Mamá Day

Scene: Five years ago, March. I call my father up and wish him a happy Father's Day. The fact that I've lived my entire life in the United States and that Father's Day has never before been in March does not deter me. It is in March in Spain, it must be the same everywhere. My father, God bless him, receives his Strange Father's Day love without blinking. "Thanks," he says. I found out about a week later that it wasn't Father's Day. And not through my parents. What could he possibly have been thinking as he accepted that tremendously early holiday wish?

Fast-forward to now. This time I am prepared for Spain's holiday trickery and I know that Mother's Day is in May. There can be no mistake. Cathy and I talk it through. I make the necessary arrangements so that my Mother can get her gifts from me. Of course, of course, OF COURSE Mother's Day is ONE FULL WEEK later in the States. It's not this Sunday, May 1st. WHASSUP WITH THAT SPAIN.

Luckily I made an even bigger mistake than that; one which has cancelled the first one out dramatically. Unfortunately, more will have to be explained next week when I don't risk ruining what little surprise I have left. Suspense!

Peace The Fork Out, Bathroom Ceiling

It was with great happiness that Cathy and I bid adiós to our scary bathroom ceiling, which was threatening to fall on our heads. The landlady fought long and hard for us, screaming and demanding to our upstairs meany neighbor that he repair our roof. After much Spanish "no way, you're crazy! such things have never been heard of!" he caved in and came through. The scariest part of the bathroom was right above the toilet. There, the ceiling had actually begun to sag, and the water stains sometimes leaked. We had to place the toilet paper in the NEVER-USED bidet to keep it from water damage. Sometimes I wore galoshes and waded through puddles to wash my hands or brush my teeth. Suffice to say, we spent little time in the bathroom to avoid risk of premature and embarassing deaths.

Insert one new ceiling and one EXTRA crazy landlady currently mopping my floors. She won't leave the apartment!

Sant Jordi

Happy Sant Jordi everybody! Today in Spain is a very special day when you give roses and books to people you hold dear to you, in honor of Saint George (Sant Jordi in Catalan) who is celebrated because he screwed up his courage and popped a cap in a dragon, gangsta style. I did my part to celebrate by surprising someone very important with some roses and books, per custom. And then I killed a dragon. WORD. But HELLO where are my books and roses? Cathy and I both confessed that we briefly entertained notions of book-giving but then didn't, our unthoughtfulness cancelling each other out nicely.

In further celebration of Sant Jordi's love of the written word is this little blog's first birthday! I thought about all of the ways that I could celebrate the blog's birthday but ya'll, it's too much work. Can we just talk about this poor child's picture of Sant Jordi busting up the dragon?

Dear Uma:
I love your picture of Sant Jordi/Hitler slaying the dragon. The little moustache was a nice touch. Are you making some kind of statement? Good for you. But Uma, can I ask some questions? Is the dragon smiling? He looks mighty happy for having just gotten slain. Maybe he isn't actually dead, judging from the scratch near his foot. Unless Sant Jordi had access to some pretty high caliber rifle, which you don't seem to have drawn, I don't think he's finished off your dragon. He's even smiling! Uma, I don't think that's how the story goes. And is Jordi actually straddling the dragon?

I like the way that Princess is four times the size of everybody else. Hey, isn't she bigger than the dragon? I don't think she would have needed saving from anything. She looks pretty tough, except for the bum right arm. She probably could have just kicked the dragon and grabbed the rose from the dude on the horse since they're the same height. And am I tilted or is everyone leaning to the right?
Uma, this picture rocks.

Love, Dean

[crunchcrunchcrunch]

It may be time for a Snack Food Intervention when it's 1.39 in the morning and you can hear your possibly tipsy roommate munching on potato chips in bed.

Reasons Why I'm Still A Bad English Teacher

Student says: "Then you take the cho-co-late, you remove it, you mezclate it, you put it in a cazo and then you add the milks. You must to need the black cho-co-late. You remove the entire masa and I like very much this."

I say: [Nothing. I think I blinked a few times to more thoroughly absorb all of this information. Note that here remove means stir.]

In related news, I'm totally going to be observed on Friday by one of the scarier office staff. I warned the students, telling them that we were going to the bar the day before as part of Operation I'm Bribing You So Don't Mess This Up For Me. Life is made of moments like these.

Fresh Green Notice!

Ever since I received Margaeretta's email the other day, I've been scanning my junk mail a little more thoroughly before emptying it in hopes of receiving more crazy craziness. As it turns out, my email account is quite the receptacle for this new form of novelicious spam, which seems to consist of semi-random quotes taken from various websites. The curious part is that these emails seem to have some kind of more or less sensible thread weaving them together. Who can forget Jessica's epic journey? Or, in the case of the email that I received today, Ian's scores on about 50 different videogames? I'm incredibly fascinated by any email that produces sentences that are so nonsensical that you understand them. Behold, excerpts from today's email from Rob -- Fresh Green Notice!

It was a good games player. He is an especially tough game, with limited income to be made. Jarratt did well early, breaking even by turn two. I sold a lot of fun, and felt very robber-barony.

Really well, this time it failed spectacularly. More spectacular was Sharon's monument and river collection. We could tell she was going to be able to surge ahead for a win, but I had issued too many shares for that. Sharon and Ian camped out in the East and West respectively.

Spanish Class

After about 7 years of classes, I think I'm pretty good at Spanish. It was my secret language of communication with Nanny, my only communication with many Spanish friends, and I taught it for two years at Syracuse University. So finding myself in Spanish class again in Spain is a bit of a humbling experience. The only other student in the class has a really good accent and a Spanish boyfriend. I had my doubts about her, and in class this past Wednesday I became aware of the silent construction of competition laid down between us. I tried my best to resist her passive-aggressive outbursts in class before finally spanking her ass (oh-so-figuratively) at adjective definitions. Outside of class, everyone I know has been questioning my reasons for taking it, the necessity of a Spanish class in Spain. I mean, it's great to learn the really random words that I am learning (because at this point the basics have been more than covered), but do I need this?

Nah.

But I'm getting somewhat desperate with Spanish, as it seems to continually elude me and as I am thwarted constantly at all attempts to make Spain friends -- not that those attempts have been really serious. Anyway, at this point class is an extra 3 hours of Spanish speaking a week and a chance to be annoyingly corrected with every mistake. As stinging as it may be for a Spanish teacher to be taught Spanish, this is ultimately what I'm here for. That, and annihilating my classmate with my knowledge of Spanish.