Out of the Darkness

New experiences come in the strangest forms, at the strangest times, in the strangest places. The following account could be considered mildly inappropriate (mostly by my mother, so you guys are all set) -- pah! Who am I kidding? Tame is a bit of a wild descriptor for my style, but this did happen in a public bathroom. There, I said it.

I took a very long walk today while John was off at the airport meeting incoming students. My job was to meet one of the students at the bus station and get him to his host family's home. It was the perfect opportunity for a leisurely three mile stroll across town. I love walking, and with good shoes, I can walk practically forever. Seriously. John can't keep up with me, and he's the runner/athlete/ weight lifter/ jock. Go figure. Walking is my deal. This morning was perfect for it. The weather was mild, and the drenching rain didn't come until my walk home. Yuk. I love the walking, don't get me wrong. Just not in the rain. Ever. Period.

Back to our story, though. I was taking my paseo (stroll) down a busy metropolitan street this morning, and decided to stop for a pastry. I love Spanish pastries, specifically palmeras. Theyr'e kind of like elephant ears, if you know what those are. I've seen them in Cafe Brioche in Portsmouth, NH, and in very expensive pastry shops in Manhattan, but they're not the same. I even invented a way to make something like them back home in the states, but they're smaller. Our friends call them twirly things. They're delicious, but the puff pastry isn't the same. My family likes the palmeras de chocolate, covered with a kind of fudgy-chocolate coating, which is fine I guess. I'm just not really a chocolate gal. I like the ones with the honey glaze. They're sweet and crunchy and tender and flaky and mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The shops are selling a new kind now, which are coated with a kind of custard that has a caramelized sugar layer on top. They're called palmeras de pionono. I'll write another day about piononos . . . they deserve their own entry, but these palmeras de pionono are a sort of combination of all the things I love about eating fatty, sugary, delectable food over here. Sigh.

Anyway, because I was by myself, which has never really happened in the past, I decided to step into this very nice little cafe and sit at the bar and eat my palmera de pionono in a leisurely, mid-morning, spanish way. I even used the knife and fork the waitress laid across my plate. I felt so cosmopolitan and "Room with a View"-ish. It was lovely. You need to know that the previous times I have been in Spain were 1. when I was pregnant with our first child and knew absolutely no Spanish, so I went NOwhere alone; 2. when we brought all five children, ages 5-14 with us. 'Nuff said; 3. when we brought three children and a friend to entertain one potentially emotionally precarious teenager; and 4. when we brought one teenaged child and her teenaged cousin to keep her company. In other words, I was NEVER alone. My mid morning snack today was an unheard of luxury, all for 1,60 Euros.
After I finished my repast, I went to the back of the cafe to the restrooms. I noticed as I passed the open door of the gentlemen's room that the light was motion sensitive; it flickered on as I walked by. The women's door was closed, and the light didn't come on until I opened the door all the way and triggered the sensor. I locked the door behind me, hung my purse on the handle, checked the place for cleanliness comfort levels and proceeded to attend to my business in a . . . congruently leisurely fashion.  No children banging on the door (or playing with the faucet, to be real here). No rush. No worries. No schedules.

Uh, oh. No light.

Yep. It timed out on me. Apparently, ladies in Spain are prompt in attending to their delicate issues. Hmm. This had never happened to me before. When I say no light, I mean none. Like the Carlsbad Caverns. Deep in the bowels, so to speak, of the earth. I sat there and pondered my situation for a moment. I knew that I could stand and trigger the sensor again -- I'd done it successfully upon entering the little closet already, hadn't I? I did try to wave my hands above my head in a brief attempt to do just that, but alas, my arms are too short. The thing was, I really wasn't ready to stand. So, I sat. In the dark. And I chose to remain relaxed and unruffled by this strange turn of events. I have never sat alone in a bathroom in a cafe in Spain in darkness so thick I could not see my knees. After a few minutes, I did develop a tiny bit of night vision which offered some reassurance that I hadn't suddenly gone blind while sitting on the can.

When I was ready I stood, and the light flickered on, and all was well again. I washed my hands and straightened my hair and retouched my lip colour and gathered up my purse and left the cafe with my head held high and as much dignity as I could pretend to still have with me.

You know what I really wish, though? That one of my girls had been in the bathroom with me, so we could have shrieked just a little, and giggled about being in the dark, and then talked and laughed about it all day.

I've gotta get used to this, don't I?