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Wednesday, November 01, 2006 Up early, unable to sleep, my teeny brain going like a mixmaster about all the things that need to be done before I get out of here this afternoon. I'm pretty much packed. Maybe even overpacked. Could be I'll need to paw through the body bag at some point and remove a few items. I could use everything that's in there, god knows, but it's beginning to feel like a wheeled duffel filled with cast iron scraps. Spent part of yesterday evening in a café in Montpelier blathering in Spanish. It's a bi-weekly happening, the get-together-and-speak-spanish thing, usually small -- sometimes as small as two and every once in a while, when no one shows but me, as small as, er, one. Which gives me time to crank up the laptop and take advantage of a high-speed connection, something not available at home. (The cable line stops .2 of a mile down the hill from here, though the cable company would be happy to string an extension for $2,600 and a two-year commitment. HAR!) Yesterday evening a smart, articulate Cuban-American guy attended for the first time, talking a blue streak, as waves of children and parents in Halloween gear swept in and out of the place around us. Looked like every merchant along the street was participating in the trick-or-treat thing, and as early darkness fell, the sidewalks were thick with costumed folks, the town's little downtown unusually alive with energy, voices, groups of people. Fun. This morning found me on my feet far earlier than I would prefer, bleary but gamely trying to get things done. 'Things' included a transatlantic call to the Spanish phone company, Telefónica, trying to ascertain if the phone was operational in the flat I'll be stumbling into sometime tomorrow, post-overnight journey. (I'd thought it was, but the flat's owners sent an email saying they'd stopped in, tried using the line, had no success.) With the best of intentions, the madcap phone company drones gave me a kind of runaround, I finally gave up figuring I'll deal with whatever I find there when I'm actually there. The point: if the phone line's out of whack, there will be no online access en casa and I'll be forced to depend on, er, the kindness of strangers until service is up and running. Meaning things will be what they'll be, life will go on. But I blabber. Time to go. Be well. España, te echo de menos. rws 7:55 AM [+]
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