Lisboa on Monday: Thoughts on a Brownie from the Pastelaria

 

As he was digging deep into his pocket, the cashier quizzically examined him.  From the cut of the clothing and the size of the man there was no way he could be a local.

His glasses weren’t a current style, his clothing was both too large and two loose. If any question remained as to his place of origin his braces nailed his foreignness. Nobody in Portugal wears suspenders but a waiter. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to suss out this man was no waiter.

 

“Um brownie, take away, por favor“, he said as he tapped on the display case window pointing to the brownie he wanted to order. Smiling at him, “Ah, sim, sim,” rolled off her tongue. Leaning in with her plastic gloved hand, she grabbed the brownie and dropped it into a brown paper saco.  At what seemed like a speed of sound to his ear, with a blurring of vocal sounds only the Portuguese can accomplish, the garçonete (waitress-was that the right term?) was asking for payment.  “Dois euros vinte,” or two euros twenty, was her request. The digital readout of 2.20 on the cash register saved him from another moment of awkwardness.

 

Continuing to search the depths of his trouser pockets and his fingers extending and contracting within, he came up with a credit card for payment.  Always the air miles card. Trips back and forth across the Atlantic just keep getting more expensive and every air mile counts. Pulling out the card, he tapped the portable card reader. Four green dots blinked showing the transaction was processed, He was handed a small white receipt which had choggled out from the machine.  The receipt went in one trouser pocket  the credit card in the other.  Accepting the brown bag with his guaranteed sugar buzz within, the ‘Murican said “Obrigado,” twisted his shoulders, stretched a little-almost imperceptibly, and headed out to the street. As he had been warned by his elders long ago his body had become many years older than his spirit.

 

Out the door he turned left heading down the cream colored calçadas toward the corner of 5 Outubro and Rua Pedro Nunes and his apartmento.  Thinking about the pastry in the bag brought him guilt.  A brownie was not really a Portuguese treat.  That chocolate goo was as invasive as all the expats flooding this city and the country. By buying it he took a step away from assimilation. So many other local choices existed many drenched or stuffed with chocolate. Still, every now and then a taste of home softened the jangly edges of the man’s soul. Having uprooted his life to move to a different continent, with a different language, with different concepts of how life should be lived wasn’t proving to be completely easy. Objectively emigration wasn’t hard but it wasn’t easy either.

 

He reached his final turn toward home. Late May and the jacarandas with lovely little pale purple blossoms made 5 Outubro’s center look like the living incarnation of the promise of spring. Stopping and scanning the street both ways he took the beauty of those trees in.  Watching the cars speeding by, all so tiny by American standards, the realization that had come to him time and time again washed over him.  For him this smaller life was a better life.  From the leather repair shop to the fresh fruit stand to the flower stand and to each and every café and kebab place, life here was conducted on a much smaller but much more personal basis. Relationships mattered here.  Quality of life mattered here.  Time does not matter here.

 

Reaching his door his plan was in place.  In five minute’s, time he would be on his balcony with a cup of decaf and the brownie.  He would be watching the world pass by.  For now, that was just about perfection.

Gordon Lightfoot, A Note of Mine from 2014

When I posted last week I knew I had written about Gordon Lightfoot before.  Thing was I just wasn't sure where it was. Turned out it was in a blog that FB will not let me post links to. Here is and edited version of that older post. The photo is the cover shot from Gord's Gold II.

One must reflect at times about what really matters. What do I keep? What don’t I need? In thinking about life and its pleasures I am drawn to think about what would it is I would miss if I were to be shunted off to a cosmic waiting room filled with only a leather couch and lined with faded 1960s basement rec-room paneling.   Sitting there in a space devoid of magazines or piped in Muzak what would I ache for. One thing I would truly miss is the music of Gordon Lightfoot.

Before I came to Michigan in the 1970s all I knew of the man’s work could be found in the contents of one album. Well, there were two additional songs of this Canadian minstrel I heard on the radio. The first radio song was “If You Could Read My Mind” and the second was “Black Day in July”. The album was called “The Summer Side of Life.”

I knew the first song because well it was all over the radio every day each day in June 1971. It had been a spring hit but it just wouldn’t go away that summer. When aired it was often coupled with the Moody Blues “Question”. While “Question” was deep and agitating “If You Could Read My Mind” was the song for the loser, the loner, and the wistful. It worked for my 15 year old self on so many levels. Thinks zits, glasses and no self-confidence. "If You. Could Read My Mind,"  was a song of love lost I could relate to even though I had never had a real love.

“Black Day in July” was a topical song about the Detroit Riots in the summer of 1967. Gene Shay played it every so often on his folk program on WMMR in Philadelphia, a show I tuned in to hear religiously. In the early 1970s I listened to a great deal of protest music. “Black Day in July” was a protest song and it seemed to have a connection to an older tradition of folk protest songs. “Black Day in July was much like “Joe Hill” and “Wreck at Los Gatos”. I love the Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” but “Black Day in July” seemed more intent on getting the feeling right as opposed to the facts. I think that sense of feel is often what makes great folk songs.

My brother Jerry was drifting in and out of my life as he went to college, as he went to Vietnam, as he drifted between jobs.  One day he brought a copy of “The Summer Side of Life” home with him. I played it to death. The track listening on the first side is just stellar: 1. 10 Degrees of Getting Colder 2. Miguel 3. Go My Way 4. Summer Side of Life 5. Cotton Jenny 6. Talking In Your Sleep

Nary a weak tune in this batch. I loved all six songs and pretty much had the lyrics memorized in a short time, two weeks maximum. From the heartbroken bar musician to the outlaw to the cuckold every song on "The Summer Side of Life" had a beautiful melody and a strong lyric. While it is not so much my default tune to hum now “10 Degrees and Getting Colder” held that spot for several years. "He was standing by the highway, with a sign that just read 'Mother' when he heard the truck a coming half a mile away.  He held the sign up higher so no decent should could miss it. It was ten degrees and getting colder down by Boulder Dam that day."

There is a warmth to Gordon Lightfoot’s voice that spreads as you listen to it almost through your entire being. Hazily I can remember sitting in dorm room snuggling with a young lass with long hair her face illuminated by those odd blue lights of Pioneer Stereo receivers. On that winter night we were drinking some cheap red wine. Ah, on a night like that Gordon Lightfoot provided a warm atmosphere to fill my cold room in Mayo Hall where the windows never quite closed. Hell no, I will never give up Gordon Lightfoot. 

Here is one of those great songs from Gord that you may not have heard.  Christian Island is a small rocky dot in Georgian Bay.  I camped there one night. The melody is quite hummable.

Sunday Morning Coming On

 

Sunday has come.  Clear blue skies are the ceiling of this world today.  A soft breeze stirs the greenery of the plants out on the back deck. Currently I sit at the keyboard with the window to that deck open. My fingers tap away at the keys. I wait for the strains of songs of the faithful to waft my way.  Soon the congregants of the Evangelical Baptists situated across the courtyard will start singing all those hymns I know so well, only they will be sung in Portuguese.   

As I sit here, I can hear the washing machine spinning wildly.  Soon I must take a break to hang laundry. Today will remain bright, sunny and warm enough to dry just about anything. (Short break taken).  First load of laundry on the line.  Second load is ten minutes into its one-hour cycle. Within the hour all my clothes lines and drying racks will be full of sheets, pillowcases, socks and undergarments.  Some track pants too.

 

Haven’t posted much in the past three weeks.  Thanks, and a tip of the hat to Covid-19 for my absence at the keyboard.  As I noted on Facebook Covid hit me like a freight train, like a really, really…really bad flu.   About the most I could muster to do during the vast majority of my illness was watch dystopian television series on the streaming services or play Simon’s Cat on the iPad. Today, I still have the slightest tinge of body aches but there are no other active symptoms. I am sure a little time out in the sun soaking up warmth with help.

 

A couple of nights ago I posted some pictures from my walk around the one block that is the rectangle in which my apartment building exists. Yeah, you caught me, I am just a rube from the country.  I am amazed at how much I can find in the way of food and services in a very small area. As I have described it my world is way more compact now, maybe 10 square blocks.  In that area I can everything from garden supplies to groceries to leather repair.  Back in Michigan Saturday shopping trips would involve four stores and probably 20 miles of driving. Here it is a twenty-minute walk with usually two stops at different grocery stores.

 

(short break, again.)

 

Having atum(tuna) sandwiches for lunch. Had to jog (not really) down to the nearest small grocery and gets some bread.  Basically, bread is good just on the day you purchase it. As long as I was at the mini-Auchan, I picked up some chips.  Weird fact, chips here are not salted very heavily at all unless you buy the American brands at twice the price of the Portuguese brands. French fries in restaurants are not really salted. It is almost as if the foods we salt the Portuguese don’t and the ones we don’t, they drench in salt.

 

While at the store I saw a group of newbie visitors from ‘Murica.  How could I tell?  Well, hairstyles, clothing and the fact that each of the lot were carrying about two gallons of water in shrink wrapped sets of bottles under their arms.  Also, they were staring at the take away food options in total bewilderment.  Finally, the size of the Coke bottles seemed to amuse them.  As per my usual I struck up a conversation. They are here for a nine-day trip and they are driving down to the Algarve.  More power to them.  My hope is that they are from a highly congested city say L.A. or NYC because the traffic getting out of Lisbon is insane. 

 

Spent the early hours on Friday rearranging my airline tickets back to the US.  I tried to do it online with Air Canada but some glitch would not let me pick up the seats I wanted.  I turned on my US phone line and dialed into the backdoor number for AC.  Turns out the fare I wanted had just sold out and then repopulated at twice the price.  Don’t you just hate that?  Well, all was not lost.  As long as I was willing to add an extra leg onto the trip, I could get the same price only slightly increasing the cost of my original fare.  So, on the same day I will be in Lisbon, Montreal, Toronto and Detroit.  

 

Just as I am finishing up, the Baptists are singing a song I know.  I actually used a search engine to figure out what the song was.  Why because I only remembered one lyric.  It is the only place I know that uses the word diadem and the lyric is, “Bring forth the royal diadem…”. Yup, an old timey hymn entitled “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name”.  

And who knew Kris Kristofferson did a music video for Sunday Morning Coming Down?

Plague Poem

Faded grey light remains

Above faded and worn buildings

Standing silent in a city turbulent with renewal and change

 

One by one apartment lights blink on.

 

A sunny Sunday has now passed into twilight

At peak afternoon heat

Streets stood empty; sidewalks stayed clear.

Seems everyone ran down to the water’s edge.

Trams were packed as people rushed to feel 

The cooling breeze at the river, at the ocean on a hot, hot, day.

 

They crammed together shoulder to shoulder, ignoring reality

This new plague still rattles the elder’s bones, stretches tired sinews

Shakes the afflicted first with cold then burns them with heat from deep inside.

 

A simple journey carries with it the threat of life changing illness or death

Will the unmasked man three back coughing spread the malady to all about?

Did the person singing along at the concert unknowingly

Breathe malicious microbes on all those within the sound of her voice?

 

To a mere mortal the truth of transmission is unknowable.

 

Life is filled with vagaries, and 

Buffeted by cascading systems failing, and is

Never promised, never assured.

 

Now black of night is what remains

Apartment lights against a black sky are beacons of survival, of hope.

DOG, I wonder

Old, In the Way, Cantankerous

SUPPORT JAY TODD’S BIRTHDAY FUNDRAISER FOR AGNOSTIC, DYSLEXIC INSOMNIACS.  WE NEED TO LET THESE PEOPLE GET OVER STAYING AWAKE ALL NIGHT WONDERING IF THERE IS A DOG.  THEY NEED SOME SLEEP

 

My birthday is coming up on Thursday.  I will turn 67 years old.  Damn, how quickly the movie flashes by.

 

Meta, ( Antichrist #1), is bugging me to support a charity for my birthday.  I have in the past. I will not do it this year. Meta’s constant begging for a charity button trouble’s me.  Seems like FB does this to rack up a large dollar figure of charitable giving processed through their app as a talking point to offset all the stories about the evil spying they do on us and the manipulation by algorithms of the darker things in our world. I don’t need to support them.

 

Note I have nothing against people using birthday fundraisers as they serve a good purpose. What bugs me is Facebook/Meta’s insistent ads and charity suggestions. From the suggestions they give me, it appears their analytics really haven’t been tracking me all that well.  Again, I don’t mean to disparage anyone who has used the give button. Hey if you want to give to a charity to honor me, donate to research on autism, particularly on integrating the autistic into the work force.

 

What I would prefer instead is that on April 20^th, you tell me a short story about a point in our lives that I may have forgotten. It does not need to be cringe inducing embarrassing but it could be.  Think about it, it could be from work, from socializing, from school, etc.  Just know that at 67 I probably have forgotten some highly funny stuff from over the years stuff that each and every one of you remembers, possibly because you were sober and I wasn’t. If it is too tawdry well just message it to me.

 

Looking forward to see if anyone remembers anything of note.

Obliterated by Covid 19

Obliterated, this week was obliterated.  On Sunday night I attended a woman’s concert who closed out her set by singing repeatedly, “I am going to die”.  By mid-Monday evening I was wondering if that musical interlude had been foreshadowing.  I had started retching and then I collapsed. There, laying limp and mostly immobile on the cold tile of my bathroom floor the awareness of just how miserable Covid-19 could be hit me like a freight train.

 

My symptoms have included violent chills, drenching sweats, palpitations, monster headaches, muscle aches, wracking coughs and the loss of my sense of smell. My sleep pattern was totally shot.  I don’t think I really slept for most of Monday through Wednesday.  I got a few hours in here and there before the chills or sweating would wake me.  Once awakened the headache made sure I did not go back to sleep.  Tylenol and cough suppressant, these were my tools and eventually they did help. I did have some nasal congestion but it never moved into my lungs.

 

Thank goodness I was fully vaxed and boosted.  Yesterday and today, I have had some “limited” energy.  Coming and wanning in waves those caloric values let me take care of some laundry and dishes.  I have even taken a short walk up and down the block to prove my legs could still carry my far too portly weight.  

 

Out for a walk I saw the neighborhood streets were closed off.  There is a 15-story mobile crane at work. In Lisboa there is so much construction.  Lots of people in yellow vests, lots of bags with broken bricks inside.  Many, many cranes are standing everywhere. However, most of the cranes you see are ground mounted affairs.  But this one is huge and I am amazed they could get the vehicle through the streets of this city.

 

Oh well, having hung a load of laundry out to dry and emptied the dishwasher my energy is flagging.  Talk to you all later. 

Lisbon Lives in April

Lisbon lives in April.  The brilliant green of new leaves fills the center of the avenues and boulevards.  Verdant shoots and sprigs of new foliage contrast with the pastel yellows, pinks and dusty almost olive colors buildings.  

 

With spring coming on, the outdoor cafes take the portable heaters inside.  Cafe seats along the broad sidewalks lining thoroughfares are packed at both the lunch and dinner hours. Plates of pork, or mussels, or grilled octopus are set before a hungry public.  With each plate there is a wine glass filled well. Be it a fine dining restaurant or a snack bar serving a seafood sopa you will find the umbrellas are up and people are talking, drinking and eating.

 

Easter weekend in the non-touristic areas of the city felt like someone had spirited away the population through some kind of magic. Stores were closed and people were simply gone.  People went to the beach perhaps.  Perhaps they went to the family’s quinta in some rural region. Walking the streets looking at the emerging blossoms and the architecture of old gates and doorways was as fine as fine could be.

 

Now mind you in the touristic areas the madness has begun.  Easter break/spring break and the spots Rick Steves asserts are must sees are packed. Lots of people vying to get on the streetcars to Belem to see the monuments and the monastery, had that look.  You know the look.  It translates into something like this, “If I take one more subway ride the wrong direction, or if I get off one stop too early or too late again, I am going to lose it.” In shorts and ball caps they try to take it all in within seven days. 

 

Of course, there are the people who refuse to be pressured to check sights to be seen off a list.  On Friday night these folks were crowded onto the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara. At this miradouro, a plaza cantilevered over the edge of one of Lisbon’s hills providing a spectacular nighttime view, the music was loud, the drinks were flowing and people gazed longingly, or maybe wistfully, down into  the valley of central Lisbon.  Principe Real and the traversas, stone pathways down the sides of the hill leading from the overlook to the main squares were jammed with people. Warm enough that short sleeves were fine, people blissfully gazed off scanning up and down the width and breadth of Lisbon.

 

And the birds.  Oh the birds.  Our neighborhood is currently filled with noisy cackling swifts.