catching up...

OK I had some issues with my last web hosting company and decided to part ways, as the relationship was not working out. After a long talk, some tears, and them returning some clothing, we parted ways. Of course, when they get drunk or visit a place we went together (the Internet)...they get emotional and call me. It's so hard to not go back to what was once so new and fresh and satisfying. I'll admit to still holding onto memories and missing the comfort of knowing my HTML files were being cared for like no other partner had ever before. But that trust has been broken. I am still unclear how it happened and how it could be corrected, but I can't go on like this. After trying, still the fidelity is broken and I needed to move on. Of course they asked for a reason but after a few enticing offers to rekindle our relationship, we both knew it was more than over. Goodbye "50megs.com". Our time was special.

So I am here, placing my words in the care of another. A relationship so new and exciting. A relationship so deep thatI want to go and shout it from the rooftops. I always say, "this is the one" but we will take it one day at a time. See where this relationship goes. Watch it grow. Pretty soon people will refer to us as one name, but right now I can't think of anything as cute as "Bennifer" or "Bradjolina" or "K-Brit-a-Fed". But, only time will tell....

The more things change...

October 7, 2007
So one of the things I am doing here is coaching. My father in law decided to find me work as a coach here with the local soccer club. Tossa de mar has a soccer club called U.E Tossa (Union Esportivo de Tossa). Before I could buy my ticket to Spain, I was offered a position coaching. Can you imagine these Europeans accepting an American coach. Before I left, most of my coaching friends laughed. Due to my insane insecurities, I never thought I was good enough to coach but for some reason, I did it for 8 years. So the new insecurities that festered after the laughter rang out about how American I am, well let's just say many obstacles were abound in my head.
So I land. Within a week I am meeting my soccer club officers and other coaches. I go one night and it's utter chaos. No one is speaking in Spanish...only CATALAN!!! For the love of God! A few questions in Catalan and a few dumb looks from them...well they got the picture. A few more in Spanish...they got a bigger picture. Silence fell on the room as everyone stared at one another and I stared at them. Tis is going to be quite the challenge.
So I show up for he first day of practice. I had passed this practice field a million times as it sits just south of Tossa on this windy mountainous road leading to Lloret, the next town down. Lovely green grass and fresh air... can you ask for more? I go to meet the head coach. I know who he is, his name is Jesus. (Ok let's take a moment. It's pronounced the Spanish way (hey sus) rather than the English biblical Jesus. The funny thing is after a few weeks of he and I working together, I still freak out when I see I have Jesus on speed dial. My mother would be so proud!). Jesus is a friend of my father in law (i keep chuckling when I say something like that). I met him the last night we were here last Xmas (more giggling...I saw Jesus for Xmas and we had dinner. AND there were 13 people there...no really only 11 but I had you going).
Anyhow, I show up at practice. My whole world was blown wide open. Jesus was sitting on the side line watching the practice from a plastic lawn chair. There was another guy, named Roach (no weird pronunciation...just Roach) who was running the practice. Far as I can tell, I supposedly am taking the place of this guy. You see, Roach's job was to physically prepare the team. I guess that's my role. The team had not shown up yet so we had time to bond in Spanish.
Back home I was coaching girls from ages 9 to 13. My former club said I had a disposition of being patient. Whatever does that mean. So for the past 8 years, I have been groomed as much as I groomed some of Short Pumps more upstanding blond haired pony-tailed young ladies. Now I am faced with these awesome, young and lean 16 year old boys. Ok this is the part where the record scratches. These boys are bigger than me I swear. They are like Roman Gladiators and I am scared. How can I prepare them physically when I have little ideal of their thresholds? I mean with 12 year old girls I run them until their cheeks turn red. Really screws you up when you have a black girl or two on the team :)
Anyhow, they are big, strong, fast and skilled. The run like machines and gracefully work the ball like no other youth team I had ever see. I almost cried. My eyes teared up, but not from sheer joy...Jesus was firing up a cigarette. He barked out orders with puffs of smoke billowing out of his mouth. Now we all know I smoke, but never in front of my team. Hell I won't smoke in front of my mother and I am 35 years old! So while Roach was warming up the motley crew, I decided, why not strike up a rally of us all smoking. Just then, Roach came over and asked me for a cigarette! The three of us sat there smoking while the boys did their stretching. OMFG...will the boys come over to smoke too?
Well to finish off this story, the team and I are doing well. there are 4 boys who speak English. 2 I use to translate when I have something immediate and important to the team, and the other two speak with me as best they can. I work with each kid individually in Spanish afterwards. We have had one friendly and two games so far. Unfortunately, Sebastian, has a bit of a temper and got red carded for drawing back to hit another player who fouled him hard. As an assistant coach I walked him to the dressing room and it's a good thing for me, he is one of the English speaking players. I guess being the only American in this place, I feel like I have a dark cloud over my head. I hear people whispering, "Hay, el Americano!". Now I know what Monica Lewinsky felt when she went out in public. Everyone thinking they know you, afraid to talk to you, but knowing your name or who they THINK you are. Let's face it people, I stick out like a sore thumb. I am Big Hoos 9000!. The point of this is that the boys have done all they can to make me feel welcome. They all greet me when they see me on the field. They greet me if they see me on the street. And they are excellent to Alex when Alex has practice (2 of the boys help with his team). So when I had a chance to help one of the boys, well that's what coaching and mentoring is all about. Sebastian and I had a conversation which led to him apologizing to me, Jesus (insert joke) and the whole team for letting us all down. It's hard to see a kid with such skill and disposition lose his adolescent mind in a flash. I can see Sebastian going far. The kid is immaculate at left forward.
Anyhow, I feel like, with this team I am hitting my stride and fitting right in. They accept me as one of their own even if there are some language-barriers. Still, this will work out just fine. But as soon as my comfort level was reached...Jesus gave me a new task: take a 4 hour class with the club on coaching...all in CATALAN!!!! Now, I have a national coaching license in America. Do you think that matters at all? How am I going to pass the test?
Wait...I'll have Jesus with me!

un poco mas (a little more)

October 5, 2007
Ok some smarty decided to comment on using spell check. If you knew me then you know I am too lazy to do so. So let's put up with my deficiency in details...shall we?
So more on the tales of Raphael. If you read before, he is the sensei of concrete work here in Tossa. Picture a drunken old man, stout, with an ill fitted baseball cap, drunkenly slurry his words and carrying the dust of 50 yards of dry cement in his clothes. That's my teacher.
Everything in this god forsaken town is made of concrete. Not steal or wood. Concrete! Wood is used for shutters and framing but not the structures. So Wednesday's job was a phase 2 of the remodeling of a bathroom. The walls covered in ceramic clay tiles are now bare and exposing an ugly grey concrete. Today we chiseled away the floor with a jack hammer to expose the bare structure of concrete held together by rebar. My job: make all the concrete.
So I head outside to make one of three different types of concrete requested by my concrete slave master. This time I am going for Portland. This is really no different that the other types we make but something was in the air and I was feeling confident I was going to get it right this time. This time I used the machine. Of course the machine was what looks like a one man auger (hole digger) and built for a man half my height. So none the less I was hunched over to get my mix-on. Just then, Raphael came outside and disapproved of my recipe. He said to me, "un poco mas arena (sand/dirt base mix)". I looked over at a bag of arena and added what I always though "un poco mas" would be...a little bit more", right? Without knowing what was exactly said by him next, I had the feeling I did not add enough. So I added a bit more....I heard him grumble under his breath as he snatched the bag of arena from me and dumped the whole bag in. Ok now I am confused. Un poco mas means a little bit more not the whole damn bag. I swear if I could read his mind, he wanted to smack me right there out of frustration.
So an hour later, he wanted more. This time I would not fail my sensei and achieve my brown belt of concrete mixing. I know I dumped a whole bag of area this time and came up with the grainiest of mixtures feasible. Raphael cam to check on my progress and without missing a beat he says, "un poco mas agua". I guess the still evident clumps of dry powder were a telling sign. So I grab a water bucket full to the brim and start pouring, remembering that un poco mas is a lot more than a teaspoon. Well I poured so much water, I had to go pee. That will show him! Well looking him in his eyes, I felt a cold chill. This time he wanted to pimp smack me!
When will I ever learn?

Ok it's been a while

October 2, 2007
So here what is going ...
Good news...well I guess it is good. I am working. I am working for my father in law in construction. Anyone who knows me, i am not an outside kind of work guy. I am so comfortable with my morning coffee and my monitor and keyboard, doing some kind of damage. Now I get up 7am, out the door by 8, onsite by 8:01(it's a small town). I am working with a man who is about 60 years old name Raphael. To my surprise, I understand 10% of what he says. Please let it be known that I am seriously overwhelmed here spending m whole day on various repair projects. I do not have Carme to rescue me...but despite my comfort zone, I am learning a lot.
It's only been two days but I am ready to quit. It's not that it's hard work. I do get a good work out. I have so far carried 1000X my body weight in debris and concrete. Yes, I am making concrete. I have never made anything solid before except my son and I needed assistance there. So I am learning how to mix concrete by sight. A little more of this and a little more of that...and then it all falls apart 10 years from now!
So my first job was to dig a trench for a drainage pipe for a new sink and toilet in what should be a changing room for their pool. Yummy! The trench was about 3 meters long thru concrete tile floors and 50 centimeters of deep (I just wanted to impress you with my metrics). My second job was to remove a rotted and termite infested door frame. Funny, the only wood in this god forsaken town is infested. Slim pickings around these parts. Everything is made of stone here. Stone and concrete and tiles made of clay (more on that later). So can you imagine the amount of work to be done? A lot of concrete to hold the door in place. The second day, we had three jobs. the first was to build a concrete retaining wall of sorts. Well I did not build it. Raphael did all the building and I did all the watching. Well I did all the concrete mixing and cleaning up. I feel like he is the wizard and I am the apprentice in the movie “Fantasia”. Then we moved onto another house.
This was a house owned by Germans who spoke really bad Spanish. Not that I speak it better but I could understand enough to know they were not conjugating some verbs. I won't bore you with the details, but I made a lot of concrete. The funny part of this story is the wife. Well the whole job she stayed in the house. Right when I was hauling all the debris around (the part I will put in BOLD in my resume), she came out and kept staring at me and smiling. It was noticeable to a point of uncomfortable ness. She just kept nodding and breathing hard. Sure I have had some stray thoughts that would run across some hot to trot bored housewife living the life on the coast of Spain. But this chick was old enough to be my granny. She said something to my father in law in German about "Americano" and just smiled and waved. she laughed and returned to her heavy breathing and staring. I am not sure if she was asthmatic and had cataracts or something. All I know is I am not in any way hoping to be some pool cleaning guy for some old lady.
My last jo of the day was a remodeling job for a bathroom. Every trip I made out to remove debris, I looked to my left and saw sail boats racing up and down the Mediterranean. Quickly reminded me of what I was looking in life. The job began with removing what seemed like a million clay ceramic tiles from the walls all held by cement. Who ever mixed that cement was a genius. With mallet and chisel in hand, Raphael and I went to work. After a stirring rendition of a medley of old Negro spirituals(thank goodness for Black History Month), Raphael politely told me to shut up and get back to work (part of the 10% of Spanish I do know). I think he got ticked off when I passed the fake microphone to him right after I did a split in a James Brown like fashion.
Still I take my sore, bloody (ceramic flies off in sharp edges people), bruised and numb mind to my home to sit and watch American TV (which I downloaded) so I can feel a bit at home. 3 more days and I can smile again. Now I truly work for the weekends.