There's an old New England saying along the lines of, 'Don't like the weather? Wait ten minutes." An exaggeration, but only a slight one. The weather in this part of the world can be bizarrely changeable. Maybe not as goofily, unnervingly unstable as, say, the area around Tierra del Fuego, but it has its days. Or weeks.
Case in point: this month. Erratic to the point of being predictable. Rain. Clear skies. Gray. Rain. Clear skies. Gray. Rain. Clear skies. Gray. Over and over, generally cycling a few times within any given 24 hour span -- the rain, when it passes through, not kidding around. The kind that pounds away on the roof in the middle of the night, lightning often providing a flickering light show. The kind of weather that gets grass growing at supersonic speed. (*^#%@!!!!)
Meanwhile, between one thing and another (writing, taxes, visitor, taking care of house and acres of lawn growing at supersonic speed), I've found myself going non-stop. Not a state I'm fond of for more than a day or two. Felt kind of overwhelming for a while there, though I just got a couple of projects/tasks out of the way, leaving me with the brief, pleasant illusion of things easing up. The kind of thing that gets me wanting to find a comfy chair, settle into it with some reading. Good way to blow off a good chunk of the afternoon. Which might be a plan.
Last weekend: a fast visit from a Spanish friend, a great woman going for her masters at Stanford in California, currently doing the summer intern thing in Chicago (which puts her in weekend-visit distance). A person I got to know through an intercambio in Madrid (brief review: intercambio = two people getting together, one English-speaker and one Spanish-speaker, both studying the other language, to hang out and chat in both languages), which morphed into friendship over time. The first person from my life in Spain to come check out my life here.
For some reason, during the two weeks pre-visit, I found myself thinking in a more intense blend of English and Spanish than I had been since getting back. She arrived, conversation moved back and forth between the two languages, more or less 50/50. With time, it shifted more to her speaking English, me speaking Castellano, and that's how it mostly stayed. Strange. Almost, at times, like I didn't hear the language she was speaking, just what she was talking about. And yeah, I ran up against my limits, making loads of hilarious errors, though I covered some by posing what I was saying as a question, as in checking to see if the word or phrase was correct. Great ploy.
Vermont is a virtual unknown on the other side of the Atlantic, she had little idea what to expect apart from whatever bad impression my excessive use of the word 'paradise' had given her. Frankly, between June and October (July and October if one hates blackflies), Vermont is a version of paradise, so I'd prepped her well. And the reality had far more impact than me flogging the p-word. She was gratifyingly awed by spectacular views of pristine countryside, etc.
The weekend's coup: a field trip to The Bread & Puppet Theater on Sunday afternoon. They're a wacky bunch, the folks who stage the B&P spectaculars -- high-energy, with a wild, anarchic sense of humor, who throw together big, sprawling shows despite working on a paltry, almost nonexistent budget. Way off to the left side of the political spectrum, of course, so one has to be prepared for loads of lefty spewings done with imagination and goofball style (of the paltry-budget kind).
The program (getting with)The Sunday afternoon show: a tradition of many years, performed in a large field at the bottom of a natural amphitheater, an event that attracts weirdos from all over the place along with a surprising number of families out for wholesome, madcap fun.
Surreal pre-show entertainment: north country hip-hop
They're large-cast, rough-edged affairs, the Bread & Puppet 'do's, performed with more energy and enthusiasm than finesse, in keeping with their overall ethos. Circus-style fare, sans the glitter, featuring wave after wave of eye-catching scenes, most beating a political idea around the face and neck with cheerful elan, most employing a canny use of surreal visual metaphors.
Inexplicable events:
[continued in next entry]
Madrid, te echo de menos.
rws 2:13 PM [+]
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