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Wednesday, February 06, 2002 Update, post-hair-frenzy: No screaming. Most of today's moment-to-moment responses have wavered between a reassuring, half-pleased, "Oh, that's not so bad," and a heartfelt, "Oh, bugger!" Depends on the moment, on the light, on the angle, on whether I catch my hair behaving in ways it really shouldn't. For instance: dragged my sorry ass to the gym this morning like the good boy I am. Afterward, I'm stretching, etc. in a big studio whose walls are entirely floor-to-ceiling windows (the Narcissus room), and I'm thinking Hey, fella, all things considered, you're doing all right. Really, no kidding, considering the accumulated mileage, you're looking pretty buf– DOH!!!. The D'OH moment: me noticing the hair over on the right side of my head, which seemed to be waving excitedly to someone I couldn't see. "If you don't settle down," I warned it, "when we get home I'm getting out the shears." No effect. I think my hair is laying odds that I may have shot my wad yesterday, and it's walking a dangerous line -- I can only be pushed so far. On the way home: made a trip to El Corte Inglés -- the monstrous local department store chain that sells everything but nuclear weapons -- for groceries. After loading up with goods (discovering my inner pack animal in the process), I trudged a long several blocks to the Metro line that would spit me out down the street in la Plaza de Chueca so that at least the trudge on this end would be mercifully brief. The local weather people and news programs had been issuing strident warnings about cold weather moving back in last night, which turned out to mean 48°F instead of 54°F today, so by the time I make the Metro station the extra layer of clothing I'd put on for winter's return had sponged up my rivers of perspiration very efficiently. I get in the train. Three stops later I get off the train. I climb the two flights of stairs and one escalator that bring me up into the plaza. I make the 60-second walk home. As I near my building I see a guy standing at the front door, with a large toolcase, all bundled up, holding a motorcycle helmet, intently dialing a number on a mobile phone. "Perdón," I say, he shuffles aside. Then he pauses mid-dial and says my piso number, question-like, asking me if I live there. "Sí," I respond. "Estoy aquí para su caldera," he says. ("I'm here for your water heater.") A blank half-second on my part, followed by another major D'OH! moment. The water heater [see journal entry for Nov. 1, 2001]: a unit maybe 3' high by 1-1/2' wide by 1' deep that hangs on the far wall of the kitchen, near the sink. It's dripped since I moved in, a problem that's worsened with time, reaching a point during the last few weeks of leaking with joyous, effusive abandon. Two days ago my landlords gave me the okay to get it fixed, yesterday I called the repair dudes and made an appointment. "A partir de dose," they told me –- "After twelve." Meaning sometime between 12 o'clock and the end of the year someone would show up to take a look at the unit. What I did with that information in my little teeny tired brain, though, was to hear 'dose' as 'dos,' me thinking they'd told me to be home from 2 o'clock on. It was pure luck (or not, depending on your belief system) that I got home before the guy had successfully called in to his office and gone off to another job. After ten or fifteen seconds of groveling apologies on my part for making the guy wait, we climbed the five flights of stairs to my flat (this is an old building, there is NO ELEVATOR), he got to work. An hour later, he'd finished up and disappeared, leaving the kitchen strewn with debris but with a working, more or less watertight caldera. It's beyond me how the Spaniards have garnered a reputation for laziness. They are industrious, intelligent, hardworking, efficient folks who have transformed their country in the twenty-five or so years since the death of Franco from a backwater into a modern, technologically-advanced state that now holds the European presidency for the next two years and is making the most of it. It may be that Americans interpret the daily work schedule -– 9 or 10 to 2, long lunch, 4 or 5 to 8 -– as a sign of a slack, indolent lifestyle. The fact is that they work long days, many starting early and working late. From what I can see, they easily work as many hours a week as Americans. I've heard some Spaniards claim they work more hours than the English and the Germans, but who knows? What I can say is that the stereotype of the lazy Spaniard has nothing to do with the reality I've encountered. Ah, the whole cultural stereotype thing. But that's a can of worms for another entry. Later. rws 2:50 PM [+] |