Los Otros

So after a strange week of variable weather, esp. the two and half days of constant fog!!!...as if there were no mountains nor even buildings, just white space with that dropping-off-the-edge-of-the-world feeling, and then a few days of spring weather (for us...we topped maybe 8 degrees?) while it snowed apparently 15 cms in Madrid, and a lot of running around, pushing the workmen forward (they keep getting urgent phone calls and leaving!!...but they always come back), and discovering that once you pull away the old kitchen counter and sink, well you need a new sink as this one is really a patch job (as things were added like a dishwasher) and had also become an awful stinky sink!!oj bjökk!!, and that’s as far as the smiður got on Friday, tearing things apart, which is ok. I’m always positive as I see daily progress, but poor Mundi feels it’s all going too slow. And so today I had a cleaning lady come and between the 2 of us it took five hours to clean the first floor/ basement area...she doing all the “regular” cleaning: vacumning, scrubbing bathrooms (3) and cleaning the little apt. and then washing all the floors, while I basically cleaned all the areas in the garage that hadn’t been touched in years!! Obviously the original lady of the house had felt that this was HIS garage and so did NOT clean it at all. We also had opened all the coverings to the pipes to check for more mouse droppings and so I wiped off 25 years worth of old dust and dirt from those....(I never really told you all about the músaskítur....yes they had a mouse problem about 20 years ago when there still were no actual doors for the garage and so mice got in and had a heyday running through the areas in the walls where the hot water pipes went, eating styrofoam all the way, which they love!! silly mice. So they borrowed a cat to stay in the garage when they finally got doors and I guess that solved the problem. Said cat later had his own adventure after he was returned to his owner—got himself stuck under the hood of a car which when started managed to, oj bara, wound him so that he ran away. They did have a blood trail to follow, found him in a neighbor’s garage—not the same one as above—got him to the vet who saved his life though one leg was a bit shorter. Since then I’m sure he’s lost his “taste” for mice, wouldn’t you think?...and this I got verbatum(sp?) from the original owner’s wife, he not remembering a thing!) Ok, so the downstairs is clean and tomorrow we more a 100 or so boxes into that space. We literally need to move them in order to be able to pack more stuff! And also the freezer and extra fridge and any of Freysi’s furniture that he doesn’t need this next week. Then on the 5th my new cleaning lady/friend and I clean the upstairs (yes, MY workmen WILL be finished!) and on Sunday we officially move the furniture and ourselves and sleep the first night then. That’s the plan. (always good to have a plan, right?) Meanwhile this week we must buy a sink, pick up the curtains we ordered, get more boxes and tape, take lots of trash to Sorpa (our local recycling dump—I “clean up” after the workmen and they are very appreciative, smile), do our change-of-address (which also applies for you, Úlla mín), and, and, and......I think it’s my bedtime, once again, blæblæ.
ps: maybe we’ll count books as we unpack, for those curious people who want to know the true extent of our(my) bibliomania....it has or will all be read at sometime and by someone. (hey!, isn’t that sort of like that Lincoln quote, “....you can fool all the people sometime....and some of the people all the time....but you can’t lead a cat to his food bowl?....not to mention his litter box, oh no! And guess what!! Silly Senora Kisa might be knocked up again!!..this time with a local wild cat (you know, the kind with sunglasses and a black beret and probably even a black turtleneck...). It is time to stop oh wonderous fog,...log!!....no, blog!!

ok...a 10-minute blog....my(our) current situation.....but before we delve into THAT, here’s a “news flash”!—29 years ago today, Mundi and I became a couple, team, pair, friends-for-life, soulmates, whatever!! ( and it is actually mother’s day here in Iceland, also in the states?). This is more than half our present age and still lots of fun! Why, today we spent “quality time” taking down lights, packing all kinds of k-nick k-nacks and framed photos, helping Freysi put up bamboo curtains in the new place, taking apart a closet and moving it into Darri’s new room, admiring the tiles in the garage that were being put down this weekend, moving more book boxes into our front geymsla at the end of the garage(there are now 52 boxes sitting there waiting to be moved next weekend), and some of these things done with our boys. The situation is that the downstairs will hopefully all be ready by next weekend so we can move all kinds of stuff into “storage” as well as get Freyr’s apt. all set up. We’re hiring someone to come and clean all the dust. And as soon as the upstairs is done being painted, then we can start to really move furniture and ourselves. The stairs will come whenever, and we are also having a new stove and oven put in, which also means a new kitchen counter (though I’m keeping the sink as it’s a big double stainless steel that is hard to find these days), and all of this IS being recorded and maybe the easiest is to make photo discs and send each of you a copy? (or someone can tell me how to squeeze, shrink!, þjappa, smoosh? a jpg, pja, whatever file, so I can send it email?) I know,I know, no funny stories this time.....each day is a fun, dustfilled day, as I continue to sort and pack and and then go and chat-up the work guys so they’ll be happy to do stuff for us (plus it’s interesting!!), and Otró gets “leaner”, starting to show all those “dust lines”(around pictures...wierd!), and Rauðó gets more familiar....and now I must go to bed. And today it was spring, but last Wednesday it was furotious(how do you spell that?) winter weather with all roads, land, air and sea, out of Reykjavík closed, so that Mundi stayed home from Akranes( and we spent money for the house!) and Elli and Gunnar (painter and múrari) didn’t feel like going to their regular jobs, so they spent the day at our house, lucky us!!
ok, I’m pooped, and I’m going to go to bed and try and read a page or two of the Laurie R. King book I’m reading, Night Work (Kate Martinelli detective series...I’ve told you, Hildur, about her books, and Freyja too). This summer will just have to be a serious catch-up-on-reading-all-the-books-we-own. That is, must NOT spend money on books anymore, for now (Mundi thinks we have about, shhhh, 10,000 books!) Góða nótt!!

Since today is the first day in a very long time that I have absolutely nothing that I have to do (relatively speaking, there´s always laundry, shopping, balls of hair flying around the house waiting to be swept away...) I decided to use the chance and blog a little bit.
The last five weeks have been extremely busy for us, me with exams in the university and having to prepare my classes every day, studying for my Willems courses, Manu going to Zaragoza every two weeks to work.. And in between, whenever we had a chance we studied for our four concert cycle that just finished too. These concerts were arranged by Javier, Manu´s older brother. All four together were a small trip through the history of music, starting with Bach, then Beethoven, then Schubert and Brahms and finally Debussy and Ravel. Javier stood up to talk about the pieces and we played examples of the different melodies that the audience would listen to in each piece. Then at the end we played the pieces from beginning to end. This way of organizing the concert created something special between us and the audience, it was the first time that I´ve heard such a silent and interested public, no coughing, no yawning, no clapping at the wrong time. We were much less nervous too, since it was a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and since the pieces had been introduced to the audience beforehand, they seemed to be able to enjoy it more. Everybody was very happy, it seemed to be a success and they invited us back whenever we wanted. And since it pays pretty well, that was great news too :)
So today I´m going to relax with my crazy cats, flop down on our new couch (which is great b y the way, we´ve never had a real, comfortable couch before, and now we want to stay at home all day being couch potatoes), read a good book (I´m actually reading too many at the time, The Name of the Rose, Beethoven biography, anthropology, anthroposophy....), watch tv, maybe sleep some more, and wait for Manu to come home from Zaragoza. Tomorrow we might go to a movie (all these things that we haven´t done in such a long time seem like a treat now!) to celebrate our six months of a married couple, yay! That was the 10th Feb and the 7th of February was my three year anniversary of living in Spain. It seems like a long time, but then when I think of everything that has happened in that time, it´s seems even longer.
Anyway, I´ll just go start my day of couchpotatoing and wait for more fun news from mamma of her adventures at Raudagerdi!!

The secret of blogging has to be short entries, and lower expectations(from one’s self) in order to keep family and friends in on events (ah!!!the fascinating events of daily life!) So, here it comes, the new year’s approach, blog-bites!
As of yesterday, we’ve had the new house for exactly three weeks. Much has happened, but one doesn’t necessarily know it by looking(?). At least this is how Mundi feels sometimes when he comes to take a look. He is so busy in this flu season (300 kids this last month), that he can barely see straight by the evenings and has had to himself fight of a couple of infections (though none of us so far have gotten the real flu, 7-9-13). So when he comes by or hears what’s been done, he starts to worry that it might get too dragged out and so not be done by the time we need to move in. I, however, am there everyday usually, troubleshooting, so to speak (making decisions without consulting Mundi!!!argh!), and I feel like I see steady results. This is what has been done so far:
A big square hole cut between the 2 floors for the circular staircase that is being made by a local company that makes steel things....this one will be a matt grey with parquet steps; the downstairs “fake” kitchen in the little “studio” apt. was ripped out as was the flooring and a door was cut between that apt. and this big room that was used just for storage and had been only accesible through the garage; another door was cut from the garage into the apt. that Freyr will be renting...that door will be a “fire” door as will the original door into the storage, meaning special doors have been ordered that will be put in this week; all the electrical switches and plugs are being replaced(the plugs were these flat Italian types that are no longer used), everything upstairs has been spackled and gotten ready for painting (by Elli, Elli’s son); the kitchen was slightly changed in that a couple of cabinets were removed so our big fridge would fit; a hole between the kitchen and living room was filled in (the owner had some special sort of hole for his big tv); and another shelving contraption that the owner, a building contractor himself, had made for a smaller tv/video set up was removed(that took the carpenter almost the whole day, so well was it built into the wall!); and so forth!(there’s probably more that I can’t remember at this late night moment). All of this has many little stories, all quite human. And each day I get to know these guys a bit more. I’m going to stop here and try to elaborate more later.....we’re having gale warnings tonight and there’s lots of rain as well....at least it’s above freezing and all the ice is gone now. And it’s just as well that we have four-wheeldrive cars, because our new place has an uphill entry-road that when covered with ice is impassable for people on foot! In fact on one of the days that I arrived, I had to basically hang onto the edges of my car (the spaces in front of the house were taken by the workmen and the previous owner who’d come to fix some things) and pull myself along until I found a slightly sandy spot, at which point the previous owner(let’s give him his name:Gestur) came and offered me his arm to help me up the incline! ( obviously his shoes had more traction than mine......he also likes to play the gentleman, so why not let him, grin.After all I must have looked pretty funny hanging onto the end of my old Nissan with my feet sliding away!). Yes the place is beginning to grow on me....having time to adjust and change it is good. Meanwhile (back at the ranch...) daily life is driving Darri and packing endless boxes of books(with Mundi groaning in the background...teehee). Stay tuned for further bloggbits, bloggits? I too think of all of you a lot everyday.(ok, who’s that snorting in the background! I can hear you!!)