Driving Down January

Rain is pouring down outside. I am extremely sleepy, but still I feel very good in my heart. Great things are happening here.

The online hospitalero course is moving along. I think it is three-fourths finished, at least the writing part. Other (Canadian) people will have to chip in a bit to get it done. My part would´ve finished-up last week but for those pesky pilgrims who kept showing up. And then on Friday night...

We made two new friends. I picked them up at the train station in Burgos. (Good thing I gave myself LOTS of time to do that. Train stations are usually city landmarks, you know. Places you can always rely on to not move. Well, the train station in Burgos is still there where it always was, but the trains don´t stop there any more. A sign scribbled on the door showed a crude map and the news that the New Train Station opened a few days ago. It´s 6 km. north, out on the edge of the city in a new suburb. Of course no one´s gotten around to changing what few signs point the way to the station...the old ones are still up all over the city. (apparently no one´s told MapQuest or the Tourist Office people, either. Taxi drivers are still queued-up outside the abandoned station downtown to take the befuddled out to the shiny new place. ¡Que Español! ¡Que barbaridad! Anyway, with the help of a wild-eyed young man on crutches who was standing outside the old station clutching a train ticket, I managed to find the place. (yeah, I took him with me. I had a car. And he kinda knows Burgos. And we could team up asking where to go: I would pull up halfway onto the sidewalk, and he´d shout out to passers-by for directions.)
He made his train. The Madrid express I was meeting was late, which was the silver lining on the cloud. Turns out I was just in time. )

Marta and Adam are young American musicians now living in Madrid. She is an operatic soprano who teaches kids English. He is a classical guitarist, studying on a Fulbright grant. They are FOFs...Friends of Federico. And they are delightful. Over the weekend we:
saw the sights,
washed the dogs,
feasted,
talked like we´d known one another for years,
filled the Peaceable with some amazing music,
hosted a small village get-together,
and met with the mayors of Moratinos and Sahagun to hear more guitar tunes and talk about bringing more talent like Adam to play guitars in the neighborhood during the next couple of summers.

(and in between I joined the ladies of Moratinos in de-Christmasing the church, which was blog-worthy in itself as the products of everyone´s home-based pig-stickings were compared and contrasted and declared deliciosa.)

I stayed up into the wee hours this morning, having found a live radio feed of the AFC Championship American Football game online. I had to imagine all the pictures, but it was a blast hearing my Steelers win another game, and another chance at the Superbowl! Woohoo! Now to find someplace where Paddy and I can see the big game live. We have two weeks. We may have to travel far, but this is worth it.

One more cause for celebration is tomorrow´s Inauguration ceremonies in Washington, D.C. I´ve supported Barack Obama since I first heard him speak four years ago. Unlike some folks I do not expect this man to walk on water -- he IS, after all, a politician from Chicago -- but anything has to be better than the treason and pillage the Constitution has suffered the past eight years.

So let us go forward now, and run with courage the race that is set before us. Let´s keep our eyes on the prize, and shed all those burdens that will hold us back and weigh us down or keep us from attaining all we can be, while maintaining all the precious things our parents worked to give us.

And while I sit here bloviating, the sun comes out. Life is fine, people. We may even survive January.