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Monday, March 31, 2003 Daylight savings time arrived here two mornings ago, which meant the magical disappearance of an hour yesterday a.m. The day felt oddly shorter while at the same time feeling oddly longer as the evening sky remained light until sometime between 8:30 and 9. It turned out to be a work day for me so that the afternoon flashed by, exacerbating the confusing feeling of temporal goofiness. This morning, a different story. I'd resolved to get myself up and out to the gym early so that I could return home and get some work done before the pre-midday hours had galloped completely away. Going to the gym early here has a whole different meaning than it does in the States -- the Spaniards don't seem to hold with this rising-before-dawn-to-go-punish-one's-body thing. Meaning the health clubs here don't open their doors until 8 a.m. on weekday mornings (or I at least have yet to come across one that does). When I arrived around 9, there were few souls to be found doing the workout thing. And no wonder. Between the daylight savings time morning sky not getting light until somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 a.m. and early morning clouds/showers rendering the outside world even darker, pulling oneself out of bed was not a very good time. As I got myself ready, left the house, squeezed into a packed, silent Metro train, I found that I simply could not wake the hell up. My mind remained clouded, my eyes didn't want (and one still doesn't want) to focus. Got to the gym, stumbled down to the locker room, pulled street clothes off, dragged gym outfit on, stumbled upstairs, began subjecting myself to various exercise machines where this little body of mine did everything I asked of it, though me and it remained half-asleep. At one point, I'm standing at a chromium monstrosity doing a bunch of reps, a petite 30-something Spanish woman appears three or four feet to my right, at the next machine over. Very cute, done up in a skin-tight outfit, every hair in place, headphones plugged into ears w/ walkradio playing. Within a few seconds of showing up, she (it had to be her -- no other humans were nearby) let go with a ferocious, silent explosion of flatulence, her expression innocently impassive, betraying no involvement in the sudden murderous release of human mustard gas. Brutal. And even that didn't wake me up. The sun managed to work its way free of the clouds during my time indoors, so that when I stepped outside the atmosphere had changed quite a bit, blue sky showing, the temperature elevated to a jacket-opening point. That helped a little bit. I'm making my way down the street, a late-50s denizen of the barrio is out walking his dog. A pup -- a big pup, the size of many full-grown dogs. Appeared to be a mix of a golden and some other kind of retriever, so that it looked like a very sizeable golden with pale, almost white fur. And it's happy to be outside with its human, prancing along, tongue hanging joyfully out. They approach a bench, the pup decides it must get up on the seat, which it does, making the 50-something come to a stop. The pup gets up on the seat, puts its front paws up on the bench-back, bringing it just about up to face level with its human, where it starts nuzzling and wriggling about. I'm a sucker for that kind of display, it gets me smiling in a way that lasts for blocks and blocks. Still not yet what I would call truly awake, but a touch more comfortably here in the day. Recently, I've been seeing a lot more big dogs than I used to, and most of them have been odd mixes. I was sitting at la Plaza de España late this afternoon when a gent walked by with a dog that -- lessee, how can I describe this? At first glance, it looked like a German shepherd. On second glance, it still looked like a shepherd, only one that had gone through some strange changes. After a minute of study, I figured it out: same size as a shepherd, same color, exact same body, only with the head and tail of a collie. Strange. There is often a detail of two mounted police officers who hang around la Plaza de España. Today, for the first time, they'd parked their horse-trailer-style truck in the plaza, just off the main promenade. When I arrived it was just sitting there, no sign of life or activity in its vicinity. Turns out the officers had been around back getting the horses ready -- all of a sudden a ramp goes down, next thing I know the two Madrid municipal cops appear out of the back of the vehicle on a pair of the biggest, most beautiful horses I've ever seen. Pure white, all sinew, moving like each bulging muscle contained a coiled spring. One officer gets his horse out of the truck, they move around to the side and come to a stop, the officer stroking the neck of his mount, getting it settled. The other horse was either spooked or feeling its oats, ‘cause it came out of that truck like it was ready to toss its rider. Jerking around in an unpredictable manner, bouncing sharply here and there, going around in circles, doing everything but full-out bucking. Its rider managed to guide it away from the truck to an expanse of dirt/sand where the two of them slowly got things sorted out. Man, it was a glorious day -- mild temperatures, with an indescribable sense of constant glowing light, despite the sky being about 75% filled with huge white clouds. Birds flying everywhere, feeling springtime in their bones and expressing it with flight and song. A dramatic kind of day, exactly like the last full day I spent with my mother, even down to the detail of the two horses. With all that distinctive sensory detail unreeling around me, I suddenly found myself transported me back to that some moments of that last day in my mother's company in sudden, intense, vivid detail. But that's another story. Maybe I'll dig into that tom'w. *********** Seen in the credits to Soldados de Salamina, an excellent Spanish film in first release here in Madrid: On Set Meals Provided By: Catering Hepburn rws 3:24 PM [+]
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