ok, so today is friday, which means i have to work late.....i do not do well on long days.....in fact, the last half of a long day seems to unfold like slow-mo, but my control over actions seems on a 5 second delay.......i do not know how nurses working 12 hour shifts can do anything right..as i cannot seem to cook well after the 8th hour.......now that we have hired a real chef to work the new nightly hours, i am prepared to be humbled by my cooking...i have always had more guts than talent, and this will certainly shine when a trained and talented individual joins me in the kitchen on a regular basis.....i do not even use pro knives...just ones with big black built up handles designed for the elderly (elderly meaning at least 30 years older than me....) with arthrtis.......of course, these knives help my hands and wrists tremendously........i do hope to be the old dog that learns new tricks during the next few months.......

ok, so i heard today that centre college food service will soon file for a liquour lisc..........presumably for cowan, the rac, and the warehouse.......rather ironic for a college that discourages alcohol to sell it.....

ok, so mean mamma listened to gwb for the ride home from work tonight, and became too upset to listen to the rest of the bless-ed speech on tv when she got home......he has no clue......there is not much more to say beyond this fact.....

ok, so mean mamma has just found out that she has a court date in the morning...it appears that i am the executrix of my father's estate only after the probate judge deems me so, and that i must sign any checks written on my father's account until the will is settled, even though the account is a joint one with my mother, and that she cannot collect his life insurance until the probate process is settled......and she will have to pay me a stipend for doing this......even though everything in question is already hers, with her name on it all .......i won't question tge stipend, however...maybe it will be enough for a ticket to florence......

ok, so i watched the school/business closings this morning,....and scw commented ..what are you waiting for ? kcw 1 hour delay? ......well, yea.......i don't want to go to work any more than you want to go to school...i would love to hunker down on this really cold day with a cup of coffee....maybe even go back to bed for awhile.........

ok, so scw and i set out to see adaptation, but by the time we reached burgin the snow was coming down to the point that we slowed down to 35 mph, and we ended up missing the 3:30 start time.......man-of-war alone seemed to take an hour, and semed to have 18 traffic lights, all red.......we ended up seeing about schmidt, which had characters and props/locations/vehicles/situations eerily similar to my family experiences.........the r.v., the hummels, the tacky wedding soloists, the tourist attractions....it is still not clear to us whether this film was comedy or tragedy or drama...because there were elements of all three........and having seen kathy bates naked getting into her hot tub i will just have to kick start my walking program........

ok, so mean mamma is thinking about going to a movie this afternoon...in lex...maybe adaptations...there are so many movies i would like to see now....the hours, the rabbit proof fence, chicago, and so many more that i could see on video if i would only drive out to the video place........i guess it is not the drive out there, it is the drive back out there the next day....or eventually if i rent for more than one day.....

speaking of driving, mm drove over to lawrenceburg yesterday to purchase a few of the prospective 'beverages' for our wine and beer list.....some sugestions that were made by a potential distributor regarding beer- ky ale and siera nevada ale are not memorable...quite a bite......i do like the australian white suggested....by austin vale and another by mcpherson.....someone else will have to pick the reds, because i do not care for reds.......while drinking our biting ber, ecw and i watched our video a room with a view.....this is an oldie but goodie...and we had forgotten how much we like it...of course the discussion went to 'why have you been to france 11 times but never to italy?' well, i do not know...maybe i could be forced to go to florence.......as long as my room has a view.........

ok, so mean mamma had a brush with true meanness and walked away....well...not really walked away...as i am still sitting here, but resisted the temptation.....by mistake, when choosing a site, mm chose by mistake something that dealt with bin-login.cgi or something......and mm sat looking at a greymetter login page, with a really nice emily dickinson quote....not knowing......i open every door.......isn't aging horrible...can't remember 10 words for 10 minutes...but anyway....i resisted the temptatrion to sign on as scw......not really a temptation, as no one would have believed it for a moment.....

ok, so the mean mamma is overjoyed......ecstatic.......over-the-top.......our whirpool bathtub, the one that wouldn't drain for the past 24 hours because the drain pipe goes through an un-insulated section of our ancient home.....AND WAS FROZEN....has now decided to thaw enough in this marvelously sunny afternoon to let all of the water out.....life is good when the pipes all drain.......life is also good because i have returned something that i had forgotten that i had.....last year, in strasbourg, when the weather was so bitterly cold, helen willis lent me a fur-lined lumberjack hat....i found it in my suitcase when i packed for the spain trip......now a year as passed by, so what does one do when one discovers such a breach in memory? one takes the hat back along with a sutiable peace offering...........we had a nice visit, especially the part when the precious willis cat was sitting on my car roof........

i drove over to the rasmussen/willis home in ecw's new mid-life crisis car- a vw cabrio (used, of course) black with tan leather interior and a convertable top.....it is much too nice for me to drive.....of course, now that i am again used to a 5 speed.....this is a piece of cake.....

ok. so i am up much earlier than i would like, as we have a brunch thismorning...some sort of shower.....the timing is laughable, as if it is a baby shower, the poor mamma would rather be in the bed til the sun is way up and if she is getting married, well, let's not go there.......we had reservations for about 30 last night, and ended up feeding 60...we ran out of almost everything...the last customers got the last 6 stalks of asparagus......in the lex herald leader, in the saturday section on gardeing/decorating/ etc there is an article featuring a mother and daughter in their new sunny laundry room,,,which appears to be bigger than my family room, along with cathedral ceiling and cabinets nicer than i have in my kitchen........now that i am starting on kitchens.....let me just say that in my 2.5 years of catering i find that the people who have the kitchens hire caterers for parties and eat out.....which means they spent a lot of cash on the grand spaces with high-tech counters, equipment, cabinets, etc...and use them basically on thanksgiving and christmas.....on the other hand the people who actually cook in their kitchens tend to make do with minimalist space and equipment......where is this rant going? gentle reader, please do not presume than the mean mamma is bitter that she does not have a grand kitchen....if i had the cash to buy a better kitchen, i would spend it on plane tickets, hotels, and rental cars in far away places...........and still make do with the kitchen i have.....i am thinking about investing in a new pasta pot, however............

ok, so when my husband cleaned out the crawl-space in the eaves beside our bedroom, he came up with some unexpected things.....among them a portfolio of art pieces i did in a class at osu...my one and only art class which explains why i majored in a science.....there is a self-portrait, a collage, a textural piece, a van gogh wannabe, the requisite charcoal drawing of a cylinder, block, etc,........i will store these along with the 'portrait' done of me by my boyfriend freshman year...which portrays me as a clown....he must have thought he was being clever....crown/clown..... get it? he found many of his college belongings...among them reel-to-reel tapes and a tape player......lots of jazz, blues, etc.....one doesn't see reel-to-reel anymore.....

somewhere i might be able to lay my hands on poetry i wrote in college and graduate school......certainly not too involved nor rhythymicbut mine......i also have some pen and ink drawings that i have framed and on display that i did in graduate school as a form of procrastination.....again, not particularly good, but matted and framed and placed with framed photographs they are almost pleasing.....

tonight david anderson and a group of centre people ate at trc as part of an interview process......i always greet d.a. with condolences that the nobel committee excuded him yet another year......i generally joke and say that david is my only shot at actually knowing a nobel winner.....he always laughs, but he really believes down deep that he will win one day.........anyway, this time i had to stop and think, because there are so many talented people in the current sophomore class.....i may actually know a future nobel poet/literature laureate......of course, she keeps changing her web page, just when i was really liking the blinking, sultry eyes......

ok, so for what it is worth, mean mamma thinks that danville should have called off school today....it is just too cold for kids who walk to school, and that is the point of a city school system.....most kids walk.....and some of them have no gloves or hats to wear.....well, the c-w children have rallied and located at least 1 matching pair of gloves apiece.....as a mother, i am so proud.....

ok, so there is this paramedic in england who stitched up prince william's head in 1991, and recieved a thank you note from prince charles and princess diana......and now he is to auction it off next week, with a minimum bid of $2400.........i am aghast at this notion of auctioning off thank you notes.....especially ones from charles and di...if i had one i would have it framed and in a place of honor.....but i wouldn't sell it......given that sentiment, i should theoretically save every thank you note i have ever received in case the sender becomes famous..........of course i expect that some of my favorite bloggers will become famous, but that is another story entirely.....i have few actual live encounters with the famous....last year i was within smacking distance of mitch mcconnel, but smacking him would have been bad for business so i demurred.....i also saw the guy who plays niles crane on frasier in the louvre....and i have the autograph of don ameche (an oldies but goodies actor) that i got in the waiting area of charles degaulle years ago....it pains me that charles degaulle loks mispelled and i cannot think how it shoud be......for that matter mispelled looks mispelled........ah well.....

ok, so there is snow on the ground, and a windchill of negative proportions, and neither of my children at home can find matching gloves/mittens...somehow each has managed to lose one or both of every pair provided by their parents.....we may be going back to the mittens connected by a little string thing.............

ok, so i enjoyed the piece in the new yorker about demetri martin, who writes palindromes, and poetry, and palindromes that are poetry,.......he wrote this funny little piece called 'All The Words Written on a Bottle of Rolling Rock in A Different Order'... in part....

Women, your ability to operate extra tender springs from birth.
Good machinery comes as your contents cause enjyment.
Cash, beer, a car: rock and rolling.
During 'it' the general warning:
'We may risk pregnancy acording to old problems'

it has occured to me that the talk of the town section fo the new yorker is nothing but longish blogs......

on other subjects....roe vs wade has been on my mind.....30 years of reproductive rights that the religious minority may be able to pry from the grasp of american women....i heard a piece on npr this afternoon about how the bush administration has had government web sites pull any reference to contraception, as bush is pro-abstinence and contraception information could push young girls and boys into premarital sex......frankly, i don't see bush as 'virgin at time of marriage' material, so lightening will strike him eventually for his hypocracy........speaking of lightening strikes...his stance on michigan's affirmative action policy is laughable, in that the only way that bush got into yale was because his family connections was like catching the golden snitch- an automatic 150 points.....not just a measly 20 out of 150 points given to students of color at u of m.....

ok, so in my eku class tonight i made reference to myself as the m.m...it was in context of food buying habits...ie we don't buy candy, cokes, cookies, chips, etc.....and someone asked me how my family handled the deprivation, and the term mean mamma just came out of my mouth......of course, i am mean liek that when it comes to not buying junk food.....i won't buy it of it is not a holiday with food traditions.......but i do not deprive my children of these treats...they are allowed to buy whatever they want with their own money......anyway, i changed the subject, because my mean mamma-ness may be for the anonymous worldwide web but not for my nutrition class......

ok, so mm's neighbors have yet to remove all of their lights....last night walking on the treadmill i spied the glow of multicolor through the side window.....strange, by the placement of the glow it would seem that they put lights around their hot tub........and liked them so much they are to stay through out the winter......

ok, so when mlk day has come and gone, it is time to bring down the christmas decorations...not the mean mammas...her have been down for many weeks....mm is talking of the following....the house on alta with green and blue lights all over the front door and bushes,........ the house on the main road as i go to work that has both a santa hanging over the door and fake pointsettias on either side of the door.....the house on alta that still has silvery christmas garlands around the door frame and porch posts......come on now...get out the ladder and bring these things at least as far as inside the house......whether they make it into storage is not my worry.......

ok, so mean mamma has a soft spot in her heart for award shows.......not all award shows, but i will confess to watching the entire golden globes last night...i was pleased to see meryl streep win for adaptations (supporting actress) and nicole kidman will for playing virginia wolfe in the hours...i read that book several years ago, and wish to see it on the screen....kidman plays along with juliane moore and meryl streep...not alongside, as that is not how the storyline goes.....it is a complicated story line, but it works.....virginia wolfe is one of my favorite authors.....nicole kidman managed to capture her essense in the clips i have seen.....i do like to watch these shows to see what is being worn..some wear just stunning dresses, while some look merely foolish.....last night renee zellweger was perfect in a black off the sholder in a swirled satin, while sharon stone was frightful in a modified flapper get-up......she was so 'up' dancing about and jumping to her feet at every award as to be chemically altered....poor thing..what was she thinking......one more award, tony sheloub won for monk......he is so perfect as that character....my kind of humor....

ok, so for those who follow these things, the dvd of spirited away comes out 4/15/03..........

ok, so the 'splendid table' interviewed moby this morning on npr about his new restaurant on the lower east side of nyc- called 'teany' because it IS teeny and because they serve tea in ny...get it? tea ny? it is a vegetarian cafe/tearoom with 97 kinds of tea available so far...the locaation was chosen because it was within walking distance of both moby's place and the apartment of his ex-girlfirend who runs the place.....he can therefore walk to get a good meal whenever he is in town...he said that the only rule that he has imposed as owner is the one where no moby music will be played..at any time.....he didn't say anything about a ban on eminem music....but i am certain that the ban on that artist is also implied........moby declined to classify his place as a celebrity hangout.....in that it is so small....not a place to see and be seen.......

ok, so my family acuses me of being sadistic, but not for the usual reasons......i like to watch figure skating..the us nationals were on tv last night, so i was watching.......one after another of the pairs competing did 'throw jumps' and the female partner would miss the jump and skid off into the rink wall.......now, gentle readers, i do not like to watch skaters slide into rink walls......these accidents are incidental to watching ice skating...people do fall down from time to time...my liking to watch skating does not revolve around the possibility that a skater will fall.........i watch in hopes that they will skate perfectly and elegantly without making gasping errors.......nevertheless, those i love made quite big deal over a presumed connection between falls and my preference for watching skating......i plan to watch australian open tennis later today........i will not be watching in hopes that the ball is missed.......just for the record.....

ok, so i was at cnn.com just moments ago when a black stain appeared on screen...it spread until a figure appeared and said' do you like to watch?' which then bled into fear.com......a popup ad...i am personally offended by popup ads......like the one that keeps coming up asking me if i am a smoker over 21..or the one that tells me that my netscape version is too old/slow/indifferent........at the time i was reading about the antiwar protests in d.c. and s.f.....listening to 'ohio' by csn&y, by the way.......there is a major generational gap that still exists when the word protest is brought up...my mother and brother see protests as bad/disloyal/just short of evil and i see them as a 1st amendment right/obligation.....the only demonstration i have personally attended had to do with legalization issues........anyway..... i am not in favor of burning down buildings...like the people at kent state at the time of the massacre remembered in ohio.......npr had a marvelous commentary this week about the draft...the speaker contended that the draft should be limited to children of families that make over $150,000 a year.......which will soon result in the banning of war altogether when that demographic has to sacrifice children......

ok, so i have spent the morning trying to find a copy of the inspiring half-time speech that the osu coach gave to his team during the national championship game......my aunt in cleveland was to email it to me, but it has yet to appear......i went to the osu atheltic department site....not there. though i did discover that i could open an osu email account for free........i am an osu fan, but maybe not to that extent.......

ok,so i am kind of disappointed that the snow may not turn out to be as deep as predicted....i am taking friday afternoon off , anyway.....as saturday i will spend the day cooking in preparation for monday.....

ok, so our keyboard at home has ceased to work on a reliable basis, which explains the numerous run-on words that pop up from time to time in this blog......i found myself last night pounding the space bar to get it to 'space'...quite frustrating when one must wait at least 1 second between words to get an the requisite distance between words to make them suitably readable......

book club was last night...a record crowd......to discuss lewis and clark book undaunted courage.....lots of pontificating about bravery, vision, selflessness....while all that may be so, i found some statements made by my friends to be somewhat disturbing....for example, the statement was made that the indian lifestyle was idyllic until l&c brought siphyllis (sp), whiskey, guns, measles, etc. the reality was that indians were tribal, and frequently fought each other long before l&c showed up....to become a man an indian adolescent must prove himself in battle as well as on the hunt....certain indian tribes already had crazy mixed up morality standards when it came to sex with non-spousals..... (see blogs before trip to spain). the notion that indians were nice people messed up by the white man is quite naive.....anyway, we had good banter helped along by wine, and then coffee to wash down apple pie.....next month the book club meets at my house to discuss my book pick, j. austin's persuasion.....a timely piece about courtship, marriage, and love.....i have been thinking about these issues ever since hearing about the divorce of a centre couple that we have known (distantly) for years and years.....what keeps a couple together and what drives them apart? the couples present last night have been together 20+ years, with only 1 exception......i have known them, for the most part, during the entire 20+ years.....i would be devastated if any of them decided to break up and the wife move to philedelphia......

ok, so we were visited by the 'best of the bunch' wine distrubutor today....a family owned business out of lexington into its fourth generation...the current general manager came himself...the business came through his mother's people..he appears quite savvy about wine and beer.....we may choose glen ellen as our house white,which i coincidentally have in my fridge as we speak....we will be able to sell wine by the bottle,as well as by the glass,but the partially emptybottle can not be removed from the premises.......and we cannot sell unopened wine at all.....on the other hand...we can sell an unopened bottle of beer along with a carryout order.....go figure.....we will offer at least 2 other kinds of chardonnay by the bottle, along with sauvignon blanc, reisling, white zin,and both cabernet and merlot....maybe a pinot noir...with beer we will avoid bud and miller and coors in favor of something like ky ale,kronensburg (sp) etc. none of this can happen until we get our l.l. the distributor cannot legally taste wines with us until we are 'legal'.........

ok, so a few days back home has given me a better perspective on this latest european adventure, and i am ready to identify the top 5 favorite and worst parts of the trip......yeh,yeh,eh, its not friday, but mean mamma is in the mood to summarize today......

The top 5-
1. the jealosies in palaeu guell
2. the hat
3. the staircase at casa batllo/the bench at parc guell
4. the meal at la gramola in barcelona
5. the goya painting of the fighting cats in the Prado

The worst 5-
1. the wine at the Prado cafeteria
2. scraping the rental car trying to park in bilbao/getting stuck at exit of st. sebastian parking garage
3. not being able to 'correctly' say 'la quenta, por favor' at any time or any place in 10 days
4. driving through blinding snow in 3rd gear on the way to madrid
5. panic at top of sagrada familia tower and climb down stairs

ok, so i am listening to meanmamma mix, my xmas gift from acw.....neil young harvest moon......and thinking about book club..wednesday night.....about the lewis and clark expedition...and thinking about the language barrier.....so many different indian dialects.....so few interpretors for the size of the group.....so many times that the whole thing could have falllen apart over misunderstandings....of course, l&c lacked a linguistic backseat driver who corrected their every attempt to speak the language......

ok, so back to the real world......i have printed off my eku class list.....40 students, which is the max i have been told.....oh my......i also spent the day painting cabinets and shelves at the restaurant....so much to do before we reopen next monday....the newly painted walls, upolstered banquettes, and new carpeting make a striking difference....certainly an upgrade in terms of image.....we are in a quandry (sp?) regarding when to open up for additional evenings...we had thought about valentines day, but we will not have our liquour lis. by then.....so frustrating.....

ok, so it is going on 7:00 pm and i am more than ready to go to bed....without my supper and without watching alias, my favorite show......jet lag is a strange phenomena.. ..

ok, so i am so glad to be back in a smoke-free environment....i plan to wash all of my clothing first thing,,just to get the smell out...i wonder if suitcases can be drycleaned....cigarettes are pervasive in spain, even in stores....the museums ban them,but the museum cafes and bathrooms then smell all the more smokey because the nicotine addicts must feel compelled to smoke extras to prepare for the return to the smokefree galleries.....i found wafting cigarette smoke quite disturbing in restaurants......which do not understand the concept of smoke-free sections.....so glad to be home....

ok, so mean mamma is home again....so home that her family patiently waited for her to cook supper,as if they hadn't really eaten since she left home....having seen spain, i cannot really say that i want to go back.....not like france...i would leave at this very minute to go to paris. barcelona is byfar myfavorite place to bein spain...iwill go back to see the finished sagrida familia...whenever that may be..in 2012 or 2024 or so......that will be worth the wait..but the rest of spain is not on my list of places to visit again.....maybe because of the language gap....or maybe because i felt so very tired to be there.....gaudi was certainly the draw int he end...notthe bilbao guggenheim that spawned the trip in the first place......gaudi,it seems is every bit the genious that flwright was in america when it came to innovation in design...of course, i will miss the l.o.-who is a fine fellow female traveler........thanks for the jealosies........

ok, so i am not done blogging, but i wanted to save before my internet cafe time card ran out........we are so spoiled at home to be able to use the net in an open-ended manner.....this buying of pay-as-you-go time is frustrating.....we are quite ready to go home.......we have each packed..and though we do not relish the thought of a 9 hour plane flight we are anxious to get on with the non-spain portion of our lives........we have enjoyed spain, but there is no place like home.......i am anxious to work on recovering the chair in the front room, repapering the upstairs bath...and maybe work on some window treatments......i am not anxious to get back to work...but who is after a long trip.....? i am sad that i will only get to see acw for a few hours on sat night/sun morning before he goes back to school.....i really wish he had gone on this trip.....i have seen quite a few backpackers, and i envision acw on a similar trip at some point...as for the rest of my traveling crew, i can see each making many more trips, both short and extended, to the continent......i am certain that i, too, will return......maybe with the rest of the c-w's on a family trip to ireland......

that´s it for spain....adios......looking foward to my family picking us up at the airport on saturday.......

ok. so we are fast running out of time in madrid, so shopping took over when places of interest ran out......we went to plaza mayor after breakfast, location of many infamous inquisition trials......then on to royal palace. rebuilt by phillipe v, who happened to be grandson of louis xiv..it is somewhat similar to versailles.....many grandrooms....of interest was the stradivarius suite of 4 instruments built to be played together.......the ceilings were also very nice..not too overdone.....lunch in the palace ´lunchroom´´ rachel bought what she thought was a vegetable sandwich, which turned out to be potato & pea salad sandwich with tunafish or fake crab added to it......who can tell these things at first glance.....we played the friday 5 game.......name your five most favorite foods.....mine are shrimp, red raspberries, smoked salmon, tangerines, and french fries.....not necessarily in that order....if i could go for 10 i would add olives, goat cheese, little kings beer, taboulleh, and marinated artichoke hearts.......there may be more, but they do not come to mind right now......

i have also come to some conclusions about what i do not like.....i really do not like red wine.....i poured the rest of a bottle down the drain tonight because it was just so dry to the point of dehydration.......i did go the grocery in the basement of el cortes ingles in search of the wine we had last night....dona beatriz, a wonderful white..of course, i could only find something from the region, not from the exact vintnor...i also bought a bottle of randon red from riajho (sp?) and several cans of olives...i really love pickled things and these jars have both green and black olives, onions, and capers......wonderful........

ok. so i saved the last blog just in case.....i have purchased very little on this trip......haven´t seen anything that i couldn´t live without.......we may go to el cortes ingles later to shop....after we have refreshed.....traveling is so tiring....kind of like frodo carrying the ring...one feels so bogged down.....so old..... and in slow motion........i only feel better knowing that those with me one third my age seem to feel the same way......

ok. so the blog that i just blogged int his internet cafe disappeared because i ran out of time.....i have now purchased for myself solo time, and mean mamma ain´t sharing this time.........we all have collective art overload, from seeing too many works of art in too short of time.....we actually walked past whole rooms of icons in the thyssen and said....seen it all...now move on.........3 major museums in less than 24 hours may be too much to ask of the mind......last night we saw the reine sofia..with guernika as well as many other picassos, gris, and dali......we were tired after being there for 2 hours (it was open til 9) so we took a taxi back to hotel (5 euros is a bargain when it is dark, raining...) supper at hotel was strange......scw had a fried meat plate of some sort, and a racion of calamari...i ordered a plate of marinated asparagus as a first course, but the waiter thought that it was all i wanted so he left....i ended up eating most of the calamari myself.....this morning we ate in the same place..scw and rts tried churros...i had a potato omelet.....we all enjoyed thoroughly the fresh squeezed juice...from a really cool machine that drops the oranges down into the squeezer while you watch.......on to the prado...where we were tickled to rediscover ppbj (poorly painted baby jesus´s) so many had tiny heads and scrawny bodies, with odddly placed features, and sickly coloring...and the madonnas often were portrayed with impossibly placed breasts...kind of like nursing goiters........i especially enjoyed the madonna who was able to squirt milk across a room into the mouth of one of the saints....now that is a feat worth remembering in oil........we saw many self-portraits...durer..goya...rembrandt....we wonder when sheldon tapley will paint the definitive self-portrait..........lunch at prado was good....a seafood salad..along with probably the worst white wine ever labeled as table wine......it was the color of urine and wasn´t evern good enough to mistakenly labled sherry...i had a beer instead (.85 euros..) i have been disappointed with 3 out of 4 glasses of white wine i have had on this trip and 1 out of 1 glasses of red....the beer is the best bet for this country...in my humble opinion........the last museum was the thyssen...a private collection donated to spain by a rich family with a huge art collection.....many pieces we have seen similar elsewhere......we toured so quickly...at one point we kind of waved a hand over entire rooms of madonnas and deemed then ..seen.......so tired.......

ok, so we made it to madrid.....through a blinding snowstorm.......really scary at some points...crept along in 3rd gear for 30 minutes or so......will try to put scratches on rental car out of my mind while in madrid...luckily we took taxi directly to hotel with no getting lost......internet cafe behind hotel...2 people standing behind me biting at bit to blog..they look vaguely familiar.........

ok, so we may have scratched the car because scw did not have on his hat......

ok. so mean mamma has now been lost in.......france, hondarribia, st. sebastian, and bilbao, all in the same day.......the parador was up inside a walled area of hondaribbia....up cobbled narrow one-way street....which we inched up in the pouring rain.....parador was lovely..we were so tired that rachel fell asleep, and we basically chilled out after eating our stash of cheese, bread, tinned sardines and chocolate...as well as minibar nuts, olives, and assorted beverages.....the walls of our room were 5 feet thick, as it was a fortress..we have a window overlooking bay of biscay....nice sleep to wake up to a fabulous breakfast buffet with spanish potato omelets, 2 kinds of sausages, pastires, fruits, etc. in a lovely breakfast room.....drove to st. sebastian to see opera house (kursaal) where a marathon of sorts was taking place in driving rainstorm....the kenyans were winning....rachel forgot her coat at hotel so we drove back for it...scw asked at desk for her coat in perfect spanish, after looking up his verb in 301 spanish verbs......then on to guernika-lumo to see ancient basque oak tree...then to bilbao. we saw signs for hotel, then drove and then walked forever trying to find it....one-way streets are a maze........this morning (7th?) we went to guggenheim by street car and then by metro. it is impressive, made of marble and titanium....the traveling exhibits featured rubens and kandinsky....lovely lunch in restaurant...sweet red pepper soup with prawns then salmon then chocolate mousse........with a nice white wine from la mancha.....had to move car from underground lot to the one at hotel...kind if scratched up side bumper trying to park in narrow side street.....oh my.......we are hoping tommorrow at madrid airport it is dark and they won´t notice.......

ok. so we got up 3 hours earlier than yesterday, and actually had a morning, a lunch, and an afternoon to spend in our last day in barcelona. we toured the palau guell, one of gaudi´s first projects. it has many medieval charms, as it was built as a son´s home next to papa- who was a count and quite wealthy and living in the historic barri gotic area of the city.....it could easily have been 500 years old by way of vaulting, pillars, ceiling decor, etc, but gaudi did a marvelous roof garden of pillars that make it look like a futristic forest. we went to the grocery in the basement of cortes ingles department store, and bought both chocolates for gifts as well as provisions for our driving trip tomorrow. then we had a cafeteria lunch in the ´store penthouse´along with every other family with screaming babies in town......i had a galician fish and vegetable platter-the fish was grilled and the vegetables were overdone, but it was good....and cost almost as much as our bill last night for so much less.......afterwards, we took the metro to parc guell, north of the city that overlooks everything down to the sea.....gaudi and the guells envisioned it as a gated community, with the guell place being the first one built,,,but the civil war and gaudi´s death kind of got in the way.....it was magnificent in terms of fantastic vistas, built-in curiosities like the world´s largest park bench, and all sorts of fun places to walk- inside a terrace of stone ´trees` , lots of succulent plantings, fungal forms like mushroom´like towers covered with ceramic tiles....too hard to describe....the fountain entrance has a ceramic-tiled lizard with water coming out of its mouth.....so much gaudi to see, so little time....i did put money in the dish of a man playing flute in an underground pillered room with wonderful acoustics....it was magical.......

ok, so i had a near panic attack at the top of a tower at sagradia familia, and wisely took the stairs back down pronto.....i was halfway down when i came across an itlaina family, whose daughter cayle´s age was also in the midst of a panic episode...she was even too frightened to go down the stairs...and the father started shouting at her italian........i almost started crying..like he was shouting at me too...these stairs were both narrow, spiraling and steep, and it was dim enough at that hour that i couldn´t really see down to tell where the next step was......that is it for mean mamma and towers...we will go back tomorrow to take an english tour..there was too much to see today before it closed........now to supper..we are starved.....

ok, so the mean mamma is in spain, rested after a 3 hour nap ready to find a nice place to eatsupper. we arrived at the hotel at 10 to find, of course, that wew were too early to check in..so we dragged our poor tired bodies to 2 gaudi sights- casa batllo and casa milla, both within 6 or so blocks of hotel. both extraordinary places in terms of design very over the top. i liked the rook sculpture garden at casa milla, all curious shapes covered with broken glass, or ceramic tiles, or just adobe.....quite beutiful and unexpected. i will sign off, as we are in cybermundo, and 3 are sharing internet time.......

ok, so mean mamma is packed and ready to go...tospain...where it is supposed to be high 50's with a chance of rain...i am nervous, but i am always nervous at the beginning of a trip that involves flying, connections, etc. new years day isn't a high traffic travel day, so things should go smoothly....the next blog will come from barcelona...adios...