One thing we’ve learned while parenting a teen in a foreign country is that it seems to be tradition, at…
Grist for the Mill (news, in other words)
Compañeros
If I was forced to choose, I think I’d say I like the city best early on Saturday mornings, when…
The Call
The swifts have returned to Madrid, or at least the first few brave harbingers among them have. Long before spring…
The Road/A Story
This morning, in the market, I overheard the older of the two butchers in the pollería say something to a…
Dérive (Drift #1)
In July 2019, I started walking the city of Madrid. 2019 — which, if we’d only known it, was the…
Winter Coat
Little yappy dogs in pastel knitted sweaters; whip-thin trembling galgos wearing the dog-equivalent of down vests; stocky pugs in hoodies,…
Big Thief
Sitting in the café, I joked: Understanding what’s going on is overrated but I was whistling in the wind. I…
Pubs, Winter 2022 Edition
The beach house has a terrible name, half pun, half innuendo — hearing it, you can’t help but roll your…
Homeplace (Revisited)
Oh, Georgia. I moved to you when I was six, in the middle of an ice storm. The first place…
Weather Report (Little Things)
The next 10 days’ forecast is for rain, pure and simple. We need it (we always need it). Madrid only…