren hairs everywhere, accumulative missing dishes from the cupboards, little trails of cookie crumbs, half finished projects engulfing my living room but I really love her!

~Why is it 2 soundly sleeping cats feel the need to awake and inspect my freshly washed wet floors, every time?!

~Carb kisses like a true North American, on the lips! He also shakes hands/paws. Gas does the European thing and gives me his cheek to kiss! Just a bizarre observation.

~Since the advent of heat/radiators at C/ Del Barco, 9 (bajo), which incidentally were installed the day before Lauren arrived (November 28th), and incidentally Spanish labourers make as much mess as Canadian ones, I have discovered I now have more heat potential than my electricity supply will allow! I now live in an electricity-juggling circus, a fine art, a multifaceted performance. For every stove element turned on, means one heat radiator turned off or “CLICK”, the main breaker pops! Juggling the coffee maker, hot water tank, washing machine or rechargers with radiators is also complicated! In other words, if I want food, clean clothes, a shower, or a caffeine fix…I must temporarily be cold! It sure has taught me to organize my day’s schedule well!

~I have well washed armpits! Rubber drip cuffs need to be invented for that concealed cupboard dish rack above my kitchen sink. Every time I reach up to put a wet dish in the rack, a stream of water dribbles down my arm to my armpit! Just a little annoying.

~Gas has discovered Carb has a shadow worth chasing. Carb has discovered Gas is truly psycho! I have a friend whose dog barks insanely at EVERY shadow he sees…I’m so glad Gas can’t bark!

~I’ve decided my fridge doesn’t like change. Yes, it’s disturbed again…had a couple months reprieve. If I remove even one egg it complains. Add a pound of butter and it beeps. Drink a glass of water from the water jug and it flashes hysterically.

~NEVER order Gulas con Gambas in a restaurant…or you’ll go away hungry! Lesson learned…never order something that’s not in your diccionario!

~In Spanish, one doesn’t miss a bus…they lose it…Lauren and I lost 2 buses in the same day trying to return to Jaca from Canfranc Estacion. But we made some cool friends in the bar during our one hour wait at midnight for the 26 € taxi!

~I just can’t understand how a country can function without peanut butter! Thanks Jo-Ann and Blaine and Rhonda and Linda for the chilli powder, real Baking Soda and Powder, rubber spatulas, Christmas ornaments, peanut butter and cat treats! Life is now complete! And we’re good to go till July!

~Spanish Special K cereal has a hint of a suntan with blisters.

Loving life as always, and hoping you are too! Dana, Carb and Gas xox

November 3, 2007 to … December 2, 2007

~Lauren is due to move in for the holidays! How awesome it is to be looking forward to spending time with my kid. Seems like only yesterday I was counting the days till she matured!

~Speaking of Lauren, at Thanksgiving, she and 3 fellow homeless travellers prepared a complete Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, a first for Lauren. She wrote to tell me of her experience and proceeded to “thank” me for ALL the turkey dinners I have created in her history…wow…she’s growing up!

~Have I told you about “the Cave” yet! The Cave is the name I relegated to my downstairs bedroom. You enter via a curved stone stairway. Stone walls, clay floors, exposed beamed ceiling the height of exactly me, spot lighting…everyone thinks it’s the highlight of my piso! I’m afraid to share it’s alleged history for fear of disillusioning potential visitors! Apparently, this building is situated on a river…should I have suspected something by the name of my street, Calle Del Barco = Street of the Boat! But worse than the running rio beneath the room is that the renovators discovered “the Cave” occupied by sheep skulls! It’s very curious…Gas has a daily morning ritual of “demanding” I open the Cave door, he then proceeds to sit on the second stair down with his face only millimetres from the wall, staring, for indefinite periods of time! Do sheep have spirits or is Gas simply retarded?

~On my street, it’s not customary or necessary to have a doorbell! Visitors simply stand on the street and SCREAM the sought after’s name, LOUDLY, until someone answers or they give up realizing no one’s home! I now know the name of every resident on my street!

~After 3 month’s growth, most people’s normal volume of hair, I finally figured out all the Spanish words to make a hair appointment to get my hair cut. Walked away from the salon after making the appointment feeling p-r-e-t-t-y proud of myself, and my growing command of the language, till I realized the time I had arranged coincided with my work schedule! So, next day, with the help of my diccionario, reworked my vocab so I could reschedule my appointment…told the girl I had to rebook because of a funeral! I now have a Spanish hairstyle (No, Lauren, not a Mullet!) and I still don’t look Spanish!

~Things I’ve noticed about Spanish women’s hair:
~few wear it short
~The Mullet forgot to go out of style here
~no one is grey
~some really bad dye jobs goin’ on in Jaca

~Thing I’ve noticed about South American men’s hair:
~the Mushroom cut…see Mullet above!

~I don’t know why the Spanish think it necessary to complicate a language with 15 different tenses (7 simple, 7 compound, plus the imperative). I’m operating in 2 and managing just fine!

~So I’m working with nuns! They’re grey. My favourite one is the short, plump, happy one who guards the front door…not really security material. She’s actually the only consistent daily contact I have in Jaca. I gave her some “Canada” Ginger Ale can earrings and an “I am Canadian” Beer lighter in my first week of teaching, as gifts, she was ecstatic, and now we must be best buddies because she’s forever presenting me with little Spanish pocket versions of bibles and religion related stuff…either that or she’s figured out the Pop and Beer themes of my gifts and she’s attempting to save me! While working at Colegio Santa Maria, I have this overwhelming feeling that I have to behave myself at school!

~Carb and Gas have never had such variety in their diet! Ultima “crunchies” are available in beef, chicken, salmon and turkey flavours! Plus, they make special mixtures for hairball or urinary tract repair work. Unfortunately they haven’t come out with Ultima Light, a weight watcher’s variety. How will I ever convince these cats to leave Spanish Ultima for Canadian Medical!

~I really like that every weekend for me is a 3 day weekend…but I just had a 4 day weekend…and I REALLY liked that!

~Coffee and Siestas have the same effect on me! Although one is a stimulant and the other is a relaxant, and I love them both equally, if I do either one too late in the day…I have difficulties getting my 12 hours of sleep at night!

~Gas is the only one of us who doesn’t mind that radiator-installer-guy still hasn’t shown up, but then we’ve only been waiting a few months, which is more than a couple. There’s supposed to be a radiator in every room. As the evenings have become brisk, Carb and I huddle around our sole living room heater, while Gas derives great satisfaction basking on the cool clay floor in any of the above mentioned non-heated rooms…a true Canadian he is! So, unless we start keeping the butter in the living room…there’ll be no soft butter in this casa…until summer!

~While “Visado” to most Spaniards means “a Visa”, the Asturians of Northern Spain know that it actually means “leftovers”…because the word VI-SA-DO contains the first 2 letters of VIernes/Friday, SAbado/Saturday and DOmingo/Sunday! I love rule breakers who play with language and their food!

~Gas has taken up the sport of shadow chasing, fulltime. Our smooth clay floors provide the perfect surface for doing donuts and major skidding! Neither Carb nor the furniture really like it, but I think he’s hilarious.

~Mind my tears…I just started and finished Anne of Green Gables, an evening’s indulgence to what I belief is THE classic Canadian Fairytale. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read this story, and I’m still in love with Anne, Matthew, Marilla and Avonlea. I have always admired Anne and while my childhood peers wanted to be princesses and knights, I wanted to be Anne of Green Gables! I have also been echoing Lucy Maude Montgomery’s words since I was Anne’s initial age, 11. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to myself, “Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet”, since living in Jaca!

~When the Spanish greet on the street, dicen “Adios” or “Hasta luego”…instead of hello! The first time I encountered this, I thought the guy was being rude by replying goodbye to my hello! Evidently, it simply means, “No time to talk”…so why not just say “No time to talk”!

~Gas has started to talk in his sleep! I’ve watched these guys twitch and vibrate while dreaming…but never before have I heard them talk…not sure in what language!

~Just bought some tampons labelled “Normal”…so what do abnormal tampons look like?

Happy almost Christmas shopping… Amor y Besos, Dana, Carb, Gas and almost Lauren xoxo

October 27, 2007 to … November 3, 2007

~Man, or as they say here, a lot, “Hombre”! I’m in the mood to write! Three and a half months into this venture and I’ve got the urge. 4 months generally seems to be my comfort mark in a new living situation. I’m ahead of schedule! My home and work are set up and I have routines now, thus, more free time and a clearer head. Clutter, especially of the brain, creates chaos! The simplicity of my world could present itself as boring to some. But for me, I have found a freedom from the weight of stress. The kind of stress associated with my living situation abroad is really different from yours, well, you’ve been reading all about my dilemmas. Very gentle really. I don’t lose sleep over lack of language or confusion of culture, these issues actually make me sleep better because I tend to be exhausted at the end of a day. It’s somehow more OK to make mistakes in another country than in your own, easier and funnier. The stresses in people with normal lives seem more serious. Really they’re not, they just feel that way. If only we could replicate the way of thinking of a traveller into a normal lifestyle, wouldn’t we all be much happier?

~Peanut butter and banana sandwiches are back on the menu again! Thanks for caring, Laureen and Joe of Thunder Bay, and for keeping me fixed! Evidently Rhonda’s parcel is taking the scenic route to Jaca, but the unplanned staggering of peanut butter packages is strategic. Prohibits me from overindulging!

~Carb and Gas received a taste of their heritage too! “There’s nothin’ like Temptations”, would say Gas if he could say! Carb will, and has been, eating anything, the pig, but Temptations make him DROOL, the pig!

~The neighbours, across the street, are actually my entire Gypsy neighbourhood! ... which assembles, nightly, in the vacant, dilapidated building directly across from my living room window, 2 metres across, where live, loud concerts are performed, 7 nights a week, more frequently on holidays! How lucky was I to move into the front row apartment of this nightly assembly!? Actually, it is loud but it’s quite cool! The music is traditional Spanish Flamenco, a very intense sound, and it religiously adjourns, by 9:30 PM. And I don’t have to pay to hear it! And should I decide not to want to hear it, I simply crank my music and turn on my “teacher ears”, which instinctively tune out any unwanted noise on demand!

~How apropos I should be living amongst the Gypsies (Dictionary definition: gyp . sy n somebody who has a nomadic or unconventional lifestyle.)! But these Gypsies have been described to me by Castellanos/Spaniards as a Tribe of people. They don’t live in stereotypic caravans, but in apartments, thus, are not nomads. And this adjacent building, as I just learned last night while out on the town (sorry to report, no good garbage), is actually their church! Seems their music has religious undertones which I somehow overlooked. So who needs to go to church when your neighbouring church is amplified through your living room window Monday through Sunday, twice on holidays!

~ I live on the most “happening” street of Jaca. The most interesting part about my neighbourhood is “the morning after”! Every morning is a “morning after” I have discovered! If I happen to venture out of my apartment before the street cleaners have done their daily deeds, I get to walk through a minefield of vomit and broken beer bottles! (The reason I remove my shoes inside my house, how unSpanish of me!) You see, half a block from my door are the best fiesta bars for Jaca’s youth, one place is fittingly named Obsession, another Amnesia! And this being a Spanish town, well, it’s OK to drink on the street and all the aftermath that goes with drinking. It was a little intimidating walking home at night through the entourage of dreadlocks and teenage hormones when I first moved in, but I’ve learned that these kids are quite friendly and harmless, just drunk. And the winds must be in my favour because when I’m home, I never hear any of their drinking noises (over the music blaring from the neighbourhood church)!

~OK, so I’ve made my living arrangements out to be a tad hideous, but they’re not really. I love where I live! It offers an excitement that Little Current did not, not even living at the Anchor was this exciting!

~Carb has now eaten a total of 5 doormats in 2 ½ months. For Christmas I think I’ll buy him wall to wall carpeting!

~Payday has a whole new meaning for me in Jaca. I actually really appreciate it and notice it! My trivial number of work hours pays for my monthly roof and the contents within, despite the quirks. Living simply is not expensive. I always have money to share vino y comidas with people or to travel and experience but besides these necessities I have no other needs! I don’t crave extravagance meaning “stuff” and my scant wardrobe is sufficient. I don’t need to keep up with the Martinez’. For example, yesterday I contemplated buying a 1 euro oven mitt, but concluded my non-water absorbent tea towel works well enough. I’d rather put that euro to better use. I can buy an avocado, a pound of coffee or take a bus to a hike-able mountain for one euro. 4 oven mitts will buy me a 26-er of Amaretto!

~My dish rack. Put up your hand if YOUR dish rack is located INSIDE your kitchen cupboard! I have a built in model with a drip pan below! I only knew the function of this specialized cupboard because we had one in Madrid…otherwise I’d probably still be trying to figure out it’s purpose. This invention was one of a cat owner I’m sure. Carb can have total custody of my 2 square metres of counter space and my dishes are less hairy!

~I’ve just experienced Spanish Daylight Savings. So that means I only got 11 hours of sleep last night! But after the copious amounts of vino tinto we consumed last night, just might have to contemplate a siesta soon! Spain, siesta and sleep all start with the letter “S”!

~Things I’m most glad I brought:
~Carb and Gas (even if the feelings aren’t mutual)
~10 pair of underwear, now I can go 20 days without laundering
~my man Mac (Wow, I just found a Euro symbol € on Mac!)
~50 “I am Canadian” lighters
~my bank card
~my international electrical adapter/converter
~my Spanish dictionary

~Carb and I have just discovered he likes red peppers…we didn’t know that till just now! His head is in my salad bowl! He also likes cantaloupe. He’s one weird cat.

~Operating my shower is like driving a standard vehicle! The handle is even stick shift-like. You have to constantly change gears so-to-speak to keep the water temperature consistent. Probably has a lot to do with the small size of the hot water tank affixed to my kitchen ceiling. The tank, incidentally, has finally stopped dripping on my kitchen floor…Teflon tape is an international cure for most bad plumbing jobs. Teflon in Spanish is Teflon!

~It appears Gasoline grew his winter coat overnight…mine’s in the mail. I brush the guy daily…except days with hangovers because it hurts to bend over and put your head lower than your heart…he’s thicker today than he was yesterday!

~The Spanish equivalent to our Dollar Store is called the “Chinese” Store, all owned by Asians, and this is politically OK here. Where most cheap Canadian products are now made in China (used to be Tiwan), here they’re made in Changchun! I need an atlas. And Spanish Chinese food tastes just like Canadian Chinese food, the same greasy-doughed chicken balls with the same fluorescent/neon orange, glutinous, skin-staining sauce! I had to investigate.

~So I took the plunge, stood out like a sore thumb more than usual, and dressed up for Hallowe’en! My costume cost me 60 centimos (Euro cents), the cost of a black permanent marker. I scrounged a large box that had contained “fresh flowers” and dug out my Canadian flag packing tape and Spanish dictionary. Know what I was? I was the only walking Parcel from Canada in Jaca…perhaps the only one who dressed in a costume in Jaca! But my students loved it or maybe it was the Hallowe’en chocolates I gave them they loved. Kids are kids, everywhere!

~Guess what I found? Salt and Vinegar chips! Flavours have immigrated!

~Spanish holidays keep popping up unbeknownst to me! I hate showing up to teach in a closed school, or running out of coffee on a national holiday! But I like the mentality of the Spanish with regards to holidays. Holidays here generally and strategically fall on Thursdays so they can then also call Friday a holiday because, really, what’s the point of working one day in between two days off! Those Fridays have been given the official name of “Puente”, and that’s why I know how to say “bridge” in Spanish, in a landlocked Spanish town!

~Simon and Garfunkle are still alive and green! I can’t say that they’ve grown at all, but the haven’t died! Christmas is looking promising!

~Vale, estoy bebiendo mucho vino tinto y ya las palabras son muy borrosas! Less the accents that I haven’t been able to locate on Mac, I sincerely thought my Spanish was improving, evolving from a vocabulary of about 10 words (when I first landed in Madrid) that I learned from childhood cartoons like Speedy Gonzalos, to the ability of carrying on a half human conversation of multiple concepts beyond name, occupation, place of birth etc. Immersed in a new language can make one appear stupid! Even if one is not really that stupid in one’s first language. Learning a language means reverting to basic speech like that of a young child, although with less grace and receiving less empathy from one’s audience. Using simple vocabulary, creating choppy imperfect sentences, accentuating incorrect syllables, speaking at a snails pace, constantly asking for repetition and clarification, utilizing body language making oneself look “challenged” or Italian, etcetera! So the word that I innocently have been using for “straw”, in colloquial terms, actually means “masturbation”! I didn’t know!

~Gas has been burping a lot lately…and I didn’t even know a cat could burp!

~I have a dead banana lying on my kitchen counter calling to me! Better go and make a cake! Adios mis amigos hasta la proxima carta, Dana and soon-to-be-on-a-diet cats (My Ecuadorian upstairs neighbours with the scrawny cat keep asking me what I feed Carb and Gas…wait till they meet my kid…she’s 2 Ecuadorians in height!) xoxo

10 Feet in the Pyrenees with a dusting of snow October 20, 2007 to …October 27, 2007

~I used to hate walking, says the woman who used to drive daily the 2 blocks to work! But hiking in the mountains isn’t really walking, is it? It’s more like doing stairs, meaningful exercise in disguise and if you can take your eyes off the path long enough to suck up the vistas, you forget about the blisters, sweat, weight on your back and distance remaining till the peak. Of course, like anyone with still functional knees, I much prefer the return trip, downhill and usually a cerveza or 2 as a reward!

~When…who knows when WHEN will be…I return home, I will have compiled a collection of WAY too many digital mountain photos, but I promise, in advance, that no one will be introduced to the Pyrenees peaks one by one! I still have 400 photos to prove I was at my first bullfight in Madrid 3 years ago…thus, on October 12, 2007, my second and probably last corrida de toros (the bull never wins), I have saved 10 photos worth viewing.

~Teaching is teaching, I have learned. And kids are kids, everywhere, I have learned. I still love teaching, as long as I’m rested ‘cause they’re a tough species!

~I am back to being my own Spanish teacher! I have 2 new books to work with. My fees are cheap (free) and I never assign homework (to myself)! It takes self-discipline, but I am dedicated and like learning at my own pace. I have concluded I will never be fluent in Spanish, but who cares! It’s all about survival and the challenge of learning and growth. Although I would never push my lifestyle on anyone, I do recommend learning and growth to everyone! It’s really stimulating!

~We’ve been receiving visitors in the middle of the night as of recent! Spanish architecture is such that the roofs all connect at different angles and levels, a stray cat labyrinth! And as Jaca is a smallish town, word’s out that there are “dos gatos canadiense living at number 9 Calle Del Barco and follow me I’ll show you a shortcut”! But angled clay tiled roofs are slippery, I’m suspecting, as frequently a stray or two slides and plops into our terraza during the wee hours making a lot of noise en route. And then how does one help these wild, undomesticated and scared critters to escape, after one puts some clothes on. One guy cleared a stonewall in one leap that I can’t even reach fully extended on a chair! I named him Supercat! Then of course Carb must investigate and “mark” every centimetre of territory which has been contaminated by stray paws! Oh how I love the smell of baked pee in the hot summer sun of the next day! It’s hard to get a consecutive 12 hours of sleep around here!

~I love my toilet! Can you say the same? It has two special separate buttons for “BIG flush” or “LITTLE flush” (no, they are not labelled). All you have to do is decide what’s what!

~Let’s return to the concept of clothes dryers, or lack of, for a moment. I used to believe people were simply being tight by not drying towels and I realize these are big consumers of energy. The exfoliating quality of a stiff towel is quite satisfying after a hot shower. But sometimes I miss fluffy! Especially in my clothes which can stand up by themselves after coming in off a clothesline in brisk temperatures. And I always counted on my dryer to get what the washer missed, i.e. cat hairs. And I refuse to “do” the ironing thing. So I’m one crisp and hairy looking Canadian broad walking these Jacian streets.

~I have learned how to use Jaca not just as a proper noun (Jaca, Spain) but also as an adjective (a jacian day), adverb (he spoke jacianly) and verb (to jaca or not to jaca). I have also used it as both a gerund (jacaing) and past participle (jacaed). It’s not legitimate vocab, but it works…and where else could I ever use it?

~Halloween is a North American word. I’ve seen only 2 stores in Jaca pretending to know what it’s about. Commercialism at it’s best. It’s one of my favourite celebrations and I will miss it this year. I admit I love it for the candy, although I ALMOST gave up trick or treating when Kraft stopped making caramels, almost! (Can’t remember what year it was…but not that many ago.) I think it’s one of the reasons I became a primary school teacher and a parent, an excuse to dress up retardedly justifiably. Still deciding if I just go for it and freak out the locals, or hold back and pretend there are only 30 days in October. I have such a limited supply of costume-producing-stuff in my apartment, but then I know the best creativity always comes from less. But I don’t want to get arrested and some costumes just don’t translate well or are not culturally correct. Contemplated dressing up as a bowl of Paella-too messy. If I lived in Italy I could do the spaghetti and meatballs one again-I could move. I’ll let you know my final decision.

~My fridge has lost the battle, given up…it works now, finally, without beeping! It’s been beeping since the day I moved in, August 1st, 2007. For 2 ½ months it’s been playing head games with me. It only stopped beeping because the Spanish fridge repair guy, Jose Miguel, had been notified, so it was the phone call that stopped it from beeping! Kind of like going to the doctor when you’re sick but you feel great when you get to his/her office! I have absolutely no idea what changed it’s mind to stop beeping, but it did. It stopped. Now every day I wake up and pat it…good fridge…Buena nevera…it’s a bilingual fridge.

~I’ve decorated my apartment in Early…how would one label it…Garbage! Every time I go out for the evening, usually in pursuit of beer and tapas, I spy with my little eye some good garbage! This one Beautician store is always throwing out the coolest of glossy billboards advertising make-up or skin care products. Of course, I then drag these monstrous sized advertisement boards into the bars with me…creates for good conversation amongst the patrons, I’m sure. Lauren would be soooo embarrassed! They now hang where there were once the tackiest of wall-sized paint-by-numberish paintings, the Spanish version of velvet Elvis’. I kept one 18 x 24 inch framed photo hanging in the kitchen, circa 1950’s, featuring hunks of raw meat, tomatoes, a decanter of oil (I suspect it’s olive oil), and a chunk of half eaten bread. It’s a keeper! And so many walls, so many maps! I’ve also kept almost every bottle of wine I’ve consumed since my arrival. I’ve clear-cut a few fields of wild dry flowers, stuffed my bottles and they garnish every household surface…when they collect too much dust, I’ll chuck them and harvest more, but I’ll buy work gloves before I cut any more teasels. My windows and sofas have been draped in sarongs and my bookshelves are stacked full of cool rocks and stuff-of-nature collected on hikes. A touch of incense, candles and recessed spot lighting and I have the funkiest digs in all of Jaca! When visitors enter they always gasp and say, “Que (with an accent) precioso!” Which means lovely, beautiful…I looked it up just in case!

~Bleach/lejia is a worldwide clothes wrecker! Just lost a pair of pants, or as the British would say-trousers, to the wretched stuff. I’m now down to 4 pair, makes for an even duller wardrobe. The problem is the washer…blame it on the washer. All front loaders here, which makes you dependent on that little drawer to distribute the toxic liquid evenly…guess what, it didn’t…guess what, won’t use it again! They were cream colour and now they have psychedelic splotches…do I detect a potential Halloween costume here?!

~OK, something’s up here…I most definitely have possessed appliances…just after I wrote of my haunted (pardon my language, mind-fucking) fridge, I discovered my non-sucking vacuum suddenly sucks! Like magic! Was cleaning the clumping littered cat box, for the tenth time today, and I always use the vacuum-like appliance to SLOWLY remove the sand that never made it into a clump from the carpet I have strategically placed at the end of the box, like I’m going to teach these cats to wipe their feet after pooping…Gas, is the typical guy cat slob who scatters the gravel absolutely everywhere, digs like he’s headed to China. So it’s like God has answered my prayers and has pumped more voltage through my electrical sockets or something! OK, so now I believe there is a God!

~Ever tried talking on the phone in another language? You’re at a great disadvantage without the assistance of sherades or lip reading and you can’t pretend you know what’s being said because usually, as in most conversations, you’re expected to say something intelligible back! Almost as difficult is watching a dubbed movie with no subtitles, but at least here you have moving pictures to help you guess the main ideas and you don’t have to respond! No, most definitely foreign phonecalls are my biggest nightmare! That and forgetting where I live.

~The Weather! Let’s talk about it? I try to avoid this topic for 2 reasons, 1. I don’t want the majority of my readers to be envious and 2. It’s such a typical Canadian thing to do, talk about the weather. I’m not sure when it happened, a couple of weeks ago maybe, but the weather changed. Mostly, it’s still sunny, blue skied and warm during the days, but nighttime lows are gradually dropping. We’ve had some rainy and grey days, a nice reprieve, but that’s what makes this area green as opposed to all but the northern regions of Spain. It’s Halloween and the leaves are still on the trees (I don’t mean the conifers)! See, talking about weather is dull, another reason to avoid this discussion…there’s just nothing funny about it. No mistakes or oddities about it.

~Just made Rice Pudding Soup! Made it just as I would at “home”, measured carefully, and I’m a measurer…and I got soup! Ingredients are simply different. It generally takes me 2 or 3 attempts to make most things right here. So by Christmas I’ll be able to eat my pudding with a fork!

~I have discovered, while watching the street cleaners (I watch everyone) that there is a secret foot pedal on the garbage dumpsters…I no longer have to open the dumpster by hand, yay for foot pedals!

~You know you’re getting old when…the hot flashes begin! A few times during my precious sleep, I’ve awoken in a serious sweat…unless it’s erotic dreams I’m having and just can’t remember them…memory loss is also a sign of aging…darn!

~#1 reason to shave your armpits…according to Gas, it’s where the fur mats most!

Muchos besos y abrazos (that’s many kisses and hugs in your language) xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo dana y gasolina y carburador