In Which Team Pants Arrive in Spain

"No, you don't know."

These were the first words my wife uttered to me when I answered, "I know" to her question, "Do you know how much I have wanted to be here?"

Well, as it turns out, I didn't know. She's alive here in a new way. Not to imply a lack of life elsewhere, stateside and all that. To the contrary; Spain, and most of Europe it seems, evulses a creative surge in my girl's demeanor, her vivre, her happiness. It is no mere accident her name is Felicity. But it is not always evident, say, if you're her dialysis patient trying to refuse treatment, that she's a happy happy girl. It's not always evident that she is searching for the best in everyone. It's not always right at the surface that this woman gives one hundred percent of her energy, all the time, to whom upon which she focuses. She just is; trust me. And here, in Andalusia, the blossoms are in Springtime.

Malaga greets us with a warm, Mediterranean breeze that blows the night's darkness in swirls around the lit lamps and shiny streets. The evening involves us intricately with gentle nudges and eddies that pull us onto further corners of it's glow. Malaga.

Our pensione is called Rosa. La Senora calls to us after we arrive and acknowledges they do have vacancy. "Arriba" she says. From where we are not sure. Felicity thinks senora is behind a door to our left. But I believe she's on the landing above. She is. I say, "Arriba. Si?" "Si." She replies, and we climb the four flights of stairs towards her voice. On the top stair landing we are presented with a lovely, albeit tiny, room with a small balcony overlooking an even tinier (tinyer?) alleyway from which the smells and savory scents of fresh fried fish flow upwards through our open doors. Now, with my wife hungry for Spain and fish, we descend upon the alley with the gusto of a tomcat to the mouse carcass.

Our fat and balding servant does not speak english. That's OK. I'd have been disappointed if he did. I don't speak Spanish. Ha! Far from it. I speak a universally understood colloquial spooge of hand gestures and facial expressions largely gathered from my travels in the U.S. They seem to go over nicely here, except when it comes to verbs and nouns. I defer to my wife.

We did eat. I swear. The fried octopus made me weep. It was bomb diggity good eatin', to paraphrase the Cajun folk. The baby mussells, drowned in butter and lemon juice did for to make a salavation or two. We et. We did depart, well fed. We did expotition. And that's a story for manana. Which brings up the question: how do you spell the word describing the letter N with the funny squiggle cloud over it? Enya? Sail away, sail away, sail away....


I remain,


soup