Spanish views from a small town

Christmas and its pantagruelian feasts have ended; now it's the New Year's turn next week. Having my cooking enthusiasm grow and wane at will, after organizing two special meals, my mind seems stuck and I still have little idea what to make for lunch today. Oh, well. Food we have, but I'll still go food shopping this afternoon, only I can't leave the township. Sigh. The good part is that it's sunny, even though it's cold. Tomorrow, however, a cold front will move through, and the storm, Bella, is supposed to leave us with lots of rain, high winds, and a red alert along the coast, with waves topping at ten meters. The weather for the next week is supposed to remain cold, with sun chased by cold rain showers, snow on the higher mountains, with the wind coming straight from the cold, damp Arctic. Typical winter weather. Yesterday was a peaceful, and tranquilly boring day. Yet, not boring in the sense of wishing the day to end, go to bed, and start anew the next mor...

Today is Christmas Eve. Tonight is the big dinner that should have congregated different households in one, with indigestion promised for tomorrow. The day is sunny and cold. This night will be starry and Christmas-cold. We aren't going to my in-laws. Technically, we could, because we would only be two households, and a maximum of six adults. But all the other considerations wouldn't come into play. There is no way we would eat in their dining room, spread out at the large table, with the windows open, and wearing masks except for eating. We'll eat in our own homes, in our cozy warm kitchens, and make video calls.  Our freezer and fridge are filled. The exercise in buying food was partly for the holidays, and partly to stock up on items I normally buy from supermarkets where I can't wander now. Also, as a bulwark against a possible quarantine. I would hate to importune anyone by asking them to go shopping for me. As it is, once you start stockpiling, "just in case...

Yesterday I wondered when they were going to close Rianxo. Well, last night, I got a ping on my phone. I checked the news item, and, effectively, as of midnight tonight, Rianxo is closed.  Today, I went out to Pobra do Caramiñal, to stock up on items I buy at a supermarket chain that we don't have in our township. Here, we only have an Eroski, which is smaller and has less content than the one I normally shop at in Boiro, and a Mercadona, which I decidedly dislike.  The worst aspect of being shut down isn't so much the lack of choice in shopping, but that we seem to be in a gilded cage. Yes, we can leave the house, which we couldn't in spring, but we can't leave the township. So, a drive down the coast on a Sunday is impossible. I had thought about driving somewhere into the interior during Christmas vacation, taking a lunch and staying away from people as much as possible. Not any more. We aren't shut up in the house, but we can't go anywhere. Those who like t...

The family news gets better, as my cousin is finally out of the ICU, though still in the hospital. The rest of the family is passing through Covid at home, and getting better, as well.  In the parish of Taragoña, its main square with the majority of businesses, is closed, as, at one café, a few have tested positive, and people drift from one establishment to the other. In Rianxo, in total, there have been 33 positives. The number is growing day after day. The total population of the township is just a tad over 11,000 souls. I'm wondering when they will close the township. Some European countries have cut off flights to and from the United Kingdom because of the new variant of Covid found in the area of London, which is supposedly up to 70 times more transmissable. But not Spain. Spain will rely on each passenger handing in the negative results of a PCR test. Which would be fine, except that sometimes the test is negative when the infection is recent. (And now, I see that as of tomo...

Thankfully, my cousin is now conscious. Hopefully, the worst is past. But there are many out there who have been infected, and the numbers are growing. Santiago de Compostela has been shut down, again. So has the nearby small city of Ribeira, one of the places I've been doing the weekly shopping since Boiro shut down. At the rate we're going, it won't matter if our town shuts down or not; if the towns surrounding us are closed, we don't have many places we can go. Christmas is looking complicated. We had already decided to eat alone weeks ago, instead of going to my in-laws'. According to the rules, we could still go because we would be two households with a maximum of six adults. But the recommendations are to have a large table to be able to sit at least a meter and a half apart, wear masks except for when we are eating, and either eat outside or have all the windows open. Heck, no. We'll do a video call, just like we tend to do with a brother-in-law who's...

This year, I think I'm actually looking forward to Christmas. Mostly because we'll be eating at home, just the three of us, and because we aren't being bombarded by "you MUST shop!!!" since November. Aside from the Christmas goodies of turrón , marzipan, polvorones , and the like being available to chew on since the end of October, it hasn't been an overly commercial year. Even the television commercials tend to insist on messages more akin to the Christmas spirit, and some remind us that life is to be lived, even if it means partaking of the company's cold cuts, like  Campofrío's. Of course, that doesn't mean that people won't forget about the reason we're told to stay home, just to go see the pretty lights, and pop into the shops, and get together with friends, because, "I've known this person all my life, and they are not infected." Sadly, the last is not always the case. I read about a couple who would always get together ...

This past weekend, many stores opened in different cities. And many cities turned on the Christmas lighting. And many people decided it was a good idea to create crowds in the streets to ooh and aah.  In Madrid and Málaga, at least, it looked like a pandemic had never passed through. Despite being just over the second wave of infection, with thousands dead, and thousands suffering health effects for months, the streets were absolutely filled with people. Sure, they were wearing masks, but social distancing was obviously lacking.  The worst might be this coming weekend. December in Spain is the month of holidays par excellence. We have the Constitution Day on the sixth, the Immaculate Conception on the eighth, Christmas Eve on the twenty-fourth, Christmas Day on the twenty-fifth, New Year's Eve on the thirty-first, and New Year's Day on the first of January. (Despite the Eves not being full holidays, many treat them as such, even though they might work only until midday.) ...

Christmas ads on television are starting to appear, along with cities lighting up their decorations. The decorations are early, the ads not as much, still, they could have waited another couple of weeks. This year, most don't really feel the holiday cheer. In Spain, the few ads that generate (or generated) any enthusiasm heading to the Christmas season, are the ads for Freixenet and Codorniu cavas. These wines, knowing most people buy sparkling wine at Christmas, would go all out to create ads with famous people acting out a story line. They have damped down since the glory days of the end of the last century, though. They're too expensive to create, and people are drinking less and less with each passing year.  The other ads are for the Christmas lottery. These have passed from advertising magic, to, this year especially, bonds created between family and friends who share with each other the dream of winning some extra money at a very special time. These sometimes bring a tear...

The results of the election in the United States are, as expected, not in yet. But there is a depressing amount of people that have voted for Trump. How? I know that Biden is not the most inspiring candidate. I know that the usual way of doing business cannot continue. But Biden is a candidate of decency, surrounded by people of decency. Trump is the candidate of knavery, surrounded by flies bloating themselves off the stench coming from the swamp that Trump created.  The local news isn't much better. The closing of the larger cities and their satellite towns will continue for a month. Added to those are also other small cities and towns where contagion has grown exponentially. To pass my husband's car's inspection in Vilagarcía next week, I will have to show an email with the appointment on it. To go to a doctor's appointment later this month in Santiago, I will also have to show the SMS I received with the date and hour of that appointment. Life is getting complicated...

I have mentioned, just about every year, that I have grown to hate Christmas. I don't hate its message, nor the warmth of waking up and knowing it's Christmas morning. What I hate is what it's become. This year, there's yet another reason for it.  Since Vigo began last year (or was it the year before?) going absolutely bonkers on its Christmas lights to attract tourists, other cities have emulated it. One city is Madrid. This year, with a right-wing government newly elected, one of its most important expenditures is Christmas lights, so it could out-rival Vigo. They've spent over three million euros. Reactions from people in the streets, and local politicians are the usual. "The lights symbolize the spirit of Christmas." "Let's hope we get more tourists, now." "They're so pretty!" "People will be happy and spend more money." Explain what the expenditure and those lights mean to the dozens of families applying for r...

I finally got around to going to Vigo this past Friday. There is an art store there, that, while it's not fully comprehensive, still has more material than the small ones in my radius. I also wanted to walk a little along busy city streets in the largest city of Galicia. A few hours in the morning wasn't enough, though, so I'll probably return during Christmas vacation. What caught my attention the most, even though it was daylight, was all the Christmas lights in all the streets in the center. There was a tangle of cables and designs in wire overhead that defied the eye. On a large corner where the pedestrianized main shopping street began there was a large round structure that seemed to be a tree bauble. Along that pedestrian-only street there were many winter decorations, as well. They were comprised of a mound of earth, with real fir trees, and different structures, such as snowmen. One had small house structures that were still being set up or fixed. But those mounds...

The holidays are coming, the holidays are coming! Actually, they've been coming for a month, now, and are as yet to be glimpsed through the fog and mists of December days that still separate us from them. But, if one turns on the television or goes anywhere near a store or two, one would think Christmas is tomorrow, and we still haven't done anything about it.  Because, of course, one must buy presents. For everyone. You are such an absolute cheapskate if you don't buy something for the mailman, who hasn't stopped by in over a year now that you do everything online. Or for that cousin five times removed you happened to bump into yesterday for the first time in ten years. And if you don't buy anything special for your sister's furry companion you are the lowest of the low. Your tree (because, of course, you've already put up the tree; how could you not?) by now should be surrounded by at least a hundred little packages all expertly wrapped in the most expen...

Traditions come and go. For many years, it was a tradition that our daughter be the first one up on Christmas morning. She would go downstairs, bring up all the presents under the tree, and open hers while we opened ours, if we had any. Then, along the morning, our bed would have to be emptied of wrapping paper, bows, and useful boxes. Now, she's a grown-up, so she comes down late in the morning and opens them in the kitchen with us. The wonder in her eyes when she was a child was great to see. Now, it's the expectation of seeing if we could buy her what she asked for, almost always books. I began the tradition of Christmas morning gifts when she was a little girl. The traditional day for gift-giving in Spain is Epiphany, 6 January, which is when the Magi were supposed to have brought their gifts to the infant Jesus. Our daughter was one of the very few in those years who received something from Santa Claus as well as the Magi, or Reyes Magos . Now, just about every kid recei...

We love to hate them. They drive us nuts. As the story reaches a point at which your nerves are at the breaking point, bam! You have to wait. How long depends on what channel you're watching. Six minutes is the usual, though some channels have maddening commercial breaks of close to fifteen minutes. Everyone hates commercials.  But then there are commercials that we expect, that we await during part of the year. Christmas commercials are some of them. There are commercials for Freixenet cava whose television presentation used to be advertised ahead of time as if it were a new television show. Some of the longest of them took around ten minutes and showcased famous actors and actresses. For the last two years or so, they only last a little longer than a minute and tend to feature Spanish athletic women's teams that are Olympic medalists. But now the full commercial doesn't even appear on television. They have a fifteen minute compressed blurb and that's it. To see i...

What a mad world we are living in. I mean it in both senses of the word. The world is both insane and angry. And both are closely related. Extreme anger, unreasoning anger, can evolve into insane actions. The extreme anger of some Americans toward their economic situation has ended up in the election of a president that might be considered insane by actions he has taken, and things he has said. The anger against a dictator has led to thousands killed, and millions displaced in Syria. Anger against a country's alliance has led to the killing of the Russian ambassador in Ankara, and bombs against police. Anger against real and perceived injustice, has led to a man plowing a truck through pedestrians at a Christmas market in Berlin. Anger against a different religion has led to a hate-deranged man to shoot three men in a Muslim prayer hall in Zurich.  It seems we notice these things even more now that it happens to be Christmas time. Since we are children, in the Western, Christiani...

Once upon a time, twenty-five years ago, the dates followed each other on the calendar. Before celebrating Easter, we celebrated Carnival, before Going Back to School, we went on Vacation, before Christmas Joy came September, October, and November.  It's really not too much to ask. I remember re-runs of Loony Tunes cartoons, where a character would sometimes dress up as Santa Claus to fool another one. The to-be-fooled looked at the calendar, which said July, and the trick was up. If a cartoonist did that same scene today, the to-be-fooled would be fooled, because we start celebrating Christmas up to six months ahead now. In the month of July, with everyone heading to the beach, grateful for the summer ahead, the Christmas lottery goes on sale. In July. These past years, to cajole visiting tourists into buying a ticket, a poster has been taped to the windows of the lottery offices, ¿Y si Cae Aquí? (And if it [the winning number] falls here?). Few pass up on the opportunity to ...

Leftovers and trash. That's what the day after Christmas is all about. Leftover seafood, leftover meat, leftover sweets. How many recipes for leftover food can there be? It doesn't matter that you try to buy so that you finish the food in one sitting. There will always be moments of, "Well, everybody loves this dish, so of this I had better buy a little extra for seconds." Those seconds turn into thirds that leave something else uneaten. And, of course, after gobbling down three dishes of seafood, and one enormous dish of meat, the sweets are ignored. So you nibble on them whenever you visit the pantry. Which is often. The day after Christmas you look at the exultant refrigerator, you look at the pants that shrank, you look at your thinned wallet, you think of all those in the world who are starving, and you swear that next year you will buy less. And next year comes and you do the same thing all over again.  Trash is another story. I remember the trash day after Ch...