Spanish views from a small town

Today was a strange Saturday. This morning, I made the last bouquest for the cemetery, and then distributed everything. The rain and fog made the day feel closed in. There were some people, though not as many as other years. This year, it seems many have staggered cleaning, and taking flowers to the cemeteries, over various days, rather than wait for the last two to crowd the place.  While there are beautiful bouquets that are worthy of prizes, and whose creators can be considered artists, there are also a greater number of made-at-home arrangements. The day before, when I went to buy some, there were many fewer flowers to choose from than other years. Many florists stopped taking orders at the beginning of the month. Others aren't hiring as many people as other years, and are doing fewer orders. It seems the virus has also hit the flower production, since there are fewer flowers. But prices don't seem to have risen, either, which means there isn't as much demand as other y...

Hearing yesterday that Santiago might be closed because of the rise of contagion there, I decided to go to a pet store to buy the kitty litter I use (a very large bag that has a very good quality-price ratio), and in the meantime, buy some flowers to arrange bouquets for the cemeteries. Despite the high infection rate, the Praza de Abastos, the marketplace, was not empty. There were plenty of people shopping for their meat, fish, and green groceries. There were also lines at one of the florists there. But she was charging three euros for each rose, so I left and went in search of a couple of other florists I remembered.  It turned out that one had closed and the stall had been converted into something touristy and closed at the moment, and the other had retired. That left a green grocer selling chrysanthemum plants, and another florist that had recently opened. Roses there were at a decent (!) two euros each, and the plant was cheaper than cut mums. However, today I still returned ...

Thoughts and observations on life during the pandemic.  After midnight last night, I turned off the television. I was the only one up in the house, aside from the cats, but the silence was eery. I slowly realized there were no cars going by, at all, due to the curfew. It was quieter even than during the worst days of lockdown in April.  This morning, while driving, everything seemed normal until I saw the first person walking by on the sidewalk. Mask. Masks everywhere. Some were patterned cloth. Many were surgical, as if the owner wanted to be able to throw it away as soon as the obligation to wear it was lifted, and keep no souvenir in the house of these troubled times.  After passing my car's inspection (finally!), I went into town to look for something. Every store I went into, I was reminded to use alcoholic gel on my hands. It didn't matter that I had already done it two minutes earlier, in another establishment, and hadn't touched anything. My hands were cleaner tha...

Yesterday afternoon I had an appointment at the local hospital for a mammogram.  There really is nothing special in that, except for the fact that I was scheduled for one automatically, upon having passed my fiftieth year. For several years, our regional health service programs mammograms for all women fifty years old and over, as an attempt to cut down on the death rates for breast cancer, by catching it early. A few years ago, they began on another project to prevent colon cancer, as well, in both men and women. It was simple. I received a letter telling me of the appointment. I showed up, followed the line to Radiology, and waited. It turned out that the waiting room for mammograms was in a different spot, as a nurse cleared up after a few minutes, by coming out and calling anyone who was scheduled for one to follow her. After a few minutes, I was called in, and answered a questionnaire. I was also told I would receive the results at home within a month or less. If the radiologi...

I am sick and tired of the cars, of appointments, and of just having to deal with people. Since the end of last year, when my car went into the shop, it seems we haven't stopped having one problem or other. All this summer, we've been with one or the other, fiddling with problems they have, and getting them ready for their yearly inspections. Mine had to have gone in June, but because of the lockdown, I had until September. My husband's had to go last month, too. Today, I had an appointment for my car's inspection. I had recently changed a light bulb that was burnt out, as well as the oil and some filters. Levels were fine. I went this morning, hoping to get that little sticker on the windshield.  When the first guy started hitting the headlight, I got suspicious. Perhaps they were fogged up from staying out all night in the rain. I went through the line, and the last inspector was supposed to hand me all the paperwork. When I didn't see him reach for the sticker at...

Here we go, again. This midday, the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, declared a state of alarm. The constitution only allows one to last two weeks, but he is going to ask the Congreso to prolong it until the beginning of May. However, this doesn't mean we have to stay home completely upon pain of fine. It means that the regional governments have to power to restrict our individual freedoms in the name of public health. What is extendable to every region, however, is a curfew, nominally from midnight to six in the morning, but each region can modify the beginning and ending hour as it sees fit. Also, reunions can't exceed six people, though each region can restrict that further. Here, in Galicia, they're restricted to five except in Santiago and a few other places, that don't allow anyone to meet anyone else. Each region can also decide if its residents can travel within it, or if it closes the regional borders, and any local lockdown, if necessary. What this state of alar...

About a week ago, a teenager was sitting on a bench in Santiago eating a handful of pistachios, pulling down his mask to put the morsels in his mouth. A policeman in the area, saw him, and fined him a hundred euros for not having his mask properly adjusted, and for not maintaining a social distance. For some reason, the kid was interviewed for the national news by a television station. His story was then carried wide and far. A group of friends decided to crowd fund to pay his fine. They easily raised the hundred euros. And today, a company that imports pistachios announced that they were supplying him with a pack of pistachios every month for a year, to make him feel better. The truth is that there are some policemen that are sticklers for the law in excess. A couple of years ago, a policeman in Poio fined a driver for turning his head to the side. The argument was that the driver had his attention diverted from the traffic in front of him, and could have caused an accident. I thi...

As of today, only a maximum of five people can get together in Galicia, except certain cities and towns, like Santiago, where you are not allowed to get together with anyone outside your home circle. And the pandemic continues skewing our lives. As of yesterday, over a million Spaniards have been infected, and over 35,000 have died. But those numbers are only the official numbers. Many say the real numbers are much higher; over two million infected, and an unknown number of people who have died, but were not counted as having died from the virus.  An article in a German newspaper explains that the likely reasons for the explosion of Covid in Spain lies in our precarious job situation, and inattention to the well-being of the poor. Too many people are employed in temporary jobs, some of them black market jobs that don't pay into Social Security, so if the employee is sick or doesn't go to work, the employee isn't paid. But rent comes due, and one must eat, so the employee go...

Last night I was absolutely knackered, and had no will to write or think. This morning my thought process seemed to have recovered. Enough, at least, to realize I am using a hybrid of American and British English; that to say "very tired," I resort to the British word "knackered," and don't even remember what I would have said back in Boston. I suppose it's a result of teaching British English. Things are getting darker as we head into the shadows of fall and winter. The minister of health won't rule out a curfew, such as France, Belgium, and Italy are implementing. Our region of Galicia, with less contagion than others, has been declared in Phase Two, which means limiting gatherings to five people, less capacity in public places, such as stores, restaurants, and cafés, and a maximum of ten mourners inside a funeral home or church, with a maximum of fifteen others waiting outside. Weddings are also cut to the bone, though I assume most of them have been ...

Once upon a time, there was a nation that boasted of its open and democratic process. It would go so far as to sometimes send envoys to observe elections in other countries, to make sure they were as open and free as those countries claimed. Not that that country was always justified in doing so, because part of that observance was also to make sure that things in those countries went in favor of its own interests in the region. Yet, its claim of fair elections at home was mostly true. That country is now facing an election process steeped in confusion and denial. Voters are being denied a fair election by having polling places disappear, their mail-in ballots questioned, and fake ballot collection boxes set up to confuse them (and in the process, possibly have their ballots disappear). This is the United States, the country that once boasted of being the first country with a true representative government. Not that that was always the case. Women were not represented until a hundred y...

Heavy rain and high winds are forecast for tomorrow. And an orange alert for conditions along the coast. One of the first fall storms is about to arrive, bringing a cold front with it, and much colder air behind, with highs next week barely reaching 16ºC/60ºF. But this storm system is just the prelude to a week with low pressure areas forming just next to us, one after the other. As long as it's followed by some sun at some point, I'll have to take it. There was a winter at the beginning of this century when it was storm after storm. We would celebrate a day in which we could see blue sky and remember what the sun's warmth was like. Wind and rain was our lot during the worst of the winter months. Yes, things are changing. My apple trees tend to blossom twice a year, now, though they only give fruit after the spring blossoming. Gorse blooms in March, but this year it also blooms in October. Some years, we've gone to the beach in October, though this year it doesn't l...

The probability of each family celebrating Christmas in their own home, without being able to make family reunions, is growing. The probability of no one going out to New Year's Eve parties is practically writ in stone. The probability of there being lots of people angry with the government is a certainty. No way are we, in two and a half months, going to get this so under control as to allow multitudinous celebrations of any kind. Some of the origins of this latest wave are outbreaks that began when an infected family member attended a celebration of some kind, and spread the virus around. Personally, I won't mind eating alone at home with my husband and daughter. My daughter might mind that she won't be going out on New Year's Eve, though.  Time stretches and contracts at will, it seems. This morning I read an article that the star Betelgeuse is approaching its end soon; within about a hundred thousand years. That is soon in cosmic time, yet infinity in human time. It...

This morning was cold as I went in to town to the local clinic to take my mother-in-law for blood work. The hour hasn't yet changed back to standard time; it will change by next week or the week after, probably. So, the morning was dark and cold when we set out. But when we left the clinic, though it didn't take very long, the sun had just risen, and I didn't bother to put on my denim jacket, though the temperature was hovering around 46ºF/6ºC. Later in the morning, I went to Santiago to look for our daughter's birthday present. It is difficult to buy presents now. Once, any bauble I thought the recipient would like was fine. Now, I want to buy something the person needs or adores. It's difficult because, generally, needs are always met, and the adoration tends to be of things beyond one's means. I did find something, though, and it's now hidden away. Santiago is in the red zone, according to the regional government. I think there are well over a hundred new...

It is definitely getting cooler now. Today I had to wear jeans, my normal winter clothing, and put aside my lightweight pants. I also had to wear a t-shirt with a shirt over it, because it was quite chilly. The leaves on the vineyard are almost all yellow, and starting to tumble to the ground. Now, there's more light at the back of the house, under the arbor. The fruit has gone, except a few, recalcitrant grapes, and the feijoas that are falling to the ground. Fall has definitely installed itself. It's time to start thinking about the flowers for All Saint's Day, and All Soul's Day. Every year, I order some arrangements to take to the cemeteries, and make some others myself. Every year, I keep forgetting until the middle of October to put in my order with the local florist. This year, I am too late. He told me he wasn't taking any more orders because he's not hiring helpers this year, thanks to the virus. Unfortunately, my husband told me that other florists are...

This morning I went for my walk. I've not been walking of late, and I really need to do so, so I'm trying to get back into the habit. It's not exactly easy, since the colder and later sunrises make it difficult to start out early. Which means that I either run errands, or I go walking.  Some mornings, when I scroll the different news agencies I usually check, I feel like starting to walk and not stopping until I drop, leaving all this behind. There is a quiet air of exhaustion this fall. Everything has been hitting extremes, and one can only have their nerves strung out like violin strings for so long. From politics, to Covid, passing through the usual idiocies, it's too much to keep taking in. I noticed an article today that mentions that Christmas might be a solitary affair. In Spain, Christmas is much like Thanskgiving in the United States; everyone goes home for the holiday. Households of two people become households of twenty, as children, in-laws, and grandchildre...

It was a holiday yesterday, the Día de la Hispanidad, better known as Columbus Day in the U.S. Here, it's a patriotic day, more than anything to celebrate Spain, with a military parade and flyover in Madrid, which the King and the government ministers preside. This year, there was the bare bones of one, celebrated in the large courtyard in front of the royal palace in Madrid. But all the dignitaries showed up, even Republican, quite-left-of-center Pablo Iglesias, leader of Podemos. He had no other choice, however, since he and his party form part of the government. Anything else would have been exulted in by extremist-right Vox. Which held its own parade in the rich neighborhood of Salamanca, in Madrid. There, the neighbors and supporters drove around in their cars, beeping horns, waving giant flags, and crying out their signature cry of "Gobierno dimisión!" to show their displeasure. At the end of last week, they also held protests against the regional state of alarm dec...

Today was another topsy-turvy day. It was a windy, bright fall day. In the morning, I went for a walk, and was between hot and cold, between the warming sun and the sharp wind. After lunch, we went for a drive. We went up the coast to the hills above Muros. My husband was looking for a spot among the wind turbines from which there is a sweeping view of a good part of the west coast. We found a corner, but he doesn't think it was that one. It was a hill above Muros, with wind turbines all over the place, from which the horizon was lost in a blur on the ocean, and the Celtic Olympus of Monte Pindo frowned upon the coastal towns below. Monte Pindo is a granite outcropping rising directly above the coast. Down one side of it, the river Xallas erupts into the ocean in a waterfall, one of very few rivers to do so in Europe. The river was dammed years ago, during Franco's frenzy of harnessing rivers for production. For many years, the waterfall was a memory, until it was decided that ...

Now that I have classes all afternoon, my writing time has become cramped. Yesterday, I didn't have enough time in the morning, and when I finished classes at eight, I was mentally exhausted. All I wanted to do was sit and vegetate. This morning my husband and I went to A Coruña to check something out. We hadn't been in the city since August of last year, when we went to see Patti Smith in concert at  Riazor beach. If this year had been normal, we probably would have gone to this August's concert, provided an interesting group had been booked. A Coruña is a city that my daughter has described as grey. The truth is that, through the middle of its streets, it's much like any other northern Spanish city. The modern parts of Avilés and Gijón are similar, and I suppose so are others all the way to the French border at Irún, though I haven't visited any Basque city. Apartment blocks stretching up, creating shadowy streets, barely any balcony. Smartly outfitted shops next ...

If yesterday I said justice will end up working out, today I have to say the opposite. Last week, amid the steep rise in Covid cases in several cities, Madrid foremost, the central government decreed a small lockdown, with no one allowed in or out of certain cities. (Cities of over a hundred thousand inhabitants, with an infection rate of over 500 per 100,000.)  Today, the Superior Court of the region of Madrid declared the lockdowns illegal without a general state of alarm declared, because they impinge upon individual rights. These are the same judges that upheld the rather lopsided and ineffectual restrictions the regional government imposed on only a part of affected areas, and that did not admit a case against the managers of various publicly owned elderly residences where many older people died because controls against the coronavirus were lax in the spring. Politics, much? That must be what some of the judges would like to see happen. Another national state of alarm would tu...

Greece's Golden Dawn has turned overcast today.  Golden Dawn is a Greek extreme right political party that appeared in the 1980's as a nostalgic attempt to take Greece back to the right wing policies of the colonels, which ran the country in the late 60's and early 70's, after routing the monarch, and created a short-lived dictatorship until 1974, when democracy was restored. Golden Dawn became a political party in the early 1990's, and its goal was to create a "Greater Greece", by occupying parts of adjoining countries, including the European section of Turkey and the city of Istanbul. It also wanted to hellenize those areas, by casting out minorities, especially Muslims. In this century, however, it went after refugees and immigrants of all kinds. It also raised its voice in criticism of the harsh impositions by the European Union during the recession, which led to winning followers, and seats in the Greek parliament, where they became the third most pow...

I completely forgot to write yesterday. It was a regular Monday in October. In the morning, I worked on my story. I'm starting to reach the end, and my ideas are shifting. (Already, when I go back to edit, I have to rewrite the beginning.) In the afternoon I had the full complement of classes.  Classes are pretty much normal, except for the hand sanitizer in the hall, the masks, the alcohol I spray everywhere in the study, and the air purifier. No one has complained except one mother, who didn't like that her kids shared the study with others, given the times we're living in. But it's either that, or I don't give classes, or I give classes until close to midnight, to keep each kid alone in his own hour. I do what I can to limit contagion. Beyond that, there's little I can do except close the door.  In our township the number of infected seems to be going down. From 27, we've gone to 20. But in the next door township of Boiro, they've gone from 26 to 33. ...