The Season of Light has Begun Both Liturgically and Physically.

(Rua Augusta Lisboa a few years ago)

Last night I walked out into a late November night. The air was crisp here on the northern border. Moving through my neighborhood I saw a fair number of houses with their Christmas lights already displayed. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that American Thanksgiving weekend is the time when Christmas lights get strung, garland gets hung and Douglas Fir trees get axed, drilled, stood up and decorated. As I looked about observing the decorations, I noted this year seems to be a return to houses being draped in soft whites and blues. Only a few homes had multi colored twinkling blinking lights. 

 

The streets were damp as I walked because it had rained during the morning. The air was chilled but not unbearably freezing.  We’ve had a snow here already. ‘Twas a real snow and it came a solid week before Thanksgiving. That substantial white covering, well I think it put people into the mindset to accept that the season of light/lights has come.

 

After about 15 minutes I got to my destination. Three full months have passed since I’ve been inside the church to take the sacraments. Somehow, it seems fitting my return to worship comes on the first Sunday in Advent. The first candle was lit at last night’s service, the candle of hope and of promised redemption. 

 

Advent in my mind is a time of preparation and a time of returning to something akin to holiness. Advent is a perfect time to focus on the great commandments, love the divine with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. Easy to recite, hard to practice.

 

I can accept I am a poor being who has done wrong, and that also I have failed to do right. But even at my advanced age, the message of Advent to me is always the hope that my next action will be the next right action. Bring the light. Bring the song. Bring the joy. I may struggle with the concept of true faith but I do believe we can with joyful hearts make things better for our fellow humans.

 

After the service as I walked home, I found myself looking up at the sky. In the darkness the heavens seemed to roll on forever. My hope is that we matter. My hope is that our actions matter and that we can be agents for good. My belief is that we can make this world and the lives of those around us better. Welcome to the season of hope.

Good and Bad and Good and Bad and Good Ad Infinitum

I am up early today for me.  It is 8:45 and the sun is shining.  Did you catch that?  The sun is actually shining brightly and the roads and sidewalks are drying out.  Oh, what a wonderful feeling.  I got up early because I have a workman coming over today to assemble a couple of wardrobes from Ikea.  One of the things about Portuguese apartments is that many do not have built in closets (or appliances, or light fixtures). We have taken care of the appliances.  The light fixtures will have to wait. This will be the last major step toward getting the place in shape for a time.

 

The sun together with the appointment on the wardrobes getting completed combine to be a good thing.

 

I scanned the American news and the papers this morning as I ate my muesli and drank reheated decaf.  The fourth estate imply a Republican wave is coming on Tuesday.  Me, personally, I see this as a bad thing.  I think the public has been played by our friends the Saudis and our enemies the Russians and most of OPEC.  Me, I don’t want to go back to the 1950s where women had no control of their bodies and where visible minorities were openly discriminated against. Gas prices are up.  Gas prices are up and inflation is up because these folks cut oil production just before an American election.  

 

Can we say our enemy Russia and our friend (?) the Saudis want to hamstring an American President who doesn’t look up and have a lovey dovey relation with autocrats and dictators like Putin, MBS and Duterte? Back-alley abortions and economic Darwinism, yeah you go ahead and vote red and wait until your daughter or son’s girlfriend (or niece or granddaughter) gets knocked up, see how you feel then. Yeah, a red wave will be a bad thing. And yes, I really don’t give a damn that you want to call a nonviable on its own clump of cells something imbued with “personhood”.  I earnestly believe you are wrong.

 

A blend of good things happened day yesterday.  We went into a store to look at some furniture; the store is liquidating.  Over the past few months, we had looked at several pieces in the store, bought some, and dreamed about some. There was a lamp we loved but it was just too damn expensive. But suddenly there it was at just about ½ off.  It was still just at the upper end of my comfort range price wise.  I agonized.  I rationalized.  I went and bought some artsy bowls to try and stifle the itch.  But in the end, I gave in and bought it.  When I got it home and put it near the small couch, I loved it.  So lovely bowls and a great lamp, these again combine to be a good thing.

 

Despite the rain Portugal still remains in drought conditions.  The news implies that most of the reservoirs in the country remain at less than 50% of normal capacity.  While many of the grassy areas near where I live have greened up, trees are stressed and the long-range forecasts don’t seem the drought will be over soon. With climate change deniers seemingly ready to retake the US Congress I am worried about what kind of life we are leaving for those coming along behind us.  The UN report from dropped in the last two weeks was very, very scary. Bad thing.

 

While I was dithering about the lamp Francie met a woman from Wisconsin who lives nears us.  Together the two of them arranged to have dinner with us on Sabado (Saturday). When I finally got involved in the conversation, I realized that I had shared dinner with the woman’s husband about a year ago.  Our meeting happened when we went to a social gathering of expats at an Indian restaurant near the Roma metro stop.  When the woman described where they lived, who lived with them and then what they did for a living, things clicked in my brain.  When I heard they had one daughter lived near a popular department store and ran a software company I just knew I had sat next to the husband at dinner.  (Obscure connections with people, that is my secret and mostly not useful hidden super (?) power). Scoring a dinner date with some other friendly expats, that is a good thing. 

 

Okay there is one final good thing, my lungs are clear.  For ten days or so I had RSV or something similar.  I had a cough that was so severe that it shook my body for a minute or more from the long hacking spells, again and again. No phlegm just coughing viciously for four or five days.  After that it shifted to a bit of a head cold with a lessened cough, but the cough would just not go away.  For the start I ached and could not sleep well.  At the end I just sounded like Darth Vader when I took air in through my nose. Today, no cough.  Today, no rattling in my lungs.  My nasal passages seem about as clear as they ever get. This is a good thing.

 

Francie made the bagels including the everything bagel in the picture. She boiled them and everything,  That is a very good thing because a decent bagel is hard to find in Lisboa. The bowl is what I bought to stop myself from buying the lamp above,

Dreams Delayed

Between the moment of my awakening on Sunday morning at 6 am in East Lansing and the instant my head hitting the pillow on Monday evening in Lisbon at about 10 pm, I had only a short catnap on an Airbus 330 (maybe an hour) and another short nap on a ubiquitous blue Ikea couch in our living room (maybe 2 hours). So, if I figure this right, factoring the time difference, I had about 3 hours sleep over 38 hours.  Of course, my mind’s wiring had been altered just a tweak by the ¼ tablet of Valium it takes to get my sorry carcass into the air.

 

As my mind moved from waking into the borderland of dreams, he old grey matter went absolutely nuts.  My guess is that I stayed in REM sleep for six or seven hours.  Dream after dream after dream paraded by in my mind.  Each dream was vivid and every dream seemed to have meanings writ large on the surface and also buried in the context.  People from every era of my life mixed together in these dreams with people from grade school intermingling with people from my later life’s workplaces in somewhat surreal settings.

 

At one point I woke up and found Francie awake.  I rattled off four or five dreams’ details to her.  So vivid, so intense and so nonstop, it was a wonder I felt refreshed the next morning.  Since the night of endless dreams, I have had one good night’s sleep.  Last night when my head hit the pillow I sank into the inky black abyss and when awoke there were no memories of anything, none, zip. Even though I had watched I crime drama before I fell asleep, usually fodder for tossing and turning, there wasn’t even a thread of dream memory.

 

With a day having passed I can only remember one dream in detail.  On the surface it was a travel dream.  Digging a little deeper it may have been a life metaphor.  The short version is this, I was standing outside in late October cold rain waiting for a bus in East Lansing.  I was accompanied by a high school friend and the receptionist from where I used to work when I was with the state.  We were trying to figure when the bus would arrive because it was way off schedule.  I made the decision to walk to the next stop up the line to see if I could find out any further information, like if the bus had been rerouted. 

 

Anyway, when I was halfway between the stops a bus blew past me and my friends were onboard.  I could see a second bus coming up behind. I ran to the next stop, paid my fare, and took my seat.  Almost immediately the bus turned off the route I had wanted and began to take me far afield out into the boonies.  I pulled all the schedules and tried to figure if I could get a transfer onto a line that would take me where I wanted to go. Nope.  And then I decided to get off at a place I knew but which was nowhere near where I had planned to be.

 

Now given all the travelling I had done, with plane delays and gate reassignments and the like, this very well could be nothing more than a transference of the day’s events into a more recognizable form for me, the bus.  But then again it could be a meditation on my general sense of impatience and impulsivity.  While I have always viewed whatever has happened as serendipity, it might be my brain thinks my tendency toward rashness has led me far off the path.  Perhaps my mind really thinks I have ended up at a stop I never intended to be at. Don’t know, dreams are weird that way. Awake and cognizant I got no complaints as to the place where I am.

 

“Tis raining today in Lisbon.  When the rain is coming down the speed of life here seems to slow by at least half.  The jackhammers, the high-speed saws, the clanging of scaffolding are all muted.  The loudest noise right now is the water pouring from drains off the building’s balconies, front and back, onto the pavement at street level. Even the omnipresent jet traffic seems muted by the cloud cover. Give me warm coffee and a keyboard today.  I have things to catch up on.

 

And Then the Storm Came

21 September 2022

 

This place we’ve rented doesn’t have air conditioning. Yesterday the temperature hit 88 and the humidity was about as high as it gets. Fans help but…they don’t take away the energy draining nature of the swamp weather. Felt like swampy South Jersey in the late 1960s.

 

Went to sleep reading and I had to read a good long time in the clammy air to actually let lethargy take me into the wilderness of weird that is my dreamland. Somewhere between four and five in the morning the storm rolled in.  Perhaps, kicked up would be a better term.  According to Francie the lightning and thunder set upon us closer to four. When it arrived the light and sound spectacular began.  I know I saw a bright flash through my twitching eyelids and I opened my eyes.  The thunder lasted for a good fifteen seconds after that one and after the next one. 

 

I stayed awake for a little bit listening to the storm roll through.  Apparently my oldest got up and closed all the windows that weren’t protected by balconies. Must have been a good rain before and after my little waking moment (for I fell back asleep quickly), because here it is just turned ten and everything is still wet.

 

Ah but the best thing, the storm has wrung virtually all of the moisture out of the air.  All our windows are open now and a gentle cool breeze is filling every room in the apartment. Today looks and feels like the best possible of days.  Today I plan to explore a new neighborhood.  Looking for a used coffee table.  We will see if the search pans out.

 

Wishing you all a fantabulous day. 

Blue Sky Awaits

 Hello and I hope this finds you living your best possible life.  Right now, it is just 8:30 and the air is still cool, a mere 72 F.  By midafternoon it will be 87. According to the weather forecast between now and 1 am tomorrow there is a chance of a thunderstorm and possibly hail.  Looking at the map I think any weather will pass north.

 

Me, I have been up for about 45 minutes.  Before I even started in on my morning feed, I started a load of laundry.  Will get that out on the drying rack well before noon. By the point I am sitting before my computer I have had my cereal and rinsed out my bowl.  My reheated decaf with thick cream sits at my left side.  I have opened up the shades and windows. Need to get a breeze going. Still, when the sun moves to high noon and leans west, I will shut up a number of these windows and shades to keep the heat out.  

 

The weekend was low key. Saw my niece on Friday.  Fun times.  Hard to believe it had been forty years. On Saturday we did little shopping.  Also, there was a little poking around neighborhoods we did not know.  Ate a couple of meals out.  Hit a “Mexican” place on Friday.  While I enjoy various takes on veal and pork, I do get a hankering for a taco or a burrito now and then.  That being said most of the “Mexican” places just don’t get it right. However, this place had pork belly tacos.  They were amazing. Obviously with the high fat content these will not be on my menu often, but damn were they tasty.

 

Bought a carpet and a towel warmer on Sunday.  The carpet was the first stab at furnishing the living area. There is a little store down the block that sells furniture.  When we poked our heads in, they had a loveseat on deep discount. If it is still there, we may well pick it up today. Getting it up to our first-floor apartment may take some doing but these merchants are clever at such things.

 

I made my reservations yesterday for a quick trip back to the US to finish up my visa. Don’t really want to come back but in that the visa issuing folks demand our passports be mailed to them from a US address and then returned to that US address and that the passport shows an entry into Portugal after the visa issuance date, I really don’t have any other choice.

 

One good thing about writing at this hour is that the world is still moving slow.  Business cranks up about 10 am and continues until midafternoon. Then there is a short lunch break at which time the traditional shops close for an hour.  Then they reopen until 8 pm.  The subway will be alive about 9:30 teeming with salesclerks dressed in their particular business’s uniform.

 

When I talk about the early hours of the morning moving slow, I am not really talking about subways and businesses.  I am talking about dogs and children. The Portuguese love their dogs.  There are dogs of every size but small dogs abound.  The other day Francie opined it was amazing that we didn’t hear a cacophony of dogs at night being in a walled city of residences.  The next night the howling began. Apparently, a family returned home late from their August vacation and their solitary hound came back with them. It must be a midsized to large dog because its howl is deep and resonates echoing around these pastel buildings.  It doesn’t howl all night but it howls midevening.  Thus, while I am washing the dishes I can hear, “OOOOwwooooll.”

 

The child is for the most part happy and inquisitive.  I hear lots of question sounding phrases and lots of laughter.  But yesterday the child must have set a record for stamina, volume and duration of crying.  Probably 45 minutes straight the bellowing, the caterwauling, went on. In reality it didn’t bother me much but I felt sorry for all involved, the child and the parents.  But as they say, “Been there and done that.” Like I said the mornings are quiet, well until the jets get going.

 

Below you will find a picture of me in my favorite park. The aqueduct rises overhead and a 200 plus year old church is wedged in beneath. The shot was taken at dusk.  People were drinking beers by the kiosk and watching futbol.  Me I was just relaxing on a park bench. Enjoy the day.

Un-Coffee in my Rooftop Land of Dead Plants

 

3 September 2022

 

Sipping decaf this morning, the un-coffee.  I am seated at the little rickety table that we bought at Bricomarche.  The temperature is wonderful and has been for the past two hours. Had some muesli with apple slices and milk earlier. Trying to decide what to do with this long weekend.  

 

Thinking about what to do has reminded me I am a list maker.  Since I have gotten to Lisbon, I have not been making lists. Not jotting down what to do and when to do it has thrown me off my game.  Back in East Lansing I had a whole week scheduled out to review when I opened the computer in the morning each and every morning.  Here I end up making coffee, eating cereal and looking at the three plants out of 17 the previous tenant abandoned that have survived.  Then I have just been floating to where the day takes me.

 

I will have to create a list today, order not chaos but way more flexible than in the past.  I have to buy some airline tickets.  I have a furniture delivery scheduled that I have to remember.  I have some odds n’ ends to buy at the local grocery, just ran out of Listerine. My lists are usually pretty concrete but they always include the aspirational, eat less, exercise more. Oh yeah, there is the rest of that Ikea furniture to finish. 

 

As I sit here, I can smell the wood fired oven of the nearby pizza place starting up.  It smells of garlic, rosemary and olive oil.  There are some many hints of good times gone by in those smells, from camping to urban bistros in places like Toronto and Chicago.  Food memories of good friends. Guess I will have to try a pizza from the restaurant this weekend.  Gotta find out if it tastes as good and is as memory inducing as it smells.

A Blue Couch, Silver Keys and a Gold Piece of Whatever

1 September 2022

 

Ikea demands of its customers/victims both love and hate.  Take for example the blue couch. The most recent thing we got from Ikea was “the” blue couch.  It has some storge under it and it pulls out into a bed for visitors.  Like most things Ikea in comes in parts, a fair but not unwieldly number of parts.  The key factor at Ikea however is price.  You know that.  I know that. We love the price.  We hate what follows.

 

When you buy something from Ikea the model has been expertly set up.  All the parts are sure to have been milled to the right tolerances. If one doesn’t quite fit you can be assured that Joao can call Sven in the backroom and get a replacement part asap. The staff doing set up in-store use electric tools and have flunkies who lift and twist the item exactly the way it is shown in the pictographic instructions.  When you ask the sales rep, “How long does it take to assemble?”, he or she says (they appear quite committed to parity in sales staff), “Oh twenty or thirty minutes.”  What they leave off is that part that says, “If you are a highly toned underemployed mechanical engineer”.

 

I loved Legos as a kid.  On the Iowa Skills Test I always got the folding the boxes section 100% right, always.  I live with an engineer.  How hard could this be? Insert echoing cosmic laughter here.

 

Well, assembling the blue couch had its moments.  For fabric, batting and light colored wood, it was heavy. On top of that the couch had to be tilted on its side several times to accomplish the tasks assigned.  Again, I live with two big men so it was doable. But what drove me crazy was installing one long thick bolt that held the back of the couch to the seat of the couch.  There were four of these, two on the left, one on the center and one on the right.  The left and right ones went it without a hitch. The center one not so much. Seemingly the bolt would go in and start to thread into the approved slot and then just spin.

 

Apparently, and definitely not in the pictograms, this bolt was the prime bolt and had to go in first.  It took loosening the other three bolts and using a cardboard shim to elevate one side of the project to allow the bolt to catch and go in.  Every single freakin’ project from Ikea is like this.  There is always a hidden thing you have to do to get the bits and bobs to align. Twenty minutes of estimated set-up time was for an overweight, old, humanities orient retired ALJ nigh onto three hours to finish.  Sigh.

 

Did I mention this place is not air conditioned?  After I let the sweat dry, I made it my goal to get my Portuguese phone number up and running.  This would require me to go to MEO one of the providers of internet/cable/phone in the country. MEO has various sales offices everywhere. No worries my trusty app said there was a shop five minutes’ walk from here.  Don’t get me started on the five minute’s walk thing.  If Lisbon were perfectly flat it would be five minutes’ walk.  Lisbon I can say with certainty is not perfectly flat. Off I went for the five-minute walk.

 

Why did I have to go to MEO?  Two things.  First, I didn’t have a tool that would open the sim slot on my iPhone 12Max or whatever it is called.  Second, I wanted to know the fee structure for using my phone for international texting.  I didn’t really get an answer for the second one except that the sales rep kept saying, very expensive.  However, all the MEO reps have that little piece of wire to pop open the iPhone and the SIM was quickly placed in my phone.  

 

The serendipity bit was that the store we went to was next to a very neat/cool looking building with lots of frill and gimgacks and gogaws to ah and oh at.  And this building was right next to the Piscoas metro stop which for all the world looks like one of Paris’s art deco metro stops.  More aahing and oohing.

The keys thing was a truly typical Portuguese urban moment.  We had one key for four people.  I had inquired of our landlady about how to get extra keys.  She directed me to a shop several blocks away.  Thirty-six dollars later I had four new keys.  However, at 10 pm (22:00) a knock on our interior door came and a young woman was standing outside.  She did not identify herself but she handed up about fifty loose keys and said, “These are yours”.  There were multiple keys to the apartment, to a second entrance to the apartment, to our mailbox and to a couple of other things I have not figured out yet.  Yep, it was that kind of moment.  I am kind of thinking she was some kind of phantom because upon handing us this mound of shaped metal she was gone.

Oh yeah to insure I don’t blow my heart out I bought an American style coffee maker and some decaf coffee.  I have tried ordering decaf espressos and I think about 50% of the time that just say to hell with it and make me a regular.  I can tell it is regular when my fingers start tapping the table after my second sip.  If I drink it all my whole body become a techno rhythm section.

 

And that is all I have time for this morning.