True Story.

Two nights ago, I was sleeping in my nice warm bed. I say warm, because I have: two duvets, a cover and a sheet. My room regularaly hovers around 9 degrees celcius at night, and 11 during the day. Think 45 fahrenheit, with wind chill factor dropping it to 29. I have also pack a tshirt, hooded sweatshirt, pj pants and sweats. If it's extra cold I even think about wearing a pair of socks. Usually it's just thinking though. I haven't worn a hat yet, but I am growing my hair out hoping it will prevent frostbite on the ear that doesn't get to snuggle up to the pillow. It's a shame that only one ear gets to do that, the other is always getting a raw deal. What it comes down to is that with these Spanish houses, they just aren't built to retain any trace of heat.

But I'm getting sidetracked, back to me being all nice and warm, sound asleep in bed. All of that is happening when I wake up to this obnoxious rattling. I roll over and look towards my desk where I am sat now, but I don't see anything. Then I put my glasses on and that seems to help. By that time however, the rattling has stopped. I check the time, thinking that it really was rude for rattling to be going on at 2 something am. I go back to sleep.

I then begin dreaming that horrible things are happening in the city of Badajoz, where I live. Tall blocks of apartments/flats are falling to the ground. My house is next to an 8ish story one, and in my dream it was reduced to 1 and a half stories of rubble. Weird visions have the ceiling in my room coming down on top of me as well.

Three hours something later I wake up again to obnoxious rattling. I know this because I looked at my clockradio. Its nice red letters are easy to read at night. What woke me up with this now reoccuring rattling. At this point I became slightly unnerved for several reasons. The first was that I was in the middle of having dreams where buildings were falling to the ground and ceilings were caving in. The second was that I was getting shorted on my sleep. Lack of sleep can contribute to unnervedness (yes I know I'm making words up). So I get up and shove my glasses on, in no particular order, and walk to my thin rectangular window. I say thin rectangular window because I have two windows, one facing the west, a wider rectangular window, as well as one facing the east, a thinner rectangle. (Don't worry I love them both the same.) I look out it, fulling expecting to see 1 and a half stories of rubble along with carnage. I see neither and am somewhat taken aback.

At this point I open my window and stick my head out. I turn my head sideways to do this since it is the thin window I am standing at. Once my head is outside, I can straighten it, and I scan the street for any signs of devastation as well as listening for calls for help. This is mostly done with my right ear, as the left ear was dealing with the frostbite previously mentioned. I think generally my right ear gets the majority of the pillowtime. Nothing personal, just sleeping patterns really. I don't pick up on anything, and pull my head back inside, shutting the window. I stand there for a moment, wondering why the buildings are still standing, and then realize that my bare feet are touching tile floor. Cold tile floor. This thought cuts across any desire to dissect the situation further and so back into bed I go. I lay there briefly wandering about the absurdness of it all, and then decide that maybe if I go back to sleep it will all make sense. I drift off with one last thought about the ceiling falling in on my head.

The next morning I gave it one more thought, just enought to mention something over breakfast about rattling and dreams. Someone said that it was probably windy last night, and when it is windy the antenna makes noises. That is probably true, but I didn't hear noises, I heard rattling. That was two days ago.

Today I gave it another thought when someone said that two days ago there were two earthquakes that registered during the night. Only they said terremotos in place of earthquakes. That's because they were talking in spanish. Terremotos is one of my favorite words in spanish.

So I come away from all this with two thoughts really, the first is that I can tell my grandchildren I survived two earthquakes. The second is that I am not crazy after all.

The shrub has an afro. 

A bit late...

but better late than never. I recorded this vid on Christmas, or sometime around there. I wanted to post it to my blog to wish everyone a good Christmas, but until now I didn't know there was a website that would allow me to do that. So check it out if you want a Christmas greeting from myself, just in time for new year!

http://www.youtube.com/?v=_an0vFjV8bc

poetry

Sometimes it comes together
like formulas and puzzles,
sorted out against dark
chaos and randomness,

and sometimes it falls apart
leaving empty spaces at night
pondering unanswerable moments
to be left till ends of time...

And in those days
one must decide
how weary souls choose to climb
the steepening path of their design.

poesía

Mírame mi cariño,
con nuestro tiempo pasando,
muchas almas se van marchando,
no te vayas.
Y pues además
la lluvia está cayendo,
mis palabras desapareciendo,
por qué no
nos envejecemos aquí en España?

The Sea

I had headphones stuck in my ears at one point today while a Jack Johnson song poured out. In the background were waves. Crashing on the beach. Crashing might be a strong word, maybe they were rolling onto it.

Now I have never lived by the sea. I have never lived within an hour of the sea. But I would like very much one day to live by the sea. There is this image of what living by the sea would be like in my head.

I imagine myself walking out the beach at night and staring out past the waves into the blackness. I would stay there for a long time, since it wouldn't be too cold by this sea. A breeze would blow the salt air into my face, and I would talk to God until it was morning or I fell asleep. With the sound of waves playing in the background.

I wouldn't be bored, because there would always be the sea five minutes away. It would be easier to get up in the morning, because I would know that if I felt like it, I could go to the sea that day. With the sea would come fluency in languages. People would be easier to get along with, because everyone would know that if things got too stressful, they could just walk to the sea. If I started feeling sorry for myself, or thought too much about myself, or critiqued myself, I would walk out to the sea and realize that there is more to the world than just me.

I would probably learn to surf, and have a book of poetry published. The sea inspires people to write really good poetry. I would jog along the sea either early in the morning or in the evening, in my bare feet. I would feel like I could run for hours, because I would have the sand hitting the bottom of my feet. Occasionally I would veer into the waves, just before they left to go back out to sea. I would find things that washed up on shore. I would have a small boat that I took out to sea when the sun was coming up.

I think these thoughts about the sea. It's beautiful really. In Spanish the word for sea is mar. La mar. It can be el mar as well. But people who live by the sea call it la mar, feminine, because the sea is like a mother to them. From it comes their way of life and entire livelyhood.

It might be good though if I never live by the sea. Then I wouldn't ever have to face the possibility that maybe the sea isn't everything I dream it to be.

Scaling 1 to 10

I was asked only a few short days ago, how I would rate a certain film on a scale of 1 to 10.

To which I paused, and then replied depende (it depends).

And so I have spent some time since then, contemplating how exactly I rate films. Or rather, how a film should be rated. If there isn't an art, then I think there should be.

First a base must be established. A plumbline with which all films can be measured against. Now to pick out a single film, or two, or twenty would be impossible. No one would ever agree. And so instead of a film being the embodiment of all that is strived for in the world of film viewing, we shall instead replace this glorious film with an idea. This idea shall be called ten. We shall name this perfect film a ten.

There are always two ends to a spectrum. The first having been established we now need to take a look at the antithesis. The horrible film. Not just a poor film, or a bad film, but rather one that is abhorent to the mind and soul. Even body. A film of this sorts is either walked out of, spat upon, or hissed at. At the same time, a film could be silently sat through in entirety, but upon viewing the ending, a viewer may find themself so outraged at having been seduced, tricked, or even forced to sit the thing out, that the film should promptly recieve this name. A zero.

Some debate may erupt at this point pertaining to the fact that this scale is a 1 to 10, and therefore a zero is null and void. However that is exactly the point and therefore why the zero will remain a liable option on the 1 to 10 film rating scale.

And the plumbline came to be. The ten was wrote into being and the zero quickly followed.

In between these great numbers lie 9 others. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. These will be more commonly used than the previously mentioned far east and equally distant west. A few things to be remembered: Nothing ruins a scale faster than the abuse of the extreme numbers. That is to say, spare the dramatic numbers for the dramatically good or bad films. Overpopulation at the ends of the spectrum will do nothing but invalidate your film ranking creditentials. As well, be aware of your emotional, physical, and spiritual state while you rank a film. If your heart is currently broken, don't allow Shakespeare quotes in teen movies to drag a 9 out of you because you thought it captured the spirit of human suffering. Realize that you are emotionally unstable and need some time off from any serious opinion giving. If you have recently lost a pet, there is no need to penalize Where the Red Fern Grows. If you hate bowling, it does not mean you have to hate on The Big Lebowski.

There you have it. All it takes is a bit of sense, and a light touch on the ends, and you'll be on your way to film ranking respectability.

B.L.O.G.

It's 1:49 in the morning, and I was thinking about going to bed a minute and a half ago, but suddenly I remembered a thought I had earlier today. It goes back to a post I think I threw out there yesterday, about the word "blog" as a matter of fact.

What if I came up with an acronym for the word blog? Then I wouldn't have to use the word blog and be hit with the ugliness of it all. (Sidenote number one: I don't, however, find the word "blogging" offense.) It might be a bit obnoxious taking what was once said with one word, and increasing it to four, but I think its an appealing type of obnoxiousess. Sort of like how flirting with the waitress (I'm single, and so not offending my g/f with this) can be obnoxious but if done tastefully is at times allowed. So this is what I'm shooting for, a tasteful yet slightly too long phrase in place of "blog."

Off the cuff- blabbering (too) late (into the night) of grass (and many other things).

This however will not be considered as it is 12 words instead of 4. So as it is 2:03 now, I will leave this open for discussion. If it is not discussed, I will then make an arbitrary decision as to what acronym I will use. Warning, I may do this anyway. Stay tuned.

June 2K6, Deutchland

Let the games begin. World Cup, Germany. See poll just below the clock to cast your votes now! You too can play a part in your team's quest to gain their place in history. But don't wait until June, because who knows how long the poll will be around...

I would have optioned the teams individually, but the free poll site would only give me nine spots. So I put what I think are the top two teams together from the each of the eight groups. The following are a few of my thoughts on the upcoming tournament, the biggest thing besides sleep in every basically every country not called the United States. (Hopefully this is only a matter of time...)

Brazil are good. They could field two teams and both would still compete for supremacy. Argentina are dang good too. The unheralded Spaniards may not have the best talent on the pitch, but they are nonetheless hard to beat. They same could be said for teams such as Sweden, Portugal, and France. Holland, Czech Republic, and Mexico have scary squads, and fall just a notch below the two dominant South American teams. Germany has home field advantage. Look over the past WC winners, and an abnormal number of winners were the host country. Hmmm. Then there is the US. A good squad, with a good showing in the last WC. Bummer of a draw though, definately were dropped in one of the two hardest groups. With Italy, Czech Republic, and very good African squad from Ghana, and only two advancing to the knockout stage, it will be an uphill battle. But don't go and completely write them off.

I have yet to mention my pick for WC 06 winner. They would be called England. They have a top team, a mature team, but not yet too old, and some dissapointing history to overcome. This is the year I think they duck the bad luck. Not a guarantee, just a hunch. All that being said, there are still some teams I didn't mention that could bring it all home. Anything can happen. So in six months, I guess we'll see...

i looked at this one for a while and decided it looked like a dragon. nuff of clouds for now... 

formations outside my window. 

Flippin heck.

It's been far too long since I have last written. I'd say I was sick or something, maybe out of town for a long weekend, but I wasn't. Matter of fact, I even got online a few times, navigated my way to this blog, and didn't write anything. To say I was uninspired would be harsh, but lazy certainly wouldn't be. I guess I'll leave it at that. It's too bad I'm not at least writing something interesting to make up for it. So far this falls into the "won't even bother to finish reading it catagory, let alone comment on it."

So someone told me they didn't like the word BLOG. "Tienes razon" here in Spain means "ahh, you're right" or "you've got a point." And so after briefly thinking about it I decided I didn't either. (This isn't a bandwagon thing.) It sounds ugly and has certain connotations that go with it. Like nerds who have too much time on their hands. Now this wasn't what this person insinuated, but I realized that it's what I attach to it. And since I happen to have a, ahem, blog, I would maybe fall into that catagory. This does nothing to help my self esteem to say the least. I have actually, been accused of having too much time on my hands by another person, concerning this blog. To this I responded by saying that no, I don't have too much time, but rather I choose to make time. I did not recieve a "tienes razon" in response.

So the solution to this problem is to simply change what I call this "thing" that I occasionally post bits of writings on... Not the name of course (café en españa) but substitute something else in place of the word "blog" whenever I refer to it. I do realize that this may not be a successful venture, but what the heck. Anything to avoid stereotyping myself with those nerds who find time to write web blogs.

After going back and reading what I have written so far... In an attempt to stall and think of something else to call this blog... I have realized that it has no point. And if one did manage to prove that it had a point, very few would be interested in what the point actually was. As well, I am doing nothing but cementing this stereotype I have talked about. So I have reached a decision. I will no longer babble on, and drag out this subpar piece of work, but instead I will quickly finish this, and leave the task of coming up with another word to another day. (I would simply not post this, but flippin heck, it's been almost a week since the last one!)

Next time, I will try to write something worthwhile. Until then, you're stuck with this nonsense.

Random reason

why I really like Spain.

We do holidays. Here better known as "festivos." Not a month goes by whereby Spain does not grind to a halt, shut up shop, and go out drinking with friends and family. Take the recently mentioned immaculate conception, this comes only two days after another holiday, the day of the Constitution on December 6th. This year these days fall on a Tuesday and a Thursday. Well it doesn't make very much sense to have to work every other day this week. And you can't very much change the days themselves. So. Monday will definately have to be a day off, no doubt about that. Therefore one can enjoy the weekend before, and not lose the festive spirit until well into Wednesday morning.

This leaves two days of work, with one lonely holiday in the middle. Some businesses and schools simply leave it at that. Three days off, two on. But only some.

After having festivoed away Thursday, it can be very hard to motivate oneself to get up and head into work, with only one day left before another weekend. Thus Friday can be logically done away with as a workday. All in good conscience.

This leaves one group left. University students. Now really, what is the point of having just one Wednesday in the middle of the week in which you have class. Not very logical, when much can be done with a whole week free! So they just take the whole week off.

All of this, only two weeks before the three weeks of Christmas vacation start.

And maybe later I'll write about how in May, they have a Friday off to celebrate the fact that it's May...

La Concepción Immaculada

Today is a national holiday here in Spain. La concepción immaculada. The immaculate virgen conception. The day Mary concieved Jesus by the Holy Spirit. The 8th of December, somewhere around year zero, give or take. The day we celebrate Jesus' birthday is in a few short weeks, 17 days.

Not to be irreverent, but apparently Mary either carried Jesus in her womb for 17 days, or 385 days. Neither of which figures at nine months. Now of course neither day is likely to be the actual day that these events occured. But nonetheless they are the days we have chosen to remember these events. Which for all purposes I know, is not bad at all.

I just thought it slightly humorous that we even though we chose these days, no one bothered to make the math work out. Maybe math is overrated. Or maybe there are very good reasons for choosing these days. I just don't know them. If there is an enlightened someone who happens to know what went on, and wants to tell me... I would listen. Until then, I'll just ponder the idea that Mary carried Jesus in her womb for an extra term or two...

sickness and health

Someone told me that all Spaniards are hypochondriacs. That is to say, that they are overly concerned about their health. Maybe bordering on fanatical. To be fair, not all Spaniards are like so, but to meet a Spaniard who has never visited the hospital for a runny nose is like meeting a mosquito who is allergic to blood. They are hard to find.

The word for flu in Spanish is "gripe" (pronounced greep-a, or something similar). When mentioned in passing conversation it can be recieved with the same reaction as other words such as Black Death, herpes, leprosy, bird flu and other horrible diseases. The only way to escape the jaws of death from this particular illness is nothing short of a hospital visit followed by high-octane drugs.

The word for the common cold, runny nose, cough etc. is "resfriado." While not evoking such a strong a reaction as el gripe, one can watch the dark shadow of concern fall across the person's face and then listen for ten minutes as the person uses animated language and hand gestures to tell you the best way to be cured from this illness that surely will involves days of bedrest and overnight vigils of prayer.

Having just had the 24 hour flu, and the ensuing head cold, I feel as though I am lucky to be alive. It was a trying experience, and several times was unsure as to whether or not is was foolish not to have prepared a living will beforehand. But having recovered (somewhat miraculously) I want to say that I am grateful for all the sympathy and helpful advice I recieved that guided me through this ordeal.

I think there is something we gringos could learn here, that showing a little extra concern, albeit melodramaticly, can go a long way in making someone appreciate being healthy again...

yet still fair.

Where does one find true hope?
A friend once asked of me.
For a sun-drenched façade without cracks
It will never certainly be.

True hope is not found
in pretenses of idealism.
Rather you can only find this virtue
entrenched in worlds of realism.

Hope is to take all aspects of life
And yet be able to say,
amidst both the comic and the tragic,
“Tomorrow will be a better day.”

“And if tomorrow does not bring
another day to remedy this despair,”
One will still look life in the face
and declare, “Still you are fair.”

A Story

I read this in a book recently...


Will Campbell grew up on a hardscrabble farm in Mississippi. Bookish, never really fitting in with his rural surroundings, he worked hard at his studies and eventually made his way to Yale Divinity School. After graduation he returned south to preach and was named director of religious life at the University of Mississippi. This was the early 1960s, when proper Mississippians circles the wagons against assaults from civil rights activists, and when students and administrators learned of Campbell's liberal views on integration, his stint at the school abruptly ended.
Campbell soon found himself in the thick of battle, leading voter registration drives and supervising the idealistic young Northerners who migrated south to join the civil rights crusade. Among them was a Harvard Divinity School student named Jonathan Daniels, who had responded to Dr. King's call for supporters to descend on Selma. Most of the volunteers went home after the big march, but Jonathan Daniels stayed, and Will Campbell befriended him.
Campbell's theology was undergoing some testing in those days. Much of the opposition to his work came from “good Christians” who refused to let people of other races into their churches and who resented anyone tampering with laws favoring white people. Campbell found allies more easily among agnostics, socialists, and a few devout Northerners.
“In ten words or less, what's the Christian message?” one agnostic had challenged him. The interlocutor was P.D. East, a renegade newspaper editor who viewed Christians as the enemy and could not understand Will's stubborn commitment to religious faith.

We were going someplace, or coming back from someplace and he said, “Let me have it. Ten words.” I said, "We're all bastards but God loves us anyways.” He didn't comment on what he thought about the summary except to say, after he had counted the number of words on his fingers, “I gave you a ten-word limit. If you want to try again you have two words left.” I didn't try again but he often reminded me of what I said that day.

The definition stung P.D. East who, unbeknown to Campbell, was indeed illegitimate and had been called “bastard” all his life. Campbell had chosen the word not merely for shock effect but also for theological accuracy: spiritually we are illegitimate children, invited despite our paternity to join God's family. The more Campbell thought about his impromptu definition of the gospel, the more he liked it.
P.D. East put that definition to a ruthless test, however, on the darkest day of Campbell's life, a day when an Alabama deputy sheriff named Thomas Coleman gunned down Campbell's twenty-six-year-old friend. Jonathan Daniels had been arrested for picketing white stores. On his release from jail he approached a grocery store to make a phone call to arrange a ride when Coleman appeared with a shotgun and emptied it in his stomach. The pellets hit one other person, a black teenager, in the back, critically injuring him.
Campbell's book Brother to a Dragonfly records the conversation with P.D. East on that night, which led to what Campbell looks back on as “the most enlightening theological lesson I ever had in my life.” P.D. East stayed on the offensive, even at this moment of grief:

“Yeah, Brother. Let's see if your definition of the Faith can stand the test.” My calls had been to the Department of Justice, to the American Civil Liberties Union, to a lawyer friend in Nashville. I had talked of the death of my friend as being a travesty of justice, as a complete moral breakdown of law and order, as a violation of Federal and State Law. I had used words like redneck, backwoods, woolhat, cracker, Kluxer, ignoramus and many others. I had studied sociology, psychology, and social ethics and was speaking and thinking in these concepts. I had also studied New Testament theology.
P.D. stalked me like a tiger. “Come on, Brother. Let's talk about your definition.” At one point Joe [Will's brother] turned on him, “Lay off P.D. Can't you see when somebody is upset?” But P.D. waved him off, loving me too much to leave me alone.

“Was Jonathan a bastard?” P.D. asked first. Campbell replied that though he was one of the most gentle guys he'd ever known, it's true that everyone is a sinner. In those terms, yes, he was a “bastard.”
“All right. Is Thomas Coleman a bastard?” That question, Campbell found much easier to answer. You bet the murderer was a bastard.
Then P.D. pulled his chair close, placed his bony hand on Campbell's knee, and looked directly into his red-streaked eyes. “Which of those two bastards do you think God loves the most?” The question hit home, like an arrow to the heart.

Suddenly everything became clear. Everything. It was a revelation. The glow of the malt which we were well into by then seemed to illuminate and intensify it. I walked across the room and opened the blind, staring directly into the glare of the streetlight. And I began to whimper. But the crying was interspersed with laughter. It was a strange experience. I remember trying to sort out the sadness and the joy. Just what I was crying for and what I was laughing for. Then this too became clear.
I was laughing at myself, at twenty years of a ministry which had become, without my realizing it, a ministry of liberal sophistication...
I agreed that the notion that a man could go into a store where a group of unarmed human beings are drinking soda pop and eating moon pies, fire a shotgun blast at one of them, tearing his lungs and heart and bowels from his body, turn on another and send lead pellets ripping through his flesh and bones, and that God would set him free is almost more than I could stand. But unless that is precisely the case then there is no Gospel, there is no Good News. Unless that is the truth we have only bad news, we are back with law alone.

What Will Campbell learned that night was a new insight into grace. The free offer of grace extends not just to the undeserving, but in fact to those who deserve the opposite: to Klu Klux Klanners as well as civil rights marchers, to P.D. East as well as Will Campbell, to Thomas Coleman as well as Jonathan Daniels.
This message lodged so deep inside Will Campbell that he underwent a kind of earthquake of grace. He resigned his position with the National Council of Churches and became what he wryly calls “an apostle to the rednecks.” He bought a farm in Tennessee, and today is as likely to spend his time among Klansmen and racists as among racial minorities and white liberals. A lot of people, he decided, were volunteering to help minorities; he knew of no one ministering to the Thomas Coleman's of the the world.

Yancey, Philip. What's So Amazing About Grace? Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1997. pp. 141-145.

well i figure ill get my picture out of the way here... this is me fishing. que obvio. it gives me a bit of weight, which i think necessary. and its not in Spain, its a river in Oregon near the coast. must say it was incredibly beautiful. and cold. you can't tell in the photo, but there is no feeling in my fingers. none. 

You first realize

you have a sore throat coming all at once. You are sitting there when all of a sudden it hits you that there is a small ache when you swallow. It's been there for a couple of hours now, but this is the first you are conscious of it. Slowly it starts in the back of your throat, and by the next morning you've got a full blown sore throat. I think I'd rather have a hangnail.
Well thats what I feel coming on. It makes me want to stay up all night, so I won't have that nasty realization that today will be miserable when consciousness first registers tomorrow morning.
Perhaps it is a bad omen that I have resorted to writing about my health in only my second blog. Perhaps I shall have to write on the weather in my third.
In this way however, I am really setting myself up for success and this will have nowhere to go but up. Just think that if I wrote amazing blogs for the first while, how much more amazing would the later ones have to be! So I will start from humble beginnings, only hoping that one day, I will be blessed enough to have something interesting, or even insightful to write, and will be articulate enough to convey it. -Adios por la segunda vez

number one

So this is my first posting. Or post. Whichever is correct. And I'm just figuring this out. So far so good, I like it. I am sitting here in my room on a cloudy Saturday afternoon, in Badajoz, which is in Extremadura, a province bordering Portugal in Spain, which makes up part of the Iberian Peninsula on the western edge of Europe. Some Spanish radio is playing in the background- Los Cuarenta Principales- which consists of a blend of music from America, Latin and South America, the UK, and of course, Spain.

I'm going to keep this first post short. Or posting. Because I want to see how it all looks. -Adios