I have vowed to myself

That I will post more, and draw every day. 

Well, this is a post, kinda.

But if I'm sort of choosing between a real post vs drawing and reading.

I think the latter two are winning, so...

Hope you had a good one.

Cheers,

O

Running with Youngest

Youngest has started running with me, and after three weeks, we have a problem.  She is now much faster than me.  Ho hum.  That 30 year or so age gap rears it's head!

Problem is we run in the mountains, which is WAY more fun that anywhere else, but it also means that I want her to kinda sorta stick with me, and that we kinda don't want her to go on her own.  SO today, she was feeling FAST and I was p.l.o.d.d.i.n.g......but sad.  She had to run like a puppy dog, run ahead, turn around, run back and find me, then run ahead again.

I would say on the whole that puppies enjoy that rather more than teenage girls do.  I also have to say that it wasn't a whole lot of fun for me either.  I wasn't running with her, but didn't feel I could run my own pace, or stop if I wanted to. 

We're working on a solution. 

I will also put today's drawing up in a bit.

Youngest is having a party

Small one, but it's noisy downstairs, so instead of reading or painting, I am burning away my time on fb, though in fact I am chatting with my daughter and my aunt, as well as my sis a bit and some friends, so I'm not sure it's all bad...but still....

Then I noticed, in passing, that someone I knew had posted on a page of someone they knew about 28 drawings later, for February, and I think that that is a very good idea indeed.  Going to post them here.
 These sorts of daily things work well for me.  Activate the blog and get my sorry butt up drawing again!

....a moment later.....  a clear sign it's been too long since I last drew anything....the sketchbook I always keep beside the bed?  Can't find it.  Hmmmmmm.....

WOW

I have just spent a whole bunch of time cruising through the MoMA drawings online....that was some time very well spent!

So, here's today's!

Casa Batlló

I'd never gone.  It's a house by Gaudí in BCN that we had never ever visited, cause it is so expensive to get into!  Well, prices have gone up on most museums, but as I was saving it to visit when friends want to go....Monday was my day!  We had a bunch of friends in BCN who wanted to see it....and I was so glad.

There is a 5 Euro discount if you are from BCN, so I was trying to talk them into it......at one point I even pointed out to them that I was speaking CATALAN....c'mon, cut me some slack...I've learned the damned language, that ought to be worth a 5 Euro discount, no?

They thought so...after I showed them my library card so they could see I was at least from nearby!

In we went.  As always, with Gaudí, it was spectacular. 

Here, I'll show you:

Lovely, no?

delusions?

I have recently met two people who left me kind of amazed.

They are both in the 19 - 22 range.  Both studying.

One, wants to be a translator, she said.  She copies everything in class, never does the exercises and never speaks anything but her own native language (not even the other language here - Catalan).  She has, at best, about 40 years before she masters another language.  A translator. Cause they make so much money, she said.  I'm not sure which of those delusions is the greater.  Unless she meant a simultaneous translator.  They do make decent coin, but purportedly go bonkers after about a decade -  decade and a half.

The other?  Going to school to be a personal trainer.  He smokes.  A lot.   He does no sports.   At. All.  Played some football as a kid, and used to skateboard.  

Really?

This sounds very negative, and I am really questioning posting it, cause I feel kinda mean explaining this.  But, honestly, I don't understand their view of the world, how they think this will work? 

I am...mystified. 

Gestor

A gestor is someone who helps you work your way through bureaucracy.  A country that has an entire field of work dedicated to dealing with bureaucracy is a bad sign.  They also do more mundane thing, like your taxes, but frankly, it is so complicated here that this can be a not small thing too.

Debate has gone on in my life about working with a contract, becoming officially self-employed, or continuing to work for at least a portion of my pay *ahem* in an alternative market.

I went to talk to the gestor about what would be involved in being self-employed (which incidentally costs over 200€ a month and confers no benifits).  Here's what I found out.

•  It'll cost me 40€ just to talk to the lady about the process
•  I will have to pay the monthly 200€ plus fee
•  I will have to pay taxes four times a year, and pay the gestor to do this for me

Maybe you can see why the *alternative* market continues to flourish in Spain!!!

Broke back bike

Rode home on Friday with a crippled bike.  In fact I had to push the last good long part of the way home. 

The rear derailer was crunching into the rings on the back of the bike.  NOT HEALTHY!

The Man, darling that he is had a go, cleaned things up, which did help, but not ultimately.

So today, off to the bike store.

Hoy por hoy,

Ara per ara

Now for now....if not earlier.  That is the problem with commuter bikers, they need there bikes fixed NOW.

So, the kind man fit me in, I had to go for a walk while I waited till he could look at it....went to talk to a gestor, which is another entire conversation...there's  a blog post.....and saw a couple of pretty things, well more than that, but got the camera out for two of them:

The piece that had to be replaced?  That'd be the rear derailer, he quoted me 88€, my gasp of horror brought that down to 28€ and a certainly cheaper model.  Fine by me.

See those two cog wheels?

Along the bottom edge there, one on the far right and one at the bottom left corner of the main body.  They're supposed to be in line and pointing the same direction.  They clearly aren't.  Ho hum.

Best for last.  I gave the bike a trial spin as I went out, and there was this weird noise. Got the mechanic back, he spun it around, tightened something up and said it would be good.  Weird noises even more continuous, but him out again, he rode around, mystified....got off, eyed the bike for a few moments, and saw the clip for my knapsack ticking against the wheel!  Cheap fix!!!!!

Went walking again!

We were supposed to have gone to Cap de Creus and the monastery there, which I would LOVE to go to, I adore Cap de Creus, but the weather forecast was absolute crap, so we went down to Tarragona, where it was somewhat better.

Still pretty darned foggy, and kinda chilly, but amazing.

It was a pretty steep climb up and out of the place where we started, working our way up through rock slides and underbrush, and was honestly pushing the limits of some of the people in the group.....kinda muddy too, which was slippery on the slopes.  (Honestly, I thought it was a ton of fun, but there were some folks in the group who were struggling)

In this picture, I've completed the climb, those folks are still working their way up.  It's a little steep!

Below, the view from the top in a clearer moment!

At the very highest point (about 10 feet higher, it was pretty flat up there, there was an old observation tower, which had this inside it!

                                            

There were goldfish in a water tank, really chilly and rather slow moving gold fish.....

And right at the end of the trip, these quite amazing drystone structures....

Lovely day.

Good news!

Scrolling through my ereader, I came across these two bits of good news (I'm not counting our wonderful Ontario Premier's snub of Ford)

1:  Female sea snails are no longer growing penises since a toxic chemical has been banned.

This is amazing news!  Lots more happy snails - who were suffering a wide range of other problems as well - and it is good to see that change is possible


then there was

2:  India has been officially declared POLIO FREE!  I think that is also amazingly good news!!!! Change, good change is also possible!

YEAH!

Perspective

Here's an article about Jane Urquhart's upcoming book in celebration of Canada's 150th anniversary.

Here's an article about the British Museum's anniversary of public opening.  The 255th.

Obviously, there were people living and loving and dying in Canada for 10s of thousands of years before this anniversary year, and that is not something to be forgotten for a moment.

Still.

Canada, 150

British Museum open to the public, 255.