Then there was one???

Sometimes a little bit of just plain old straight-forward talk would clear things up a whole lot.

Sometimes it just feels that everyone is being toooooo polite.

I'm kind of cut this way, but sometimes I'd rather just call a spade a spade.  

Or a rose a rose, or a jack*ss a jack*ss.

This brings us to today's tale.

We started out with three contractors giving bids.  

#1.  Initially recommended by the architect, did a lot of work for the bid and sent in a good number.  Never heard from him since.  Left on the sidelines.  Not sure why.

#2. Second recommended by the architect, older, more experienced, seems to be the architect's preferred choice now.  Starting to show up at meetings, though I am not sure why.  Bid came in 4,000 lower than #1.  Cynicism radar is squawking right about now.  Cannot start until May (crap) and wants to work into Aug when we aren't here (crap).  Feeling like a choice has been made to use him, but I don't remember making it.  Talked to me like I'm stupid the first time, not this one though.  Has copies of revised plans.

#3.  Too young and too stupid to keep his mouth shut when it should be plus I know what he was like in high school, which was none too long ago, and I wouldn't have been happy if my daughter had brought him home.  Never sent in the bid.  Gone.

Architect studied English ages ago and I have to bear in mind that his understanding isn't all that bad, when I commented if fast colloquial English that I didn't want, "a bloody great concrete causeway running across the living-room" he laughed.  Bears remembering.

Phone calls going to be made tomorrow.  Architect and builder(s).

Straight talk.  

Oh, and Barça?  Played like absolute crap tonight.  Crap.


If straight talk fails....

Eenie, meenie, meinie, moe

Catch a tiger by the toe

If he hollers 

let him go

Eenie, meenie, meinie, moe

or

One potato, two potato, three potato, four.
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more. 

or a big game of rock, paper, scissors!!!!

Here's where you come in, what picking games did you use as a kid?  Should we get there I may need to know!

zzzzzzzzz

I'd get more reading done if I would just stop falling asleeeeeepppppppp.

Anthems

We were sitting around the table tonight, the last night with our guests, and got chatting about national anthems.  This was the moment when I pointed out that the Catalans have what may indeed be, the most warlike national anthem of them all.  Based on a historical event when the Catalans picked up their scythes and mowed down the enemy of the day.  Certainly by far the most violent that I know of, here it is:

Catalunya triomfant,      Triumphant Catalonia
tornarà a ser rica i plena.   Will become, once again rich and full.

Endarrera aquesta gent   Behind these people
tan ufana i tan superba.    so proud and so superb

Bon colp de falç,    A good blow with the scythe
Bon colp de falç,    A good blow with the scythe
Defensors de la terra!      Defend our land
Bon colp de falç!    A good blow with the scythe.

Ara és hora, segadors.   Now is the time, reapers
Ara és hora d'estar alerta.   Now is the time to be alert
Per quan vingui un altre juny   Because when the next June comes
esmolem ben bé les eines.     we will sharpen our tools well.

Bon colp de falç,   A good blow with the scythe
Bon colp de falç,   A good blow with the scythe
Defensors de la terra!  Defend out land!
Bon colp de falç!   A good blow with the scythe

Que tremoli l'enemic   How the enemy will tremble
en veient la nostra ensenya.    when they see what we can do.
Com fem caure espigues d'or,     Like we fell the golden wheat
quan convé seguem cadenes.   when the time is right, we shall reap chains

Bon colp de falç,     A good blow with the scythe
Bon colp de falç,    A good blow with the scythe
Defensors de la terra!   Defend out land
Bon colp de falç!     A good blow with the scythe

Here you can here it,   Catalunya triomfant,      Triumphant Catalonia

tornarà a ser rica i plena.   Will become, once again rich and full.

Endarrera aquesta gent   Behind these people
tan ufana i tan superba.    so proud and so superb

Bon colp de falç,    A good blow with the scythe
Bon colp de falç,    A good blow with the scythe
Defensors de la terra!      Defend our land
Bon colp de falç!    A good blow with the scythe.

Ara és hora, segadors.   Now is the time, reapers
Ara és hora d'estar alerta.   Now is the time to be alert
Per quan vingui un altre juny   Because when the next June comes
esmolem ben bé les eines.     we will sharpen our tools well.

Bon colp de falç,   A good blow with the scythe
Bon colp de falç,   A good blow with the scythe
Defensors de la terra!  Defend out land!
Bon colp de falç!   A good blow with the scythe

Que tremoli l'enemic   How the enemy will tremble
en veient la nostra ensenya.    when they see what we can do.
Com fem caure espigues d'or,     Like we fell the golden wheat
quan convé seguem cadenes.   when the time is right, we shall reap chains

Bon colp de falç,     A good blow with the scythe
Bon colp de falç,    A good blow with the scythe
Defensors de la terra!   Defend out land
Bon colp de falç!     A good blow with the scythe

You can hear it here. 

A little different than the Canadian anthem,

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Though that is still a little militaristic.  

The Spanish don't have any words, though there is music.  They couldn't agree on words after the fall of Franco, and still have none.

Our friends sang the Welsh one for us, which is all about pride and love in the home land.

You can certainly see why anarchism could get such a strong hold in the 30s.

BCN the Beautiful.

Lovely having people over, you do things you wouldn't otherwise do...went to park Güell and then to the Hard Rock Cafe which I had never visited before.  A slice and a half of N American culture...the food was straight out of what I was used to, on the whole.

Then we lucked out.  We had a bit of extra time so we went for a wander and came across the Cathedral, open, for free!!!!  Nothing like visiting on Palm Sunday for finding the church open.  It is lovely and grand inside.  Sadly I didn't bring my camera. (once again smacking myself on the head).  I thought we would be doing things I had done before and it wouldn't be worth the hassle.  NOT!

We walked down through BCN from the park, a million beautiful architectural details.  Honestly, I have to go and do that again and just take photos.   We came to a plaça where there was music and a big group of people dancing, all doing jive!  It was wonderful.  We were pretty sure that they were a club as they were all much the same age and they were all pretty good.  Also no purses in evidence so there was some kind of a system.

Lovely lovely day...I even got in a longish nap!

Reality asserts itself when one has to unplug the bathroom drain and all, but still.  Lovely overall.

A good reason to sing.

We went to the Palau de Musica Catalana this evening.  Home of one of our greater economic scandals.  The director seems to have made off with something between 20 and 30 million Euros, and even had the *ahem* cojones to bill for his daughter's 100,000 Euro wedding, AND had the grooms family pay for half of that as well, leaving him with a tidy 50,000 Euro profit!

Scuzz aside, the building is amazing, and the music was wide ranging this evening.  You have to understand how very nationalist the place is to start with.  The programs are printed in Catalan.  Period.  No Spanish, no English for the tourists.  Catalan.

We went to a very very Catalan performance as well, we had a piece that had only been performed once before and that was in 1956, by a Catalan conductor.  That one sounded like it should have been the - very competent - sound track to an animated film, and the second was sublime.  Greig, with a Latvian pianist who was simply astonishingly good.  Vestard Shimkus.  Very very involved young pianist, with every twitching fibre of his being.  He did an improvised variations on Beetoven's ninth which was very witty and very funny.....Youngest would have aDOREd it.

Then another Catalan piece by a watchmaker who had never studied, which was fine.  Brilliant, no. Fine, especially for a complete amateur.  The final one, well they didn't hold ANYTHING back. They had, for instance, five percussionists, all of them working away fairly steadily.  At the end of the piece, when EVERYONE was giving it all they'd got, down to the kettle drums and a gong, I noticed that the harpist was still playing as well.  Maybe that wasn't strictly necessary, we probably really couldn't hear her contribution.  Good intentions and all, but really not very audible.

That was long and probably not that interesting, but the story the old lady in front of me told me was delightful.  Asked where we were all from, blah blah blah, told me she'd visited Toronto, she'd seen a humming bird and it was lovely. Then she told me the story of the Palau!

I loved her version.  They don't tell it this way on the tour or in the books.

Seems the good old boys were all going to the bars in the evenings and drinking up all the money.  So a group of people, including painters and other intellectuals got together, headed down to the bars and told the boys that if they came along with them to learn to sing a few songs, they could make some money at it.  Seems this was well received, so off they went.  There was some success, so they grew.  Travelled, sang, made more money, but were still rehearsing in the bars so a fair amount of the grocery money was still going down their throats.  The Palau was born.

Hehehehe

What did you say???

I am not sure how many of you were reading this years ago when, three days before my Catalan oral and listening exam my ear seized up and I could hear n.o.t.h.i.n.g.

This seems to be becoming a regular feature of my life now.  The joy.


My left ear has been bugging me for some time, feeling like I have been flying.  I have now gotten to the point where I can hear a difference between the two ears.  It is, shall we say, somewhat annoying.


Probable more so for the folks around me who I keep shouting, "eh! WHAT???" at like a modern day granny with an ear trumpet.


That and shushing anyone within about a hundred yard radius who has the temerity to speak above a whisper when I am trying to listen to something.


I was going to get the man to pour some olive oil in there because, as has already been established both on this site and in the "Catalan Institute for Curing Everything", there is nothing that cannot be bettered with the judicious application of olive oil.


The only problem is that the man has gone to sleep.  I imagine he is going to reappear as he is lying dressed, including a belt - though with only a t-shirt on - on top of the covers.  He is sure to shiver himself awake at some point.  My issue is, however, that my olive oil pourer has abandoned me.  


I can assure you that it is none too easy to pour olive oil into your own ear.  


A mite messy too.


Off to give it a run though.  Maybe I should tie the hair back well out of the way though first, no?


I would like to add that the first fly of the year has appeared in our apartment and Chuck is an amusing combination of frightened, excited and diligent.  Hope it goes to sleep when the lights go out.

Chunky

What a wild and hairy day!  Guests arrived which is a DElight, into BCN and out, work in the AM, run run run, then the architect's again.....decisions decisions decisions.....

Home.

Chunky.  A work I had to define twice in the last two days.  I quite like it.  As the crowning touch of clarity I mention how pills we take are smooth, but that if they were chunky, they would quite stick in our throats.  Uncomfortably.

Then I got thinking about pills.  When young and pure I used to try not to take headache pills and the like, I have trouble even remembering why.  They somehow had the waft of establishment or something.  Still kind of baffles me.  Now?!?  Bring on the meds.  Goodness.

That said, I don't go overboard wildly, I probably take a headache pill once every two months, and cold meds twice a year, but if I want it and I'm miserable, bring it ON boys and girls.

Curious that I cannot remember why I objected.  Maybe it was that amorphous at the time too.

Hard to say.

I don't take chunky pills though, only the nice smooth ones.

Gulp.

Today's a good day for a joke, I think.

1) Good:  

A Caledon OPP policeman had a perfect spot to watch for speeders, but wasn't getting many. Then he discovered the problem. A twelve year old boy was standing up the road with a hand-painted sign, which read 'RADAR TRAP AHEAD'.

The officer then found a young accomplice down the road with a sign reading 'TIPS'  and a bucket full of money. (And we kids used to just sell lemonade!)

2) Better:  

A motorist was mailed a picture of his car speeding through an automated radar post in Kingston , ON . An $80 speeding ticket was included.  Being cute, he sent the police department a picture of $80. The police responded with another mailed photo of handcuffs.

3) Absolute Best: 

A young woman was pulled over for speeding. As the Ontario Provincial Policeman walked to her car window, flipping open his ticket book, she said, 'I bet you're going to sell me a ticket to the OPP Ball.'    

He replied 'OPP don't have balls.' 

There was a moment of silence while she smiled, and he realized what he'd just said.  He then closed his book, got back in his patrol car and left. She was laughing too hard to start her car. 

Good news, bad news!

OK, Good news should always come first, I think.  Back when I was in some coaching seminar they taught us a great trick.  They called it the sh*t sandwich. First the bread (that would be the good news) then the sh*t - I imagine you're following me here - then the other piece of bread.  Seems a pretty bland sandwich, I mean really, where's the tomatoes and cheese and lettuce and all that good stuff????

Well, GOOD NEWS!  We have visitors coming on Thursday and it should be a WHOLE lot of fun.

Bad news, the man got laid off today.  One of fourteen all at the same time.  More than half the workforce.  Not unexpected, but still fairly unpleasant all around.

GOOD NEWS!  Three more days till the holidays and I have a week off!  With family here!!! TRIPLE SWEET!!!!

Um, OK, I'll lay the lettuce and cheese and mustard and all that over here.....

I got interviewed by the grade 5 and 6s about my life as an immigrant here.  It was fairly amusing overall, and they asked some great questions.  Why did we come (opportunity, adventure and heritage), what do I miss (one word answer this, friends), what is difficult (language and isolation - I did no begin a rant about bureaucracy), what was great (way of life) blah blah blah.....nice group of kids.  I commented several times that our experience as immigrants is not typical of immigrants who might be political or economic refugees, but it seems the teachers had already covered a fair amount of that.

They commented on how bad my Catalan is. (not to my face) *ho hum*  Mouths of babes and all that.

Walked in the hills and felt utterly happy.  Good-ness.  

I have been under the weather since Friday and the anti-biotics have FINALLY kicked in, well, they changed them on Sunday and I feel GOOD.  Indeed I felt like walking which was wonderful too.  On Saturday all I could do was stagger to the beginnings of the hill and sit on a rock while the dog romped and Eldest nagged.  Napped long and hard both days so feeling good today is more than good.  So I guess that would be a good news (feeling good, meds working)/bad news (getting ill) thing combined.

The man and I had Catalan class and he sucked was challenged by the rules for accents.  I was challenged by sucked at recognising and pronouncing vowel sounds in Catalan.   

Guess most things are good and bad, no?

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off for papers I go.....and a cup of tea. Ahhhhh.

This morning we all took off from work and school to go and stand in line at a government office.  We are going through the -apparently interminable- process of trying to get the girl's Spanish citizenship.

Today we went to get a piece of paper that will entitle us to a different piece of paper that we have to bring to a meeting in April, which may entitle Eldest to a piece of paper which she (we) can then take to go and get a formal document saying that she is Spanish, and a Passport.  *whew*  in April however youngest's piece of paper (assuming she gets it) will have to be sent off to another office who will then decide if she can have the piece of paper that entitles her to official documents which we will then have to go and apply for.

Confused?

Me to.

You would think it would be easier than this for a Spanish man to get papers for his kid, no?

You should have seen all the papers we brought in.  Everything, and I mean E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.  With triple photocopies.  We were, of course, missing one piece of paper.  I think they run through a mental list of possible documents until the find one you don't have with you. Relevancy to the process is irrelevant.  We stumped them on a few: my presence as a non-Spanish mother, my passport, photocopies of my passport, my ID number as a non-Spanish person, and photocopies of that.  We didn't have it all though.  That would have spoiled the fun.

This gets more fun as two of us have new passports and new passport numbers which don't coincide with the now fairly ancient paperwork we submitted I know not how long ago.  Plus we will all be moving officially this summer, so whatever isn't finished by then, will have to be altered.  Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to bureaucracy we go.....

AEvery time you move here you must go and get new official documents issued as they contain your address.  Why, you may ask, would they want to go to all that hassle?  Do Canadian Social Insurance numbers have your address on them?  NO!!!!! I think it is just because they can.  Just to make everyone's  life a little more complicated.

I think this is why my shoulder is hurting, hauling all this paper around.

There was other excitement too, they have something here called empadronament.  This is a registry of where you live and you have to provide this piece of paper everywhere you go, and it is only valid for three months before you get another.  Turns out that Eldest is registered as living in two places!  Here and in BCN, someone there has her pport number and exact name!

The guy in the office did not seem unduly disturbed, but we dropped in on the Canadian Consulate just to let 'em know.  Since we hadn't lost the passport, as far as they were concerned, no problemo.  They figure it is an error in the Spanish system.  No guff, huh?

We adjourned for a much needed snack and a drink.

Then I went off to buy tea and watercolour paper.  Have to keep the important things in mind.

That and a lovely walk around BCN.

Nice.

We've decided to wait till next year to get driver's licenses. Our constitutions could not stand more paperwork than we are already doing between the house and the citizenship.  Goodenss no.