Sheesh, what a weekend!
OK. As I’d mentioned in the previous MMP, I had a four day weekend. October 12 is “La Hispanidad”, known to our Canadians as Thanksgiving and to our US’ers as Columbus Day. It’s a national holiday, fixed or mobile, in countries from Equatorial Guinea to the Philippines, including Portugal… but, curiously enough, not in Spain.
Our previous case of Socialist Government (what can I say, from where I stand that party is a disease) took it from the list of National Holidays, claiming that it’s offensive to… every other country which celebrates it. Every Autonomous Region then went and made it into a Regional Holiday, with the exception of the Basque Region/Euskadi; according to one of their local TV’s programs “we have to show our bollocks are bigger than the rest of Spain’s, and can’t come up with a better way to do so than by being at work while everybody else hikes it down to the Fiestas in Zaragoza. After all, it’s 'bout bollocks and not brains.”
Anyway. Mom came up to visit. She wanted me to go to Tudela and pick her up, but I pointed out that, since I was supposed to leave work at 6 and might have French class (in the end I didn’t), between picking her up and leaving her back on Sunday it would pretty much eat up the weekend. So instead she took the bus (that’s what they’re for, yes Mom) and had lunch with a friend. She later complained to me that the bus is real expensive (6E), thus giving me a straight line to point out that each car trip eats 30E, oopsies. I’ve mentioned before that her main organ is her wallet, haven’t I? There were also other straight lines, for which I may or may not go to Hell but oh boy did I take them.
On Thursday we went to the supermarket; the local one opens every day, with the excuse that it’s got a bakery section and you can’t leave people without bread, can you? No you can’t; like us, there were quite a few people buying Home Improvement items. As I put the B&D to recharge after hanging some pictures, the phone rang.
It was a headhunter, for a job in A Country That Shall Not Be Named (A Country from now on, and I don’t know whether someone linked with that job Dopes, ok? It’s not like you can ask “hey, do you ever visit this webpage?”). Mom’s first reaction was “oh but your current job is permanent!” “yes Mom, but since when are ‘permanent’ contracts permanent?” “hrm. True. So, how much does it pay?” Since the offered pay would be about twice as much as I make, she started planning the move straightaway 
(I have mentioned her wallet, haven’t I?)
I reviewed my CV and sent it that evening. On Friday, we went for a walk in the mountains. Like many towns in Spain, the village where I live has an ermita, a little church outside of town where religious parades called romerías go during local holidays. These romerías used to be a social high point of the year all through Spain and, for Navarra and the Basque Country, a favorite excuse to ir de vistas (which I’ll explain later). As we were climbing, the phone rang again: the headhunter, saying that he lovedlovedloved my CV I’m perfect for the job but he’d like me to puff up some the stuff I’ve been doing the last five years. OK. Mom was frantic, she had to sit down because she was hyperventilating. She asked if I was going to go back and send it straightaway, but I had no intention to do so. The ermita was a tad further than I’d thought but we got there. The whole path is paved in concrete, we passed a couple farms and some unpaved side paths. While we were at the ermita, I called Grandpa to congratulate him on his saint’s day (October 13th is St Edward and I’d forgotten to call him on the 10th, which is his Bday) and he told me that they didn’t have any clouds in Barcelona because they’ve sold them all to… A Country. Now, Mom’s bruja, not as in Wiccan but in the sense that she reads portents in anything from the shape of the clouds to the way a bird looks at his she-bird; if religion didn’t exist, she would invent it. So this coincidence sent her into mystic fits; it got even weirder when she realized that an item she’d said she’d give me before the first call is from A Country too.
After we got home, she started cooking lunch while I redid the CV as per the example the headhunter had sent and resent it to him. It’s funny: CV-people usually say you should limit it to one page, mine is two (fitting everything into one would be a telegram) but for this kind of jobs they usually run 4 or more. So the one I sent was 4; he called later to say he’d received it and was forwarding it.
She switched the TV on: aaaaah, how cute, the first Christmas Movie of the season! Yep, yesterday was October 12, so we’re already getting Santa on TV. Where was the main character’s pa on business? A Country, of course! I swear I’ll have to stock up on herbal teas…
Lilbro’s birthday was the 7th and The Nephew’s is the 18th. I’d ordered a small piece of furniture for Lilbro’s present; on Friday the store called to say they had it so on Saturday we went down to Pamplona to visit my paternal family’s grave and pick this furniture up. Spanish cementeries are outside of towns, surrounded by high walls (to keep morons out, not the dead in); someone told me this comes from the desamortización de Mendizábal, when a XIX century government took most of the goods of the Catholic Church, but that makes no sense. You find cementeries like this all over Latin America and in parts of Italy as well: by the time of Mendizábal, many of those didn’t belong to Spain any more. So I think it may be related to the Plagues.
Anyway, the cementery in Pamplona dates from the earliest years of the XX century; plots were originally sold “forever”. Recently the town’s government wanted to claim them back and resell them, but since this affects over 75% of their voters and people were Pretty Pissed, they backed up (the mayor is from out of town, so she hadn’t realized what kind of shitload she was creating with that bright idea). Our plot is on St John’s street; the grave itself is pretty clean but I’m going to go the weekend before All Saints and clean it up some. The oldest names are chiseled but not painted, newer ones are chiseled and painted in black. Every time we have a funeral we say “we should paint the first ones” but we never do; since I happen to have a small pot of black paint at home, I’ll also do that. The cementery is not really outside of town any more: while we were there, a social club nearby was blasting the Crazy Frog version of We Are The Champions at a volume which was evidently not enough to wake the dead (although it tried). If you haven’t heard that “song” believe me, you ain’t missing nothing.
The rest of Saturday was spent hanging up more stuff and letting our poor legs and feet rest. Mom has a nasty blister from the trip to the hermita, she needs to walk more.
Oh, doh, I forgot: just as we were about to leave for Pamplona, I got a phone call. For another job, one that pays less and which would imply moving to Paris. Said “thanks but no thanks at this time, anyway since I know you always need people I’ll send you my CV when I’m available next.” Someone pass the herbals FAST! Mom spent the whole trip to Pamplona asking “you’re not going to go to Paris NOW, are you? I mean, if you’re ever unemployed again ok, but, uh…” “Mom, keep on asking and I just might, ok?” “Sorry”. Two kilometers later: “then you’re not going to Paris, right?”
On Sunday… on Sunday, while I was taking a bath, Mom rearranged all my closets and most of the knick-knacks. :smack: Good thing I don’t have a lot of closets! Why does she do this? She did the same when Lilbro and her came to see me in Philly and I hate it. I know, I know, she’s anxious and it gives her something to do. Well, I wish she’d do it with her closets, that’s all.
We drove to Tudela, where she and my bros live, deposited the new shelves at Lilbro’s new place and went home. She didn’t want me to tell anybody, but I did tell Lilbro so he’d know why she’s so nervous (he still lives with her, won’t be moving until his kitchen and bedroom are all set). He said he’ll appreciate it if I do get a guest room like I usually do, or at least scout nearby hotels so he can come visit 
After lunch, Mom switched the TV on. First piece of the news? About A Country, of course! Watching her “oh my oh my” all aflutter, Lilbro turned to me and asked “should I call an ambulance, you think?” “Only if she starts having a funny color” “Oh, OK.”
Ir de vistas (go on sightings): it’s the way local marriages would get sort-of-arranged. Families with children of marriageable age would, after checking to make sure that the bloodlines weren’t too close, “happen” to meet in a romería or another festival. It might be one to which neither family had ever gone before but, you know, that year they both “happened” to. The girl and boy would be let to walk together (watched by every relative through the corner of their eyes) and, later on, their same-sex parent would ask “so, what did you think of him/her?” If the “seeing” was favorable, the families would “chance” to meet again several times until one of the two parts called off the “sightings” or a wedding was arranged.
(The 'net connection at work was down until 12:30pm, sorry)
