Dragon Slaying Required

On Thursday I cleaned out my office top to bottom. I find getting organized is a great way to declutter my mind. I have too much going on to suffer a brain full of unnecessary clutter.

You would think that having given away almost everything when we moved to Spain, we would be clutter-free. But not so much. And an office is often the de facto dumping ground for ‘I’ll deal with this later.’ It’s no wonder my elliptical is in there, too. Apparently, I subconsciously feel exercising can be dealt with later, as well. 😯 Soon, the piles had piles. Getting to the printer on top of my file cabinet was a treacherous journey of shin bruising. It was time to put a stop to later, and deal with it all now.

It’s not so bad once you pull everything out into the hall and sort through things one by one with the appropriate music playing. Under one pile I found a painting my Dad had given me right before he died. On that last visit in Christmas of 2019, on the threshold of the world turning upside down. I don’t know how it ended up under all that paper, but I stood there on our little farm seven thousand miles away looking at a painting of my grandmother Maggie’s house in Seattle. From childhood, I have always loved this painting. But in the past three and half years I haven’t had it framed. It had been propped against books in the apartment in Valencia throughout the pandemic. And then it seemed to disappear after we moved hereto the farm in Galicia. I’m ashamed to say I had forgotten about it. But now, here it was again, reminding me how much it means to me. Not just because it’s my grandmother’s house. Nor that my Dad – who never gave away his possessions lightly – bestowed it upon me. This house is what I based an early scene referenced in my book slated for release on July 30th. For me, this painting is a time machine. It was high time I treated it with more respect and protected it.

An Epic Sesh With The Lunch Ladies

Yesterday, I drove into Santiago to have my hair done. Every salon in Spain wants to cut my hair pixie-short so I have decided to surrender. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun with it. I call it Vacation hair without the vacation. They say blonds have more fun, so why not?!!😉 Afterward, it was high time I enjoyed a Lunch Ladies sesh. These woman of Santiago are just the estrogen top-up I needed. Except we are all in menopause now so between us we couldn’t fill a thimble with that missing hormone. But that doesn’t matter. The uproarious laughter, the tears, the hand holding and hugs of these women are everything. Each of us would happily draw our swords and slay each other’s dragons like the warriors we are. No pretense. No spackling up to cover life’s cracks. Our group was the last occupied table, as this little lunch lasted five hours where we ordered with abandon, including desserts. Then, we moved on to the post-lunch champagne. Because, I’m convinced that there is always something to celebrate. Even if it’s just hot-flashes, or more importantly the fact that we have each other to lean on. During our lunch the sky opened up and epic hail came down upon us, filling the streets with water.

We lunched at my favorite place next to El Corte Ingles. I had brought along my grandmother’s house to stop off and see if I could find a frame. El Corte Ingles is The Nordstrom of Spain – only bigger. And the one in Santiago is huge. My friend, Patti, formerly of San Francisco, has the eye of all of us, and is the official advisor on all things decor. She and I gave the frame selection a spin and decided that featuring the painting was more important than the frame. I still need to matte it properly, but it’s protected for now.

To the Rescue

I sent Jeff a longer version of the hail storm video. He was under his own storm cloud at the farm and decided that my plan to learn to take the MonBus home from Santiago was best left for another, less harrowing lightening-filled day. So he drove in to pick me up, which turned into him parking and coming to find us. More completely unplanned food and beverage consumption later, we rolled into our driveway at ten pm, smiling. My painting has a frame, my hair is much blonder, and my heart is fuller from an epic Lunch Ladies sesh. Dragon-slaying, and all.