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Saturday, November 11, 2006 It's been a strange stretch, these last nine days. The good part: being back here after nearly a year away. And those simple few words embrace a big bunch of positives, one big honking mound of positives. But I'm not sure I've ever experienced the number of things in my immediate existence gone out of commission or going out of commission that I have here this time around. And on top of things already enumerated in recent days' entries to this journal, the flat's refrigerator began giving up the ghost early this week. It's a basic, modest-sized refrigerator, nothing extravagant in any way, and has always done its job well. Tuesday morning, however, I noticed that the freezer didn't seem to be freezing things particularly well. By Wednesday it had become an unfreezer, a little cubicle that kept food disturbingly warm and moist, so that all edibles had to be moved down to the refrigerating part of the refrigerator. By day's end, the temperature in the rest of the refrigerator began rising, continued rising through Thursday. By yesterday morning, it had more or less reached room temperature and certain foods -- lovely, delicious foods, recently purchased -- began smelling gamey. The motor/compressor continued working away, but produced nothing useful. I let my landlords know what was up via email, they went out refrigerator hunting yesterday evening. A lot of food spent the night out on what remains of my windowsill -- not a proper windowsill anymore after the workers had spent the last few days hammering away on the outside of the building. More like random hillocks of crumbled concrete. But good enough for the night. The food's now come back into the piso where it's slowly going bad. And until I hear something about when a new refrigerator might materialize, I can do nothing but eat what's still edible, toss out vittles gone over to the dark side, and resign myself to frequenting local restaurants in the near future. I pause to remind myself that this is small potatoes. There's been no fire, no robbery, no loss of life. No medical emergencies, no earthquake, no flooding. I have a roof over my head, clothes to wear, a computer on which to do the high-tech equivalent of scribbling down thoughts. A beautiful Saturday is underway outside and this evening I'll be meeting friends for a meal. Lots of good things, so many that the difficulties don't add up to much when stacked up against the good. It's good to remember that now and then. And with that, on to the day. España, te quiero. rws 7:14 AM [+]
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