numbface

Its a pleasant morning--sunny with scattered clouds and a bit of breeze. Not hot, but also not chilly or raining like a few mornings ago. (?!) So far I've done these things: some stretching, breakfast, email and news catch-up, grocery and fruit shopping (for a friend's bday party tonight and a picnic/goodbye party at my house tomorrow), and, ah, yes, the dentist. Hence the title of today's post. I got a filling removed and a new one put it. This because the old one was just temporary, or something? They wanted to do a crown? But they told me here it wasn't necessary. So I'll take a 55 euro new filling-job over a several hundred (800?) crown-job in the States... Maybe I should go to the eye doctor here, too...

Anyway, so just when I was putting on some music and settling down with a couple of Hemingway books and literary translation articles I decided I'd procrastinate a liiittle longer and write a blog post. [[Queen of Procrastination.]]

This weekend was an adventure to the Netherlands--primarily for Windmill Windup, the largest grass tournament in Europe: 82 teams, three divisions (Open, Women, Mixed). I went with the team from Madrid, Los Quijotes. I have a lot of good friends on that team, and we had a great time. (Despite the wet and chilly weather the first two days that had me cursing the country and wondering why I'd ever left Spain...Did I mention we were camping? We were camping. And there were too many of us in the tent... But I digress...) We ended up 14th (?) out of about 33 teams in our division, which isn't so bad, considering a lot of these teams are going to Worlds in a month.

After the tournament I went into Amsterdam with a friend and went to a delicious thai restaurant he knew of. Mmm. We walked about the center for a bit, then he hopped on a train to go home and I found my way to my gracious hosts' house. (A fun Canadian couple who had been at the tourney. And friends of a friend. Yay, frisbee world!) The next day I wandered about a bit then met a friend who was also in the city for the day. We went to the VanGogh museum (my main complaint: too expensive--and no student discount!). It was a small museum, which is actually kind of nice because you can see everything without rushing or getting overwhelmed. (I have that problem in big museums.) Most of the famous works are not housed there, at least not on permanent collection, which is kind of too bad. In Paris, I suppose? But it was still nice and there were some works by other artists that I also really liked.

Then we went to a delicious bakery! and a huge park. (Dear Spain, please increase the number of these two things in your cities... they are both awesome.) Then more wandering about the center, looking at funny lean-y buildings, pleasant canals, flowers, orange-ness, and bicycles. Lots of them. And it was a lovely day. Luck, for once. The next day I was back on a plane to Madrid and then the usual bus ride home. yippee. Nice trip.

Sunday, June 6, 2010. evening.

The cat that's been hanging out on the roof across the street all afternoon is now trying to catch a bird that just flew in under one of the tiles.

There's a beautiful sunset to the West, and beautiful mountains to the East, still snow-capped and rosé-tinted from the setting sun.

The air is perfect: cool and refreshing after a hot, sunny (beautiful) day, but still warm enough for me to be sitting on our balcony in my shorts and not much of a top...

There are swallows circling overhead and I can almost forget I'm in the middle of a city (albeit in a sweet barrio that's generally quite calm).

The cat continues to wait out its prey: I think there is a nest under there somewhere.

The reds and oranges are turning to purples and greys, and the cat waits patiently, haunched and ready.