Spanish views from a small town

Spain's Attorney General died suddenly last week while visiting Argentina. He was not popular when picked for his job, because he was not as impartial as should be, rather he favored the conservative agenda of the PP political party. He was further criticized over the prosecutions of deposed members of the Catalan Govern .  So, his death was not going to elicit many tears in certain circles. However, publishing in social media one's joy over his death, and insulting his memory is not something that is considered polite or respectful. A young man in Barcelona did just that. But rather than be ostracized socially, he's been arrested on a charge of committing a hate crime.  The funny thing is that until this latest tweet, he had been opening false social media accounts, threatening Civil Guards, police, and judges, then closing them down immediately so as not to be caught. None of those tweets elicited alarm from others who saw them, just the one in which he forcefully men...

There are days one wishes to turn back the clock to the moment they woke up and start over again. There are days that make you want to howl. Tuesday was such a day.  I wanted to make a recipe for lunch of baked fish which required white wine and lemons. Since I had neither, around eleven in the morning I set out down the road to the small grocery store at the center of the parish. As I was approaching, the car started to make a strange sound and it listed to the left. Not again. I pulled over and parked. Last Saturday I had gotten a flat on the highway and the spare was still on the car since it was the same size as the other tires, and new tires had been ordered but were still destined to arrive on Tuesday afternoon. So now, I got out of the car and saw that the spare was flat as a pancake. First howl. To top it off, I had left my phone at home because there had been no need to bring it on such a short trip. Second howl. I closed the car and started walking back home. It was...

From here to Santiago, the fastest way to go is the tollway. Close to three euros will get you there in a little less than twenty minutes. It's supposed to be fast and safe. Being a private highway that charges for use and also gets some funding from the government, you would expect to see maintenance crews crawling all over the place, making sure everything is fine.  Not really. Only after the fires of 2006 practically shut it down in the area south of Pontevedra, did they start to cut small trees and brush from the embankments next to the highway. Even so, in August of last year, a fire just south of Santiago, in the area of Faramello, crossed the highway with a breath of roasting air and lung-wrenching smoke, yet traffic wasn't stopped and diverted, nor drivers warned of any danger until they ran through it. Money is practically never reimbursed, either, even when the high standards one expects from a tollway aren't met. I met with one of those drops in standards Sat...

A poetry recital. A philosophical poetry recital. When I saw the notice of the event on my daughter's Facebook page, for some reason, my eye was caught. It was further caught when I saw it was to begin at nine o'clock in the evening.  I have been completely content to remain at home in the evenings, especially in the cooler months of the year. While my father was alive in these last years, it was rare that my husband and I went abroad together in the evening for many hours, lest he become ill and call to us. It had become my habit to reject any outing at night, except some few nights of the year; sitting home at night by the fire with my own projects was nice enough. But when I saw that event, I realized I could attend. My classes end at eight. In a half hour (or less, with me at the helm) we can be parked in Santiago. I have never been to a recital, much less a philosophical poetry recital, and I like poetry. As for the philosophical angle, all poetry is philosophical. Co...

Man is inherently a political animal. In his interactions with others, politics, or the art of persuasion, always comes into play. Politics are as complex as man's thought. Each different person has their own political philosophy. Sometimes that philosophy corresponds with an established political thinking as set down in the constitution of a political party that seeks or has representation in the different forms of government. Sometimes that philosophy is similar, but not completely compatible with an established political party. Other times, it's a political party in itself with its only member the person who has thought and created that particular philosophy. I have had an established political philosophy since I was a child. I was always interested in the world around me, and I always noticed that life was unfair; some suffered for no reason while others lived a fairy tale life. When I was eleven, I decided I was more of a Democrat than a Republican, according to the prin...

Cats. Lovely, beautiful, glorious cats. I have been a cat fiend all my life, even when the downstairs neighbor's cat scratched me when I was a little girl. I think what first attracted me to them was their soft fur and their smallness. Their perfectly formed faces with little upside down triangular noses, bright eyes that see right through you, and whiskers that sweep majestically around their perfect little pink mouths with tiny sharp teeth, also ensnared me.  But I never really had cats until we moved here. There were several that visited us in our apartment in Boston, but they weren't ours. They just knew of a house where they could eat for free, and lie on beds all stretched out for their naps, so they came on over. Here, we have had various different cats, most of them descendants of a cat we found one night, when my then boyfriend and I were coming home from a date in Vilagarcía. On the road back, we found the scene of an accident. A car had gone out off the road, but i...

Spain is the country of fobbing off responsibilities. It's the country of venga Usted mañana . It doesn't matter if someone loses pay or ends up paying a penalty because papers are transferred around or the person in need of them is told to visit five different other offices that have nothing to do with them. As long as responsibility is passed off to someone else it's of no importance. And all the papers that must be collected are impressive. In many cases, the information can easily be gleaned from the company's, or the department's, or the government's databases. Yet the claimant must still collect and present the papers. I have been dealing with two headaches this week, my husband's knee, and the declaration of inheritance taxes owed from my father's death. In the second part, I know I owe no taxes because my inheritance is far from the lower limit of being eligible to pay taxes. In our region, most inheritances are free of taxes. Even so, there ...

Irony is rich. The U.S. State Department's website has a page with its different travel alerts and warnings for U.S. citizens to follow wherever in the world their travels may take them. There is a travel alert for Europe, advising U.S. citizens that there is a real danger that a terrorist attack may take place at any time anywhere in Europe, as has happened recently in various different European countries, including Spain. It's one of a loooong list of warnings and a couple of alerts (for typhoons, hurricanes and European terrorism) on the website. Travelers are warned to keep their eyes open in tourist areas, transportation hubs, markets, shopping centers, hotels, clubs, restaurants, high-profile events, parks, places of worship, educational institutions, and airports. In other words, every place that's worth visiting or seeing outside the hotel room.  Yet, the worst a tourist might encounter in Europe isn't a bearded terrorist with wild eyes, wielding a machine gun...

These past few years, there have been a number of investigations into illegal financing of the conservative Partido Popular (PP). Corruption has even reached into the royal house, with the sister and brother-in-law of the King charged with misappropriation of public funds. The Infanta was acquitted (of course) but her husband was found guilty. Neither of the two have faced a day of jail time, only fines.  A couple of weeks ago, during a trial regarding the illegal funding of the national PP, it was shown to be true that the party financed itself illegally, channeling funds through offshore accounts in Panama and traditional Switzerland. Even Mariano Rajoy, Prime Minister and Secretary General of the PP was called upon to testify. Of course, he didn't know anything, was not involved in the financial aspect at all, and was totally ignorant of what the treasurer, friend Luís Bárcenas, was up to. Those who will probably end up in prison will be the minions who actually moved the mon...

The month of November has always been blah to me. Even its name seems boring and dark. As a child, October was filled with falling leaves, orange, yellow and red flames in unsuspecting places on city streets, and sweater-worthy temperatures. If I was lucky, I would see the first snowflakes in October. December was a stellar month. It was the month of more likelihood of snow, of Christmas morning and Christmas vacation. December was like a crisp apple, sweet and challenging to the teeth. But all November had was Thanksgiving, a boring brown celebration filled only with food that would last for a week in the fridge. November had grey skies and cold rain. Temperatures would fall low enough for a hat, but there would be little chance of white fluffy streets. Yes, it might snow, but it wouldn't last long, and it would likely be washed away the next day by cold rain. My childhood November was an eternal wait between bright October and sparkling December. Of late, November has kept it...

Today is All Saints' Day, tomorrow All Souls' Day. It's the day of taking flowers to the cemetery, and visiting those who have gone. The week before is also the week of cleaning and scrubbing, getting ready for the visits. The day before is the day of rearranging schedules to be able to get everything done. Monday I bought some roses and white chrysanthemums to make a floral arrangement to put in the niche where my parents are. Cemeteries here are the opposite of how we live. In rural Spain most people live in individual houses. When they die, they move to apartment block cemeteries. Each apartment house, or panteón , has between three and five flats, or niches. Sometimes two people share an apartment, but mostly they are singly occupied. This is because there are no rolling fields or hills upon which to keep spreading a cemetery like in the U.S. I remember visiting Forest Hills Cemetery near our house in Boston, and that was full of winding avenues and trees, like a very...