Cats and Chants

People-watching is one of my favorite parts of being in Spain. In between private lessons, when I don’t want to go all the way (all of 10 minutes’ walk) home just to leave again in 45 minutes, I usually go to a café, order a Fanta or a café con leche and people watch. Today was, by far, the best people-watching day I’ve had yet.

I was sitting in my usual café (Oceanos), ordered my Fanta and was slightly disappointed when the waitress didn’t bring me my free tapas plate (I was counting on that for lunch). But whatever, I drank my Fanta and worked on lesson plans for my private classes. While I was sitting, I saw an older man walk towards the café. At first, I thought he had two cats in his arms. Then, I realized I was wrong. It was only one cat. One cat. Hanging out with him. The man went inside, ordered a bottle of beer and got his free plate of tapas (Discrimination? I think so). The whole time, the cat was in his arms, meowing and meowing. He sat down at a table across from mine, with his afternoon cigarette in his mouth, he fed the calico cat bites of his food to stop her whining. Once satisfied, the cat started exploring the patio of the café, only traveling as far as its red collar and leash would allow. Yes, I said collar and leash. On a cat.

The white-haired man kept eating, drinking, smoking, and people-watching, like I was. When I realized he was also people-watching, I had a terrible realization that I could be the lady version of this man. Were people looking at me, like I was looking at him? In judgment, watching someone sitting alone? Was I doomed to spend my days in Spain, being the subject of blog posts? But then I remembered the big difference between the elderly man and myself. The cat on a leash. Nope, no way people think I’m as weird as him.

Also, today I taught a private lesson to, let’s call him “José” (I guess I should keep some professionalism). “José” is twelve-years-old and while very intelligent, has some issues. He gets distracted, doesn’t want to work, and just does strange things. Today, I was quizzing him on his vocab and he was just saying completely random words. I started shooting back random words at him. Finally, he said, “Jamaica!” in response to asking what “pencil sharpener” is in Spanish. So, naturally, I retorted with the “Cool Runnings” chant, “'Nuff people say, you know they can't believe, Jamaica, we have a bobsled team.” He just said, “Qué???” and stared at me, unable to continue his little game. Rachel- 1, José-0.