Even remotely delightful.

Oh tiny rainy California, thanks. Though two weeks of seeing people, no other plans, somehow never allows for as much time as one'd like with each-- still I got to see my family and some beloved friends, and phew thank goodness I did. The facts be that though I live in a sweet sitch in Madrid, home/reality/whatever is wherever my loved ones are. And a family is becoming, not just had. My family is becoming a family better at accepting itself. Thank you for all of you welcoming me.

Saturday and Sunday back in Madrid were pretty unreal feeling, really, but Monday I had three classes with sweethearts and felt much more present. Ivan made dinner and Ewan bought the bread and he and I cleaned up--charming, normal, sustainable.

All of a rush home: a hole in the clouds! I LOVE to fly cntnntl: they feed me meat and white bread and iceberg lettuce and something sweet, they give me a wee scratchy cushion an ugly blue blanket. Sometimes they pay me to bump myself from a flight! Cntnntl!




Sun flowers sun windows--but days and days of rain.




A behind the scenes shot of Posie's dance-date-distortion art project, which can be viewed on facebook.




Mama kept all her hair on for my arrival. It washed mostly off all of a sudden one evening. She put all the clumps on a paper towel and we all came and witnessed. I can't imagine not having been there. Hair loss should maybe be the least of cancer, under the pain and the exhaustion and the fear, but its visual impact is significant. The woman without hair is the image of cancer, and mama is not otherwise the image of cancer. She's tired, but she looks healthy, so I think the hair loss was something we all needed to see.

Here, with hair and flowers:



Hi, Beautiful.




Hey!



5 days went swimming by and I got no pictures of Monroe! Said Ma: "Oh, so it's like he was never here." Mmph.

Merry Christmas! Well. I finally picked up my Pitre-treats from the p-p-post office, and oh-my-gosh how delighted forever. Items: one gorgeously houndstoothed cap (pictured on head) which comes JUST in time, as my ears were cold; one gorrrgeous painting of my name (pictured on door) which triggered a massive synaesthetic episode (shh) and features a supine stick chick and golden dollar signs, which, now that I'm a big self-supporting teacher adult, are way appropriate. Thank you Henry! Lastly and way not leastly, yow, a mix[ed] cd (pictured in the air) from the apparently super hip Zach. Dang, Zack. "Like Humans Do" is one of my favorite songs, and you are right on about M.I.A, Gnarles Barkley, and oh man did I mention the White Stripes were like my first "real" concert experience (even though I was sober and my whole family was there). So--delicious.



Thank you! I think this is a photo of me trying to show off the hat and the hat brooch (pictured on sweater) and the sign and my great nose all at once.

Dearest beloveds,

Look what Ewan did:



That is allllll the cooking salt in the house, now with glass! Now we have only sea salt and salt of the earth.

Here is what else Ewan and Ivan did: lots of favors for me yesterday. Salt of the earth!

Dar-lings. It's been a nice weekend. I still fear deathly grippe, so I've been drinking tea. No table wine, no terrible beer. Folks and I stayed out until 5am or so dancing last night, I lightly caffeinated.

Trifles: The caffeine in tea is (colloquially) called teína. In Spanish thought coffee, café, has caféina, and tea, té, has teína. Makes sense!

Klarifikation Korner: Mama, the photos I put up here are either taken by others or taken by my computer itself. My camera, and therefore my [missing] camera-computer cord, play no part. Thus the abundance of pictures of my room and window.

Thank you. Please enjoy this memory of Ronda, which, remember, memory, Christmas.

I came here with a little rolling suitcase and a huge duffel bag Papa sweetly donated. Since arrival I've bought a current converter, a permanent shopping bag, a shirt and some socks. I got a coat and some sweaters free at a beautiful squat which is now being shut down, before I had the chance to give anything back. I have swapped books, in a casual take-these-I-will-take-this manner which may or may not have augmented my collection. Christmas brought me some curiosities, and I hear the mail is bringing me more. That said: I don't have a lot of stuff here.

But I realized--as I hung my sheets to dry everywhere in my room, the rain outside having mooted the laundry lines--if everything one owns is multicolored, one really only needs about half the stuff. Look how that space filled:

Congratulations go to Rosie for being accepted by her top choice: Eckerd College!



Waaw.

I'm glad I'm not the only one in our family whose top choice was a college nobody else had ever heard of. Big hugs to you darling: you've worked harder at more than most college students have.

Silent morning mishap.

Lightning! then the nightmare. and loosening!

I spent last night with some kids I am tentatively calling my new friends, all actually friends and classmates of my b'loved housemate Ivan. Ivan is great, awesome, we get along super. I'm always glad when he's home--which he rarely is, since he is a sort of architecture grad student and spends all his time studying in this studio he and his fellow future architects rent collectively as a study/party space. No classes: just working on some huge final project for a year. Hannah and I went to the New Years Eve party he and his archipals threw collectively in the studio, since which very enjoyable occasion I've felt welcomed by all. Ivan and I spent most of yesterday making pizza dough, and topping shopping (creme fraiche white sausage eggplant sweet baby tomatoes). About nine people altogether ate mmmm seven pizzas of varying circumference + fatness. Almost everyone collaborated on one or another pizza. Oh it was very nice, my and Ivan's first pizza making though his girlfriend is Italian and everything. Someday I'll picture put up.

Sometimes outside the living room is thus:



But this morning when I a-rose for work---thus:



And by this afternoon:




Yow!

Salamanca, Late December.



My house, Epiphany.

Ode to Hannah Sunshine



by Hannah Sunshine

Ronda! With Nick and the adorable Rhodescholars.






Dear Christmas punkins,

There will be more photos. Especially this one:

I love you, Mama!



I love you, Moominfamily!

Thanks Ma!

One sweet ego trip many second language teachers take is students picking up our little verbal anachronisms. And they do, somewhat--but much much quicker do we begin to speak like them. And TO them, unfortunately. Super clearly, enunciating, slowly. With a smile.

I've got a TOEFL class who are oh, delightful. They all contracted different amounts of hours, between 36 and 48, and they're all peeling off to take the test one by one. We've set a date for a "Fiesta de No More TOEFL" (Spanglish is funny in two languages).

This class--they blew my mind today. We spend the class speaking English, they're all people I know. Jaya who works with kids and wants to study abroad in the UK; hipster artist who wants to go to Berlin; extrovert in eyeliner who spends more on clubs than I earn; sugarface geek...and then today I mentioned how everyone here tries to teach me to clap Flamenco-style, and they all break out! And suddenly everyone's Spanish, olé, and where is the wine and when will the women stand up and dance? "It's in our blood," they laugh. And class ends and they just can't speak English anymore, even the eager ones who stay behind and practice on me. We'll dance flamenco at the Fiesta de No More TOEFL! We'll eat tortilla española! They say.

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That yellow building in the middle there is mine!

Note this, that this listed address is not mine. Don't send any peanut butter to 9 Lavapies etc.

Hullo honeys. Happy día de Acción de Gracias, which is what the Spanish call Turkey Day. I missed calling my family in Riverside, though I tried many times. I'm pretty sure the line was busy each time. Guys!

I did celebrate, though. Like most Americans here, I attended more than one Thanksgiving Dinner---one last week and one last night. The first was thrown by some sweet friends of Chase, a friend from work. They're nice hippies who do things like the Camino de Santiago and Couchsurfing. They invited 300 people from Couchsurfing to their leetle apartment, but luckily only about thirty people came. One of them was a friend of Brittany's, who I'd already met at the only other ex-pat event I'd attended. Ah eddies of slender currents of illegally expatriated college grads in full teacher makeover. I'm a teacher, who are you? Oh you're a teacher too! Then there's a pair of us--don't tell! They'll banish us, you know.

That dinner was delicious: applepie, cranberries, gravy, stuffing, and chicken.

An' last night another friend from work, another delicious dinner, this time with Turkey (baked in a toaster oven) (scrumptiously), garlic soup, corn, green beans, camembert on crackers and Lindt chocolate. Chase was also there, putting him in the three-card lineup of friends I've had two away-from-home thanksgivings with. Ariel, Christine, you're the others.

Double-Thanksgiving Friendship

In fact, yow, wow, now that I notice--two Thanksgivings ago, while I Studied Abroad, I also had one Turkey dinner and one Chicken dinner.

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