Comedy, a source for balance.

Funny things:

At lunch yesterday, in a restaurant, Youngest was drinking milk and took way too much in her mouth.  Her nose suddenly got called into play as an emergency vent.  Two streams of milk coming out her nostrils....I had to laugh with her.  Indeed I laughed rather hysterically, to the embarrassment of Eldest which made it all the funnier.

I was listening this morning to the CBC Laugh Out Loud podcast from April 3 and it was pretty good, then a comic named Billy Bob Jo Taylor came on and OMG, I. Could. Not. Stop. Laughing.  Could not stop.  Most of the podcast is reasonably funny, but Billy Bob Jo...Heavens above.  He starts at about 12:30.

Annoying things:  Contractors who disappear and don't return calls.

Sad.

The man's mother has died.  The poor man hadn't slept since I don't know when, jetlag is a b*tch.  He and his siblings were all there and she just slipped away in her own room.

*sigh*

On another note, we got the municipal permission.  sadly, the third construction guy has not sent me the bid, that was supposed to be here 'tonight'.  I suppose, like some of my students, he still has another hour and 11 min.

*sigh*

Meetings a la Catalana (Eurpoeana??)

The man has made it to Canada, his Mom has been given days to live and he and his siblings are taking it turn and turn about to sit at her bedside.  Good grief.

I was at a meeting today for the group that I am on the board of.  That sounds much more involved than it is I will admit.

Two things struck me about it as unusual.

First, there were two official starting times, and this is in the statutes.  At the time of the first one we would have been able to start if 50 percent of the membership had been present.  You can imagine how frequently that happens.  This official starting time inevitably cannot be used, so the paltry optimistic few who are there then have to sit around for a further half hour when we can start with whomever shows up.  Of course, knowing this system, no one shows up for the first time, making it absolutely inevitable that every member of the board sit around for half an hour doing nothing.  One person went and did some groceries!

Odd odd odd, why don't they just mandate a minimum quorum and call it done?

Second oddity that I have noted here repeatedly is the reading aloud of entire documents.  Legal language and all.  I know we do this at weddings, but it is worded a little different.  Today, they read aloud the entire minutes of the previous meeting, all six single-spaced pages of it.  The minutes were not made available before the meeting.

Good lord.

The notaries do the same thing, they basically get paid ridiculous sums for reading things aloud all day and then signing them.

At about page four I came to the dawning realisation that this tradition may well hark back to the era - none too long ago in some places - where there were lower literacy levels, so things had to be read aloud before they could be voted on combined with a chronic shortage of printed matter.  Running off copies for everyone to read from their seats as they wait for the meeting to begin has historically not been such an option.

Tradition hasn't moved on.  We could now send an e-copy to some of the members (it is a fairly aged group) and they could read it on their crackberries.  Give it another decade and we'll all be there.

Girls and I jinxed ourselves by cleaning out every last thing from the house with the thought that the construction guys just might start this week.  We know, of course, that having done this means that it will be at least another two weeks, no?

disconcerting disorientation

I don't know if you've ever done this, but I've only ever done it a couple of times in my life - get your minds out of the gutters!

I was having a nap and the cell phone rang, which I had tucked into bed with me because the man was heading to Canada and who knows who from there might have phoned.  A friend called.

I did not know where I was, what country I was in, what language I was speaking.  I knew there was something I was worried about, but could not fathom what it was...the most alarming part I think.

The sense of confusion lasted for hours.  Rationally I knew what was going on, but felt all whacked out and lost.

Weird weird weird.

Barça beat Madrid handily though, so all must be right in the world.

If it wasn't complicated enough....

Let's see.

Tomorrow the third builder will come by with his numbers.

Monday morning I'll meet the architect to pick up the license (hopefully)

Decisions have to be made about the builders, NOW.  With any luck at all, they'll start work next week.  We have to clean the house out this weekend and keep working on removing the plaster from the vaults.

Took the dog to the vet, seems his leischmania is resurfacing.  The stress of my being away last weekend seems to have been too much.  Blood tests done and vaccine postponed, plus a urine sample that he wilingly gave out. Plus he may have a nasty little tick-born problem and he has either worms or colitis.  I'm offering up prayers for worms.  Never thought I'd say that anyway.

We have the overarching charm of the man having to go into work while looking for work and not being properly employed.  The atmosphere there is delightful.

A large block of very well paid work that I thought I would be getting doesn't seem to be panning out, some whim of the generalitat seems to have sent the work to another language school.  Crap for us all.

Now...

Nownownownownow, we got an email from the man's sister this evening.  Seems his mother's health is failing severely.  Booking flights out of here for him.

He's all booked and going to be gone for a week!

Never ever ever ever dull.

Had dinner at 10:30 pm.  We were a little surprised by the time when we sat down, I thought it was around 8.

Gotta laugh, it's the only option.

Kiss kiss update

I have been kisskissed these days.

My boss, but not her sister who is the office admin.  None of the teachers I work with in English, but the one who I always talk to in Catalan.  My closest buddy here.  The architect and yesterday's builder.  None of my students, neither adults nor kids.  The husband of my compatriot at work, though he does most times he sees me as in a couple of times a week.  An ex-student and a random person I know in the street.

Still ain't got this one down.  Fascinating looking at it though.

No rhyme or reason I can find anywhere.

A tiny little lesson in Catalan (swearing) Now you'll read on, no?

Real life again!

Meeting today with the architect and the first contractor who is now on deck again and a half - he could start today if we could.  It all went well.  We had been told we would get the license today, but no.  (This is Spain) The meeting was today and silly me, I thought that would include a decision.  So did the architect.

Friday or Monday.

Oh!  And we're missing a couple of bits of paper.  Claro.

The long-suffering architect is taking care of that anyway.

Good stuff I suppose.  When we get the actual license....Party!!!

When the guys appear on site......Oy oy oy, I will be one happy girl, for at least a little while anyway.

I am starting to dream of house-warming parties.  Talk about peaking early!

Heard a Catalan phrase today, 'estic fins als pebrots'.  It all went by quickly so I jotted it down to ask.  Pebrots is a colloquial and slightly more polite term for balls/nuts/yarbles....whatever.  So he 'was up to his nuts'  Can you carry this from here?  To busy or too fed up or simply overwhelmed.

They guy I asked got a good laugh too.  You can say, rather more crudely, 'estic fins als coyones' do I need to translate coyones?  Same meaning as pebrots but much ruder.  Much more polite is 'estic fins a dalt'  I am right up to the top.   In English we would trace an invisible line across our forehead and say we 'were up to here' with whatever is making us nuts (hahaha).

Seems the Catalans run out of patience when the water is much lower than for an anglo, no?

Back on the water. Heavenly.

Wow.

Can you say funover or what?

Let's stick to just one topic for today, cause there is so very much to say.

Since I am such a boat-y water-y kind of gal, I thought I would ponder, punt around, piddle about and talk about punting on the Cam.  That'd be the river in Cambridge, UK.

Can I just say, every bit as cool as it seemed.

Can I also just say that it is way harder than it looks.  I am a boating kinda person, I've poled upstream in a canoe, I can sail just about anything, row a dingy, you get the idea.  This was not easy folks.

The pole weighs quite a bit in fact, and directional stability is a challenge.  That said, the learning curve was steep, and the sailing experience paid off, in that I could use the pole as a rudder in order to correct my direction from a badly placed punt shove.

We saw one guy who'd fallen in, and another go in.  (Higher than normal stats.)  He got the top of the punt stuck under a bridge and the bottom on the bottom and decided not to let go when the punt kept on going.  Like the man said, "If the punt gets stuck, let go.  It dries off a whole lot faster than you do."

It would be not too hard to fall off at first.

Youngest was working at it, she was coming up to one bridge with the punt crosswise in front of her.  The bridge is narrower than the punting pole.  Sweep. She got it sorted out in time.  She really did quite well in fact.  Eldest was less persistent.

The UK is lovely, honestly, it really is.

Saw lots and lots of narrow boats.  This has been a longtime obsession of mine....I even have a cruising guide somewhere!

Wonder what Chuck would think?

Back!

Whirlwind tour, Wales, London and Cambridge.  Sitting wearily on the couch now, but I was punting on the Cam earlier today!

Didn't even swim!

Here's a photo, more later:

Walkies!

The man and I took the dog for a four and a half hour walk today.  Yummy.

Started out a bit inauspiciously, me cranky, the man realising I hadn't eaten and feeding me, and then rain.  That all improved though enormously.

Then a bath and a nap.  I have been struggling to get a bathtub in the new house, and we have one.  I don't have a bath often, but when I want one I really really want one.

I swear this has been the holiday of the nap.  Honestly.  I'm sleeping ten or eleven hours every night plus a two + hour nap every day and I still feel sleepy.  Not tired, but sleepy if you can see the difference there.

Went over to a friend's house to scan and send some plans to contractor number 1 and had a hilarious conversation comparing Catalan, Spanish and English swearing.  Rich and varied.  Though the Catalans seem the nicest of the lot.   A little crude in day to day conversation, but not nearly so harsh when they argue.  There has to be a point in there somewhere.

Off for a few days, posting likely to be irregular or non-existent.  Happy chocolate days!