I am currently living with a 300 pound female artist who focuses mostly on painting portraits of naked people and cats. She doesn’t speak a word of English (only Catalan and Spanish) but seems very nice. Our short conversations consist mostly of me saying “Bueno” and “Gracias” (I am a very polite spanish speaker) and have on more than one occasion devolved into us talking to each other through Google Translate.
I think we both think the living arrangement is kind of fun. ;-p
At the beginning of the week, we had a chat that was very different from our normal talks.
“Something something something, amigo, no cama, tres dias, something something something”, she told me with a huge smile.
I paused as the sentence echoed in my head and I worked to decode it. Apparently her male friend was coming over for three days and would be sleeping in her studio without a bed.
“No problemo, su casa, su normas. Divert…tirse divertirse con su amigo!” (No problem, your house, your rules. Have fun with your friend!)”, I replied with an honest smile.
It was her house, I didn’t care what she did as long as I had a bed and Internet access.
She smiled and said “something something something, word that sounded like ‘tren’ and something about ‘cirugía”.
She repeated “cirugía”.
This wasn’t a word I was familiar with.
“Si, cirugía?”, I repeated with a confused look.
She took that as a confirmation and we both went our separate ways.
That night when I got back from my busy day, she wasn’t there. This wasn’t unusual so I didn’t think anything of it. I made a few phone calls and worked on some writing I had pending.
In the middle of the night I got up to go to the bathroom. I was just wearing my underwear and walked out into the hallway.
At the end of the hallway, there was a man in a well tailored suit who started to stare at me. (It was 4 in the morning). I looked at him and said “Hola?”. He said hola and then went into another room.
That must be her friend, I figured.
The next morning I showered, got dressed and went into the kitchen. Standing with a bowl of something was the suit guy again. (This time in a different suit.)
We looked at each other, he mentioned something that sounded like “amigo” and went into another room. I laughed and went on my day as usual.
That night I got back, opened the door and again found suit guy. (Again, he was wearing a different suit). This time I was entertained and wanted to play with the situation.
I sat down and joined him. He was watching a futbol game and together we cheered on Spain. Towards the end of the match, Spain scored the only point of the game and I jumped up and shouted. Outside explosions went off and people started screaming with excitement. Suit guy, didn’t budge.
Apparently he was not from Spain…
We finished watching the game without saying a word.
The next morning, the artist/landlord finally returned. We greeted each other and she pointed to her stomach with a frown. She opened her Moo Moo and revealed a series of tubes.
Apparently she had undergone surgery (that explained what ‘cirugía’ meant) and now had a colostomy bag. I glanced down and saw the bag was slowly filling with her internal fluids. I looked at her unsure of what I was going to do next…
“Muy mal!!!” (Very bad!) I shouted at her unintentionally.
…long and awkward pause…
Suit guy looked at me weirdly and then shook his head with disapproval.
Confused and embarrassed, I gave her a hug, scampered into my room and locked the door. I spent the next 20 minutes questioning all of the choices that had led me to that situation. :-)
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I wrote this post about a week ago directly after what I am now calling the incident. Currently I am back in the States and am in the process of reacquainting to domestic living. I finished a new bucket list item a few days ago and will be posting about it on Friday. Cheers!
