Accordions, Bad Voices, and Cancer

"There are a lot of accordions in Madrid," I think to myself as the accordion player stands a few feet from my table and moves his arms and fingers as if the instrument in his hands is a marionette and he the master of his puppet.

The Dog gives him her undivided attention. I think this makes him nervous. I think he would come closer to the table in order to encourage me to contribute to his purse, but The Dog is putting him off. "He thinks," I think, "she is dangerous." I pat her on the head.

Good girl.

Her interest in the accordion player is benign; benevolent even. There is a young man who stands on the corner in front of the church we pass each day. The young man is an accordion player whom I had assumed was Spanish, but one day we attempted a conversation, and his Spanish proved to be inferior to mine.

Wow. He's not Spanish. I thought for sure ... he must be Albanian or Romanian or Bulgarian ... an Eastern European gypsy.

The young accordion player with bad Spanish who stands in front of the church is The Dog's friend. He gave her some food once. Since then she has been fond of accordions.

In other news ...

I recently happened upon a 12 November 2008 article in The Economist. It was a book review, more than an article, the subject of which was the making of Gray's Anatomy, the medical reference journal ... not the American TV series. I was excited to see referenced a hospital about which I have written. For so long I thought it was just a fancy hotel for people with dosh to flounce about, but no ... it's got history!

Madrid too, of course, has history. I am finding it difficult to find the time to immerse myself, roll about in it, and puke it out here. I am too busy spilling tears because I am not meeting my professional expectations: a prospective client snaps at me that I shouldn't call him on his mobile phone when I have called him on his mobile phone; feedback on a meeting, which felt like a shoe-in comes back less than favourable ... the managing director is going to take up the reigns and try to salvage what I have lost; one thing after another, nothing I do seems to yield the desired results. I break down and hear a voice I used to hear.

It's strange to hear that old enemy. I'm not daunted. I'm pretty sure I can handle the voice better now. Still, to hear it means things aren't great.

My mother's cancer is back.

And here I am using it as an instrument of shock for my fucking blog.

Fancy Phones, Fans, and Poor Parkers

I downloaded an app for my fancy phone (phancy fone). It (the app) is supposed to tell me what to do and when; although, only after I have told it what to tell me to do (and by when). The fancy phone and its apps are smart but not that smart.

I told my fancy phone to remind me to put my fan in my bag.

I put my fan in my bag.

I'm good at following orders.

I am in the Metro where there is a large TV screen emitting news snippets among which is a description of today's climatic conditions. It is a few degrees cooler than it has been. Still, I am glad for the reminder that has led to my fan being in my bag, because it is hot on this platform, and fans really do work.

I had always been skeptical about the use of handheld fans. I always assumed that the energy exerted to generate a breeze with a fan would outdo the good that the breeze was meant to do.

On a different note, do you suppose this parked car was parked thus with cheek, or complete ignorance?

Average Man Needs Help

". . . . una ayuda para comer . . . . una ayuda para comer . . . . una ayuda para comer . . . ."

From the other end of the Metro carriage I hear a man asking for help so that he can eat. He repeats his request in a perfectly consistent cadence. He could be trying to brainwash us.

". . . . una ayuda para comer . . . ."

He sounds like the blind man who used to stand outside the Quevedo Metro station selling the lottery tickets for O.N.C.E. That guy also had a gruff, up-and-down-sing-song-way of repeating his request to the public.

I wonder what ever happened to that man.

". . . . an ayuda para comer . . . ."

As the syncopated cadence gets louder, I cannot help myself: I look up and catch a glimpse of the man who is shuffling through the carriage and demanding some help so he can eat. He is not what I would have expected. He is an older gentleman, possibly sixty or sixty-five. He is well dressed in navy slacks, a blue and white striped button down shirt. His moustache is quintessentially Spanish in the "I support the generalissimo Franco even now" kind of way. His sturdy black work shoes look to have a lot of strolls up and down the Metro carriage left in them.

Oh god. So this is what the crisis has gotten to.

Bulbs Need Changing

Apparently The Dogwalker doesn't know how to change a lightbulb.

His mother called on Monday night. I didn't take the call; I wasn't at home.

The Man rolled his eyes when he told me the news, "She wants me to stop by to help her change a lightbulb."

"Is The Dogwalker that useless?"

"It would seem."

Later I realize one of the small strip of lights above my desk has burnt out. I decide I will replace it.

Apparently I don't know how to change a lightbulb.

Am I this useless?

¡España Gana!

It's difficult to say precisely when the hangover gave way to exhaustion. Certainly the two co-mingled in that gray area of recovery where the poison of your excess has mostly dissipated, but an occasional wave of nausea or increased intensity of the throbbing in your brain reminds you that detoxification is still in process.

There is no doubt that the hangover took up most of Monday: it lingered into Monday evening when I was supposed to go out for drinks with colleagues. I stuck with Diet Coke, the caffeine of which did nothing to stave off the exhaustion.

The exhaustion was not the typical hangover sort. It was a Herculean exhaustion fed by falling into bed at three, only to have the alarm go off at half four in order to leave the piso* at five in order to be at the airport for a seven o'clock flight.

"I'll be able to sleep on the plane," I consoled myself.

Alas, preoccupation with the queasiness in my belly kept me from sleep. I verified there was indeed one of those little paper barf-bags in the seat pocket in front of me. I monitored the painfully slow progress of the flight attendants** serving the uninspired, cellophane-wrapped "meals" which I had eschewed. My interest in their progress lay with my need to visit the loo, and their trolley blocked my way.

Having landed in Heathrow without incident, I took the opportunity to re-brush my teeth, re-wash my face, and reapply some moisturizer before catching The Tube for central London.

"Maybe this will fool them." I told myself as I freshened up to prepare for a demanding day of acting. My performance wouldn't have won any awards, I don't think.

Monday was followed by another uncivilized early start on Tuesday. The alarm went off at 05:00 so I could catch an overland train to meet a former customer for an eight a.m. breakfast.

"At least I'm not hungover." I muttered as I switched on the tap in the shower, which did nothing to get rid of the bags under my eyes.

"I'm exhausted." I admitted to myself.

"Just a day to get through. You can sleep on the flight home this afternoon." I encouraged myself.

I am still recovering from the excess of it all, but it was worth it. After all, we won the World Cup!

*Apartment or flat
**When did stewardess become a bad word?

I Get Help

The Man and I maintain a budget.

Before the move to Madrid, it was The Man who maintained the budget. I knew what I had agreed to spend (or not) and stuck to it, but I didn't pay a fig for the ins and outs of the cash-flow.

With the move to Madrid and the temporary division of expenditures, I assumed partial budgetary responsibility. Amongst the Madrid's budget's line items included provision for discretionary services: dog-walking, house-cleaning, and Spanish-teaching. Paying out for dog-walking came easy as soon as I arrived. We had planned that we would employ the (now) Dog Walker to become the Dog Walker. The Dog Walker is a kind of relative, if you use the word extremely loosely. He is also of the unfortunate Spanish generation where there is well up to 40% unemployment. It was our intention to help one of a lost generation make some income, find a vocation (even if temporary), and gain some independence from his mother.

It was harder to dish out the dosh associated with the other two line items. Finding house-cleaning and Spanish-teaching assistance wasn't something that was just going to fall into my lap. I also worried about the budget; putting off the the outsourcing of the house-cleaning and hiring of Spanish-teaching helped me save. On the house-cleaning front, I didn't know where to start to look for help. On the Spanish-teaching front, I hemmed and hawed over whether to sign up for classes at an academy or go for private, one-on-one classes, a decision complicated by my irregular work schedule.

After 4 months and with The Man's impending, permanent arrival, I decided to get off my ass and put my budget line items to use (for fear that they would be disappear if they remained unutilised for too long).

That last line isn't quite true.

The Man would never make the house-cleaning line item disappear from the budget. He is a clean freak. In point of fact it was the Man who kept asking, "When are you going to get a chacha?"

The term "chacha' surprised me. I hadn't ever heard it before. I bashfully used "criada" but sensed there wasn't something quite right with that term either. Our Spanish friends agreed. They still plead with The Man to stop with his seemingly humorous use of 'chacha', but are happy that I quickly stopped using 'criada' when I learnt it was out-dated.

Our asistenta started a week ago. She is a godsend from El Salvador. She was referred to me by the upstairs neighbour who I happened to bump into outside the lift as I was thinking how dirty our flat was becoming. (The Dog is shedding a shed-load in this relative heat.)

I finally found the means to spending the Spanish-teaching line item of our budget through the Internet. I had decided that a formal class with a fixed hour would not do. I couldn't commit, so I opted for a stranger who had advertised on the Internet. She is a nice woman, if not a little sosa*.

On Wednesday, there occurred an inconvenient alignment of the schedules of all our 'help.' Dog-Walker came in to pick up the dog, whilst Chacha hoovered, and Spanish-teacher quizzed me on the subjunctive.

It was an odd, odd feeling to think I'm employing so much help.

*Lacking salt. Insipid. Humourless.

Colour Provided!

The lack of colour in the previous picture seemed an injustice. In London, black & white came easily. In Madrid, I struggle with the colour. It deserves more than my stylistic simplicity.

It is hot. Over ten years of living with Centigrade yet I still need to reference Fahrenheit in order to appreciate the heat.

It is hot, but not unexpected. After all, it is July in Madrid; it is supposed to be hot. I understand that the same hot has hit the east coast of the USA. There, it is a heatwave.

Are you there? Are you suffering?

When The Man came from London, he brought along a present for me. Not for my birthday or for our anniversary. An unexpected gift to show his appreciation for the work I have put into making our new life here. He says I was the scout. I uncovered the potholes that would have caused his vein to bulge if he had had to stumble across them unawares. I prepared the way for him, and he bought me a fan. This is not a gift at which to scoff. It is July in Madrid. Whether in Celsius or Fahrenheit, it is hot.

Though hotter in Fahrenheit, certainly.

Foreigners Misidentified

I have an accidental and irregular friendship. My friend is the mother of The Dog Walker. The Dog Walker is only The Dog Walker by virtue of another accidental and irregular relationship, which is a story for another time. The mother of The Dog Walker is incredibly grateful for the other accidental and irregular relationship that has made The Dog Walker The Dog Walker. As a sign of her gratitude, she took me under her wing when I first arrived in Madrid. My new, accidental and irregular friendship didn't exactly put me over the moon.

You might say that The Dog Walker's Mother's approach to the administration of our relationship was very Latina; whereas my reaction was very Anglo. Dog Walker's Mother would call me the night before a public holiday in order to inform me of the impending public holiday; she invited me to see shows, to attend The Dog Walker's birthday lunch, to have tea . . .

What the fuck kind of Spaniard drinks tea???

... She invited herself over to my flat to monitor various 'getting life going' activities like the installation of cable TV, the first home delivery from El Corte Inglés, and the installation of the 'estores', which she had gifted me. I began to sense that each invitation also served the purpose of letting The Dog Walker's Mother satisfy herself that I was getting on. Other than The Man and me, no one wants this move to succeed more than The Dog Walker's Mother. Whilst I appreciated Dog Walker's Mother's sentiment, I kind of resented the intrusion. I just wanted to sit at home and quietly get smashed on my own.

Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah ....

One of things that The Dog Walker's Mother decided to help me with was to change the Gas and Electricity bills into my name (and bank accounts) by calling the appropriate customer service telephone numbers. It seemed to work.

Hurrah!

A month or so later, I discovered that we didn't have to use the phone. We could have just made the appropriate changes using the Internet. (The Dog Walker's Mother is not the most modern of women.) When I discovered this miracle, I decided to register online with the gas and electricity companies just for potential future transactions. Unfortunately, I experienced technical difficulties with one of the registrations (both required first name, last name, country of issuing passport, and passport number itself).

I tried not to be annoyed. I figured I'd call the customer service people and force them to give me a free (other than the price of the call) Spanish lesson whilst trying to sort out the registration glitch.

"¿Pero de donde eres?" the customer service lady asked me.

"El Reino Unido." I give the simple answer; I don't want to complicate things by explaining I also hold a passport from the USofA.

Turns out the gas people had me down as a Colombian. I don't know what the hell Dog Walker's Mother told those people, but I'm about as Colombian as Snoop Dogg is upper-crust Cheltenham. The Man (a dark-skinned Dominican) laughed his ass off at the thought of his whitey wife being confused for a Colombiana.

Haahaahaa.

I thought it was funny too.

Not as funny as the last laugh though.

My Man went to Movistar to sign up for a Spanish phone number. He presented his UK passport. He spoke in perfect Spanish. He only noticed when he got home that Movistar had registered his nationality as Marroquí.

Be careful of the last laugh.

Bless The Man

Sometimes when I am trying to write a post I get cranky. Morning is my best time for pretty much any activity: running, writing, yoga, documenting meetings or projects or drafting up sales presentations. On and on.

Morning doesn't last very long though, so I have to pick and choose how I spend these precious, short hours. During the work week, my choices are quite limited: gym or no gym. On weekend mornings, my only firm commitment is a walk with Dog; and she is a patient soul. I have a couple of hours to myself. But not really to myself, because The Man is here with me too.

An Aside: yes! The Man has arrived! Definitively. He has planned a couple of short trips back to the UK to visit the dentist (which I find an irony considering our poor estimation of the general state of British dental care), but otherwise he is here for good.

Back to the crux: on the weekend mornings my time to myself is not time to myself. The Man sleeps next to me. I stir.

Hmmmm. I might be able to fall back asleep.

I don't know what time it is, but I don't really care. I know it is still early and there is still plenty of time this morning before I start to feel the pressure of the day filling up with other things. I open my eyes as a test to see how awake I really feel. I see the soft morning sun making the leaves of the tree outside our balcony almost see through. I close my eyes again. I open them again.

I could fall asleep again. But I could also wake up.

My bladder helps me make my decision. I slip out of bed. Before I go to the toilet I'm drawn to Dog whose nose is just visible at the foot of the bed. I have to go nuzzle my face in her neck. I have no choice. Although she hasn't had a bath in sometime, she is newly clean. Yesterday's morning walk occurred under what might be the last big rain before the summer hits us hard and dry. The rain washed her almost clean.

I slip into The Man's slippers which I have spied at the end of the bed. Really the slippers are sandals, well-crafted and supportive. The Man has been going on and on about how comfortable they are (which is why they have been moonlighting as slippers). My little feet are like guppies in these whales of shoes; I have to alter my gait to keep them in place. Even with such undersized feet, I can appreciate how comfortable these sandals (slippers!) are. They are like walking on spongy moss in a cool rain forest (think Pacific Northwest - Seattle / Vancouver / Twilight).

Because I am generally the first to stir, I am generally the weekend coffee-maker.

The coffee is made. I shuffle back to bed with two coffee cups. I hand the Man his. I put mine on the floor next to my side of the bed. (In this new flat, the nightstand is on The Man's side of the bed; the easy to access electrical outlet is on my side of the bed. This is an inverse of the London bedroom circumstances where I enjoyed putting my coffee on the nightstand, but had to scramble out of bed to get power when my laptop battery started to run low.)

I pick up my Mac and direct the browser to Blogger. The Man's laptop will be giving him all sorts of commentary on the Spain - Paraguay match last night. It is the first time in history that Spain has made the semi-finals of the World Cup. Spain has always been a contender that has never made it. This year might be the year.

I anticipate I will soon get cranky because my time to myself, this time when I am going to write something for my blog, is not quite time to myself. My Man is here. My Man likes me. He likes to talk to me. He likes to tell me about the things he reads. Sometimes, when he interrupts my train of thought, I get cranky. That's why sometimes he hates it that I blog. Sometimes, when I am cranky about not being able to do what I want to do (for lack of time) and when The Man is grumpy because I have been cranky and all he wants to do is share with me, we will bicker about blogging. I will explain why I like it, the need that it satisfies; and whilst he'll get it, he'll get annoyed with it. Our bickering is gentle. Sometimes its not really bickering. Sometimes he cheekily tries to coax me away from the blog by flirting with me. Sometimes I call him out.

This morning I have gotten through all these words with only one interruption.

The Man turns to me, "See how I'm letting you blog."

Dog and Penguin in Dreams

I was about to launch into a dream I had. A strange dream.

Aren't they all?

A strange and funny dream. Before I embark on a description of the icy waters, pirouetting penguins, and glacier climbing Rottweilers, I imagine your response. It is: "You have got to be shitting me."

I'm no longer thinking about Antarctica and my imagined frozen lips.

What the fuck kind of expression is 'You've got to be shitting me!'

It is a common turn of phrase. I am embarrassed to be so common. Yet it fascinates me. I'm curious about its etymology. Who would have thought to use 'shit' in this context? Yet we all know what it means. It serves a very definite purpose. That's as much thought as I give it.

In my dream, there is a big ship. It is stalled between icebergs in icy waters in the Very North (or the Very South) of our planet. A solitary penguin swims around the boat. The Dog is fascinated by the penguin and runs around the stalled boat's deck to follow the penguin's meanderings, which are never too far but never too close either.

When I woke up from my dream I laughed at myself and the imagined source of my dream.

Last night was the first night sleeping with the penguin on. The Dog is indeed interested by the machine that ejects cool air. She gives it sidelong glances, approaches and backs away and approaches again. She exhibits the same behaviour on the deck of the stalled ship in my dream.

You have got to be shitting me.