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Friday, May 30, 2003 Was out earlier doing errands, getting the paper and the morning hit of espresso. Another beautiful a.m., quieter than recent days due to the absence of the rear-end/front-end loader at the construction site across the street. Heading back to the flat I passed the plaza, where people sat on benches talking, others walked through in transit, folks went in and out of the Metro, dogs did their thing (smelling communal pee spots, hanging out contentedly by their owners, yelling comments at other canines or engaging in close encounters, some friendly, some cautious, others tense or openly hostile). I realized I didn’t have a notebook with me, something that’s been happening a lot lately. Somehow I’ve gotten out of the habit of carrying one, which has led to moments where I go to pull it out to begin scribbling stuff, then remember it’s back at home. D’OH! moments, the real item. I continued on, making my way through people walking along the sidewalk or out in the street, approaching a woman who appeared to be your standard issue 60ish alma de casa (housewife), dressed in standard semi-casual warm weather older folk garb. She’d stopped in front of a shop window to study something in concentrated fashion, then pulled back, making a loud critical comment about the prices. From her manner, I assumed she was with one of the people around her, but as she turned and headed up the block, it became clear she was solo, which didn’t stop further critical comments. She thought the prices were too damn high and she wasn’t keeping it to herself. I reached the door to my building and stopped, pulling out keys. She continued on, veering out into the street, moving toward the nearby cross-street to move off to the left. Still talking, still righteously displeased, passersby glancing at her then away, all of it just one more passing moment on a lovely Friday in a city of close to five million souls. She disappeared around the corner, the day moved on. ******** Following is a post from yesterday that never made it through to this page, in spite of many, many attempts. (It did, I'm glad to say, make it through on this journal's other webpage.) Thursday, May 29 -- When I stepped out my door earlier today, the air in the stairwell hung alluringly thick with the smell of cooking. The kind of aroma that immediately catches my attention, gets my head swivelling around, nostrils trying to track down the source (me being the kind of person who (a) loves a tasty meal, (b) especially if it’s been prepared by someone else). I am an extremely good audience for other people’s cooking, and the simple fact that someone else prepared it often makes it automatically that much more delicious. I’m happy to help out with the prep., I’m happy to help with clean-up afterwards and/or wash the dishes. Making me exactly the type of individual who should be sporting the classic WILL WORK FOR FOOD sign. I suspect the aroma came from the neighboring flat. My next-door neighbor is a late-40s single woman who hosts visiting students, I hear her preparing meals on a fairly regular basis. As I headed down the stairs, the smell gradually faded, the temperature of the air cooled, the illumination from the stairwell skylight slowly dimmed. Three days ago, the front-end/rear-end loader rematerialized at the construction site across the street, resulting in renewed digging, earth-moving, diesel fumes, and the occasional beep-beep-beep when the bugger backs up. All of which has meant my windows stay closed when big machinery’s in use to cut down on noise and airborne dust. So this morning I hadn’t checked out the air/temperature until I stepped outside and was bowled over once again by yet another day of spectacular early summer weather. Honest to god, it is just about beyond description, -- the sun intense enough that it’s genuinely warm/hot, depending on the time of day and your individual body’s reaction to its direct light. A stroll down one of the barrio’s streets -- moving in and out of shadow/light, the lightest breeze stroking one’s skin now and then -- feels unbelievably good. Sorry. I have a tendency to spew blissfully about stuff like this. I went around the block to the recycling bins on la Calle de Augusto Figueroa, then picked up a paper at the plaza and headed back in the direction of la Calle de Hortaleza in search of a hit of espresso. Construction work is happening all over the place here, mostly rehab, one of the more visible signs of the neighborhood’s upward trajectory. A dead young city-planted sidewalk tree stood next to a nearly-full streetside construction dumpster, branches starkly bare in the late morning light, all trimmed short, maybe in the hope of getting it to send out some green. Nearby, a rehab worker stood in dusty t-shirt/overalls and well-worn, paint-smeared work shoes, staring at the tree. Just standing, staring, as if pondering it. As I walked by, he came out of his reverie, looking around, shifting his weight a bit, one hand going into a pocket, the other rubbing at a cheek. There’s a taberna/café at the corner of Figueroa and Hortaleza, the kind of neighborhood joint that looks like an older folks’ watering hole. Small, a bit dark, not generally showing much in the way of energy or varied clientele. On impulse, I stopped in there today. Late morning, post-traditional 11-11:30 a.m. break, so the place was quiet. A radio played music softly (no TV going, unlike many establishments around here), two older males sat on stools at either end of the counter, both looking to be pushing 60, both dressed in neatly pressed pants and short-sleeved shirts (one white, the other light blue), quietly drinking café. While the place had little in the way of windows, it made up for that with two double-doored entrances, one facing each street, both propped wide open, light streaming in, providing good views of the busy world outside. I asked the counterman for a cortado, he got to work rounding it up. Two one-armed bandits leaned against each other in the corner between the two entranceways, a mid-30s male stood at one, his nearly-empty espresso cup, jacket and plastic bag containing what looked to be a couple of books grouped together on the counter to my right. They’re multimedia affairs, those slot machines, producing a stream of busy sounds, brightly-lit, constantly-changing number readouts, samples of songs, now and then a voice calling out something. The 30-something worked away at it for a couple of minutes, its lights blinking, its various noises nearly overwhelmed by the sounds of the day going on outside. Then he strode back to the counter, picked his stuff and took off, calling out, "¡Hasta luego!" My espresso arrived, I sipped at it, taking a quick look through a copy of El País. A 50-something male entered, the older guy sitting in the corner to my left waved. The new arrival put his stuff on the stool to my left, began talking to the older guy, who responded with a cascade of sounds produced from his mouth and throat -- clicks, lip-smackings, swishing sounds, guttural noises, all kinds of stuff -- his mouth forming soundless words amid all that, his arms and hands in constant movement, illustrating his communication. No longer quiet and contained -- expansive, sunny, happy to be in conversation. Just not able to actually talk. I didn’t want to stare at him, and without paying close attention to his face I couldn’t make out what he was going on about. I just listened to the amazing variety of noises that came forth, working my way through a decent cup of espresso, checking out what the paper decided to present as the news for today. When I finished, I paid up, thanked the counterman, stepped back out into the sunlight. A woman stands at that corner every weekday up until the two o’clock lunch break. The day’s lottery tickets hang from a cord strung around her neck and across her chest, she listens to a walkman, music or radio playing. She’s there every weekday, all year round. Slightly heavyset, maybe 26, 27 years of age, always in jeans and comfortable white reebok-style shoes. Always standing, leaning up against the wall, just a foot or so in from the corner of the building, always staring straight ahead at a point on the wall across the narrow street. Until this last week, when a folding chair appeared and for the first time ever I saw her sitting. She was there as usual when I emerged from the taberna today, standing up next to her new acquisition (maybe giving her hind-quarters a break), headset in place, listening to who knows what, traffic and people moving constantly by. The sun had drifted far enough up into the southern sky that she stood in shadow, wearing a light jacket. I glanced at her when I stepped out -- yep, still there -- then headed off down the street, past groups of two and three women moving in and out of the high-end clothing and shoe stores that pepper that part of Figueroa, others walking slowly along, gazing in at the window displays. Cars that had been lined up because of a red light moved hurriedly ahead, trying to make the intersection while the light remained green. I heard fast fragments of conversations in Spanish as people moved by me. Madrid, the last Thursday in May, the hours streaming steadily by, disappearing into the noise and movement of the city. rws 12:47 PM [+]
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