Summer in Spain Is...

So I defy anyone to try and work in Spain during the month of August.  This doesn’t include people in the tourism and restaurant industry—I work my bartenders like rented mules during August. People in the bar business know that they have to take advantage of August to make up for the month when people like me don’t drink very much, you know, that month that comes every four years at the end of February. That month sucks.  Most people in Spain don’t do a damn thing in August.  Conservatives in America would say that Spain is a socialist hellhole that forces people not to work for an entire month because everyone knows that freedom means working 12 months a year at Wal-Mart. Here are a few things about August in Iberia.

Summer in Spain is…

…the only time I drink sangria.  The truth is that I would prefer a glass of chilled red wine to sangria or tinto de verano (red wine mixed with sprite). Sangria just looks more festive than a boring bottle of wine so I appreciate the esthetics.

…when my feet look like hell. I don’t actually ever wash them, not officially. I mean that I don’t scrub them. They just get wet when I’m in the shower; sort of like collateral damage. I never wear shoes in the summer except when I put on my cycling shoes for my daily ride. The rest of the time I just wear flip flops as evidenced by the tan lines on my feet. I bought a couple pairs of sandals that I thought would be a little dressier for the summer months but I just can’t be bothered to put them on. I need to go to Jo’s new place Kiss My Feet. I’ve never had a manicure or a pedicure. It’s like a friend said when I mentioned that I had never dyed my hair and was thinking about it in order to be a little less gray. “It’s a slippery slope, that first time.” He didn’t say just what I would be sliding into but I got the point.

…better than being stoned to death for adultery in Pakistan by an angry mob. And why do they always say “angry” mob? Is there another kind of mob, especially the kind that is stoning people to death? I can’t think of anything that would motivate me to throw a rock at someone. And it’s insane to think that people in that part of the world stone other people because they catch them fucking. Do America’s military elite think that we can change these people with our army? I’d like to meet just one American general that would admit that we can’t kill our way out of every foreign policy problem.