In a way it was only a lost pet. And yet, I feel like the whole thing gave me a lot to ponder.  To fully understand, you need just a few bits of background.

Sophomore year in high school.  I loved my English teacher.  But, reading Julius Caesar was brutally painful even after we watched the movie.  Until that time, years later, in the park with the wine and the snacks and the comfy blanket; I remembered sinking into that calm summer twilight between waking and dreaming as the play went on.  Actors walking through the audience, their trained voices echoing off the hard surfaces; the sun fading into the summer sky as I lay back to watch the colors change.  And realized that even though I couldn’t fully follow the words, the meaning was washing over me in waves.  In that delightful way I understood what was happening. That’s the best way to get your Shakespear on.

Some lingering post retirement nervous tension had been causing me to do strange things. This adventure began, really, in our pantry. 

I’d been retired for a couple of years by then, and although the bills were paid there remained an almost primal need to go out into the world and hunt down some sustenance and drag it home.  Without a need to return to the ‘working’ world, there was still a drive to do something substantial; to be someone.  And there was a continuous internal conversation where I was trying to ‘figure stuff out’.

Who was I?  I was the guy injecting a chunk of cash into this thing on the monthly.  And if not that guy, who then? Sure, having started my seventh decade there was relief and a sense of accomplishment but also a lingering reserve of unspent energy.  And I wanted to buy more stuff.  Stuff I didn’t really need.  Later, this turned out to be ‘wealth addiction’.  We’ll come back to that.

So, the pantry.  It had its own light with a door you could close.  Safety.  Provisions.  Stress free, no traffic.  I could tolerate the teasing because on some level I understood.  

Occasionally, amused but firm, she’d usher me in there. To re-balance and to have my mood mirror the calm, nicely organized interior.  Maybe she thought I would find my inner resources–to take some inspiration from her organizational work. If I chose, for example, I could admire the efficient way the canned goods were grouped together and separately from the nuts; or the napkins found in just the right place close to the cookies; or the chocolate stashed in its own metal box for hauling out when we watched our shows.  

While in there I was out of her way but still useful.  She could call, ‘potatoes’ or ‘curry powder’, and I could open the door, hand something out, and close  it again.  Open, extend, close  Not a big deal.  I knew where everything was, even in the dark.

And there it was a Sunday afternoon.  I had just exited the pantry with a refreshing sigh.  And saw Cornelia on the front balcony, surrounded by her succulents.  And I heard the most cheerful avian warbling.  After two years I’ve mentally cataloged the sounds of the area, but this greeting seemed to be inviting us to play. And it was close.  Very close, like perched on the bamboo privacy screen.

And that’s where we met him.

“That sounds like a domesticated bird,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”  And sure enough there he was.  I spoke to him softly and he hopped closer.  Cornelia stood up, and he made his way very close to her.

“Give him your finger.”  And she held out her finger in parallel to the fence and spoke to him sweetly, and he stepped right up.

“How cute!” She said

He flapped his wings and flew up to her head and started to preen her, taking single hairs in his beak and tugging gently like he wanted to clean them off.

“This was someone’s pet once,” I said.  And it annoyed me.  At the dog shelter we see dogs who’ve been chained up most of their lives.  Why have a pet if you’re going to make it suffer?  At the cat shelter we saw boxes of kittens come in for give-away, or diseased older cats on their last legs.  In this case I assumed that someone on vacation had just let it go, rolled down the shutters, and left town.  Terrible.

I put out my finger to take him from her and he went from there quickly to my shoulder where he could nip my neck.  I felt his clawed feet doing a bit of a samba to keep him where he wanted to be, and heard his feathers rustle to adjust his position.  He seemed instantly content there.

“Ok, let’s put him on the back balcony then,” I said.  “We’ll keep him safe there until we figure this out.“

The back balcony is off the kitchen.  I made sure all opaque glass windows were slid closed, and set him on a set of bicycle handlebars.  I shut the door from the kitchen side, and there he was. Safe from the strong wind, the gulls and storks that would make easy work of him.  From the pantry I brought some sunflower seeds, and put them in a little dish on the washing machine next to a substantial bowl of water, in case he wanted to have a bath.

“Let’s make up flyers and put them up and see if the owner is still around.”  

I knew birds are very social, so after dark I sat in there with him for a while.  He was quiet when I entered.  At first he was roosting up near the ceiling on the handlebars of Cornelia’s bike. The apartment is three floors up at treetop height. We could both hear the wild birds calling in the jacaranda tree that fills the courtyard.   Eventually he hopped down to my shoulder again.  I turned my head to look him in the eye.  He looked me in the eye.  And really, I don’t know whether I just thought it or he said it out loud, but I wondered intensely where he came from and I heard…

I have traversed a great distance to be in your presence this day, enduring the winds of time to stand before thee

“What the living hell is this?,” I thought. “ Did I hear that, or have I been spending too much time without adult supervision?”  I turned my head down and to the left like I was talking to myself and saw one of his eyes looking back at me.  He cocked his head, like birds do when they’re trying to get depth perception with eyes that don’t work exactly together because they’re on opposite sides of their head..  I wondered how that was for him and said, “You can only see me out of one eye at a time.  What’s that about?”

And I heard…

In mine own gaze doth each fair eye behold,

A splendid vista of my realm unfurled.

I find therein a world of beauty rare,

Wherein all blessings, wondrous, doth declare.

Beside thee, dearest, I am truly blest,

For in thy presence, joy doth find its rest.

With thee, my heart finds solace, love, and grace,

Enraptured by thy sweet and gentle face.

In thy companionship, my soul doth thrive,

As thou, dear love, doth make my world alive.

For in thy presence, all my worries cease,

And in thy love, I find my perfect peace.

Thus, in thy presence, do I truly find,

The purest joy that fills both heart and mind.

“Uhhh, whuhh??”, I said.   Shook my head from side to side, feeling the wobbly skin of my neck wiggling back and forth.  I saw a new YouTube channel in my mind’s eye.   Could I funnel this talking bird into an income stream?  With an endless stream of fresh content viewed by millions of happy viewers hungry for bird-bard wisdom.

Step 1.  Keep him alive.  He stayed on my shoulder as I went to check the situation on the washing machine.  As I did so, he shifted from one shoulder to the other by walking across my back.  I could feel his claws tickling the back of my neck and pulling the hair on the back of my shoulders.   I saw a few scattered seeds.  Good, he was eating.  There were little spots of guano in that area too, so I figured he wasn’t going to starve and he was safe for the night.  I gently nudged him onto the hanging rack we use to dry the laundry.

I went into the bedroom to find Cornelia already tucked in and reading.  “The bird spoke to me," I said.

“Sure he did.”, she answered, straight faced.

“Never mind then.”  She’d learn what’s what soon enough, I thought to myself, with rock-solid certainty.  My mind began to ruminate over my new found luck.  Under the covers, in my own secret space second only to the pantry, I may have actually rubbed my palms together. I felt light.  Maybe I could be another, ‘BeardMeetsFood’.  I dreamt of fancy cars and penthouse apartments and first class travel.  My ‘go-to-market’ strategy began to assemble itself in my mind.

Monday morning I got started on the flyers.  I took his picture and printed copies for Cornelia to put up around the apartment complex.  I also posted on Facebook and the WhatsApp group from the dog shelter.  This eventually turned out to be a bit of a problem for a couple of reasons.  We’ll get to that.

After the flyers were drafted, I went in to see him.  I saw him perched up high and let myself in, quickly closing the door behind me.  Once again he hopped down to my shoulder and looked me in the eye.

Hark, good sir!  

A grand and cheerful morn doth I wish upon thee. 

May the sun’s rays bringeth joy and warmth to thy day, 

and may thy spirits be lifted high with each passing moment!

It felt like when I closed the door after leaving the kitchen I was stepping into another place in time.  I only allowed myself a moment to bask in his radiant glow, but planned to do more of that later.  Right then, I needed to figure this out and make something happen.

There he was, without a permanent home.  His real owner was assumed missing and potentially long gone.  That is to say his long-term prospects were sketchy at best.  I felt afraid for him.

“Aren’t you afraid?”,  I asked him.

I doth not tremble nor quiver with trepidation, 

for the cosmos doth tenderly cradle me in its embrace. 

Its divine providence guides my wings, 

shielding me from harm's cruel grasp 

and bestowing upon me its bountiful blessings.

After he said this he took the opportunity to nip me on the back of the neck.  I turned my head so I could see him with my one eye, having to  twist my neck to see him.

“Well, what I mean is that you were probably in a safe place before you came here, and in between you could easily have been blown  or eaten by one of the gulls or a stork.  Surely you’ve seen and heard the ruckus they make.  I mean even I could eat you for a snack.”

Please, doth not consumeeth me as a mere snack, I prithee.

I checked his food and put a towel over the handlebars of my bike.  It seemed like he was trying to paint all the equipment with spots of little bird guano.  With a little coaxing he flew off me and onto the washing machine where the food and water sat.  I quickly opened and closed the door back into the kitchen to go find Cornelia.  I found her in the second bedroom, working on our budget.

“I’m telling you he spoke to me.”, when I found her.

“Have you been spending too much time in the pantry?”,  She asked, smiling quietly to herself.

“It just happened.” Come and see for yourself.

“Fine,” she sighed

We went together into the back balcony.  He had resumed his perched position on the bicycle hanging from the ceiling, looking down at us from several feet up.  He stood there, frozen like a statue. 

“Ask him a question!”

“Is my husband bonkers?”

As we both looked up waiting for an answer, he moved his head only a fraction of an inch, as if to put the pair of us in perspective.

Silence.  I felt myself let out a sinking breath.

After a minute, she said, “We need to get these flyers out.  You know we can’t keep him.  He’s making a big mess!”  She gestured at the scattered seeds on the washing machine and spots of guano starting to accumulate.  And she left, exiting briskly and pulling the door into the kitchen closed behind her, and gifting me with a withering, sober glance.  

The new Tesla I had envisioned began to retreat into the distance.  My first class airplane seat had been moved to the rear cabin.  A middle seat.  I stayed there another minute to see if he would have another word with me.

“Ok, so why are you talking only to me?” He dropped down onto my shoulder again, and answered…

To thee alone doth my tongue unfold its tales, 

for in thy gentle ear doth rest the wisdom to unravel the mysteries of my soul, 

secrets laid bare in trust's embrace.

I was struck dumb by the raw beauty of his words.  Had I really heard this or did I add the wrong mushrooms to my breakfast omelet?  And yet, somehow I was still wanting.  “Hey, I stand in a pantry to calm down and you think I’m qualified to be your proxy?  Why do you speak at all?”

In noble verse, I do profess my words,

For 'tis the spirit's gentle, guiding call.

By Heav'n's own grace, I'm stirred to speak my thoughts,

Inspired by God, whose hand directs us all

In humble reverence, I do declare,

Each syllable a testament of faith.

For in His wisdom lies the sacred air,

That fills my lungs and guides my mortal wraith

Thus, in the language of the heavens above,

I voice the truths that stir my very soul.

Moved by the divine, I speak with love,

Each word a fragment of the grander whole

For God's own purpose doth my tongue employ,

To spread his message, his eternal joy.

And then, a profound silence.  It felt like the whole world had stopped.  I slowly drew a long breath and felt my head gently moving side to side.  No words came.  I felt myself staring blankly.  What the living heck? I thought.  This bird is more eloquent than I’ve ever been.  I was too stunned to deeply consider what he said, but I felt a lightness in my chest.  I heard friendly conversation in the courtyard.  Coffee cups returning to saucers. An ineffable sense of expanding space.

I felt myself smile.  

“I thought you were going to be my ticket to fame and fortune,” I told him. “You speaking in verse and me proudly posting videos every day, counting up the views and ad rev.  It feels like you showed that to me and took it away at the same time.  Why?”

Happiness, that elusive gem of life's stage,

Doth not reside in worldly gains or gold,

But in the depths of one's own noble soul,

Where virtue’s light doth ever brightly shine

For happiness, a treasure rare and true,

Springs forth from deeds of kindness and of love,

From gentle thoughts and words of charity,

That elevates the spirit to realms above

No outward circumstance can e'er bestow,

The joy that dwells within a virtuous heart,

For happiness, the bard doth wisely show,

Is found within, where noble virtues start.

So seek not happiness in fleeting things,

But turn they gaze inward, where true joy springs

“Noble soul”? I thought of that dusty crevice behind the sofa cushions.  Potato chip crumbs, too small to eat.  Losing lottery tickets.  I brushed the thought away and decided to ponder what he’d said.  I checked his water and bowl of seeds, turned out the lights in the kitchen, and left. 

By the next morning, the postings started to yield some responses.  Some were from other towns.    Thing is, this guy was incapable of flying any distance.  He had to be from the immediate area.  Or an Uber customer.

Still, I had given my house phone number and people were starting to call.  And, with several different Facebook postings I figured someone was going to help out with equipment.  And they did.  A lady from Messines, about 45 minutes from here, said that she had a cage and would foster him until we found the owner.

The next morning, I heard his joyous chirping before I saw him.  I put on the hot water for tea, and watched him flap his wings, as he crossed the balcony at eye level.  Like I’ve been saying, he wasn't a graceful flier.  He really had to lean into his flapping efforts.  By now I knew his gifts lie elsewhere.  With my tea ready, I stepped across the threshold into his magical world. He looked down from high up on the hanging bicycles and dropped down to my shoulder as soon as I closed the door to the kitchen.  

He looked at me.  With his round head and soft feathers he seemed to be one big smile. I looked at him, and felt like something was opening in my chest.

It was as if he could tell something was on my mind.  

This whole retirement thing is pretty great–don’t get me wrong.  When I had ‘looked within’ as he suggested, past the flatulence-laden sofa cushions and junk food wrappers that shape what I call my dreary inner architecture, I saw an aging warrior.  But the hunter within me hadn’t hung up his spear.  A remote position in the world of enterprise software wasn’t out of the question, but a full-time gig wasn’t necessary or really desirable.  I had sketched out some ideas but hadn’t really pivoted to any profit making scheme.

So I just thought I’d ask him straight out how I could create some income.

To forge a path toward a future bright,

One must within oneself seek strength and light.

Look deep within, where dreams and hopes reside,

And with resolve, let doubts and fears subside

For every soul holds power to transform,

To shape its fate amidst life's raging storm.

Embrace thy dreams with courage bold and true,

And let ambitions guide thy actions through

Though challenges may rise, and trials may test,

In perseverance lies the path to best.

With steadfast heart and unwavering will,

Thy destiny dear friend, thou shalt fulfill

So fear not, for within thee lies the key,

To unlock the door to what thou long to be.

Forge on, with faith and vision as thy guide,

And in thyself a new future abide.

Perfect, I thought sarcastically.  My own personal magician is in fact a stoic. Whatever happened to rubbing a lamp and getting free wishes?  Still, talking birds don’t fly into one’s life every day.  I made careful note of what he said for later review.  I noticed myself counting a few of the things that are going well (we live in a friendly place with nice weather, for starters), and I could feel this tiny creature radiating the purest all-out bliss.  And I felt thankful for him, and extra lucky to be graced with a little magic.

I wondered whether I’d be able to heed his words. I realized my ambition had been covered up for so many years with  self-doubt and worry.  We’ve all seen cheerfulness before and it can be really annoying am I right? But this was true joy, and I felt it trying to pull me up off the floor.  I wanted to ask him how I could be as happy as him.  I looked down at the steam curling up from my tea, felt my fingers gripping, and the warmth coming through to my hand.   Without even voicing the question I heard him answer…

In life's vast stage where woes and joys contend,

Seek solace in the wisdom of the Bard,

For happiness resides in simple truths,

In love, in faith, in virtues unmarred

Look not to fleeting riches or vain pride,

But cherish friendship, family, and love,

For in their warm embrace, true joy is found,

A treasure bright that shines from realms above

Find purpose in the service of thy fellow,

In acts of kindness, noble deeds, and grace,

For in the giving of thyself, thou shalt,

Discover depths of joy no wealth can trace

And though life's path be fraught with trials dire,

Hold fast to hope, let not despair consume,

For in the darkest hour, a beacon bright,

Shall guide the to a light of blissful bloom

Thus, seek within thy soul, where truth resides,

And happiness shall be thy constant guide

I knew I had a lot to think about when ‘Juliet’ contacted me.  You gotta know it’s six kinds of weird when a Shakespear talking bird gets a rescue call from someone named with perhaps the most famous of his characters.  Anyway, she told me she had a cage for transport and she was an experienced bird owner, and she’d willingly foster and give him up if the real owner appeared.  This seemed to be the best thing for him, so I invited her over.

And there was something oddly satisfying about doing the right thing.  I stood on the front balcony waiting for her, enjoying the feeling of the soles of my feet standing on the freshly swept balcony.  I looked down onto the parking lot, across the tennis courts, and lifted my gaze out to the horizon.  I saw the shadows from the afternoon light setting the houses and apartment buildings in sharper relief.  I thought about Brian and Janis, Mark and Glenna; some of the new friends we’ve made since coming here; and the people at the volunteer dog shelter with their happy friendly connections with the residents there.  I felt a warm breeze on my skin through my Blackhawks t-shirt, a gift from my mom.  I heard a neighbor call out to another neighbor in a friendly greeting.  Considering all these interconnections, for a second I disappeared.  There was just the whole world doing its thing all by itself.

Then the phone rang, and the bird rescuer arrived.

When Juliet joined me on the back balcony, he was completely mum, jumping onto her shoulder like they were old pals.  She brought some proper bird food and used it to coax him into the transport cage.  Turned out sunflower seeds were just not enough. He was all over the new stuff like the road runner devouring the bait from the Coyote.  I gave her the food that we had bought to take home for her larger parrot.  

I updated the Facebook groups where I had posted to say that he had been placed in a home and this was a happy ending for all involved.  A few notes and calls continued to come in, and from as far away as Portimao.  Juliet and I stayed connected by Facebook Messenger, reviewing the responses.  

I knew I had approached the whole thing awkwardly.  Cornelia joked that it was like putting up a photo of a fifty dollar bill with a message saying, ‘Did you lose this?’ and adding your contact info. 

The problem with posting a photo of the found animal is that you wind up looking like you’re offering it to anyone who wants a pet.  That wouldn't guarantee that he went to a proper home.  

Eventually, the young man who owns him wrote to us; this was after Cornelia had hung up on first his mother and then the young man himself when he finally called.  Some people were getting a little aggressive with us, and of course we have a mild language barrier given that my Portuguese is hideous.  And perhaps insulting.  

When he sent identifying pictures of the bird and I shared them across to Juliet and it looked like we had a match, I gently asked him what had taken so long.  He answered that he works two jobs and lives with his parents right near us; and that his mother had called speaking poor English.  And so he wound up driving up to Messines on his day off, and reclaimed his friend who had escaped out an open window to go and see more of the world.  Turned out that he hadn’t gotten far.

It’s amazing what a couple of happy chirps can do for your mood.  I hear him from the parking lot.  I like to think he hears me every time I roll my bicycle out the door of the building for a ride, and his call is a happy reminder to take his lessons to heart.  Occasionally the idea of asking his owner for some one on one time comes to mind, but I let it pass.  I feel like he gave me enough to think about, and becoming any kind of pet owner isn’t in the cards right now.

I don’t need to spend as much time in the pantry these days.  I can go in there to fetch the container of oats and chia seeds and I come out in stride with most of my anxiety settled and sorted.  The pressing desire to still ‘be someone’ is easing a bit based in part on what the bird told me, together with some exercises I’m doing to get my mind into a better place..  

There’s hope that this writing thing could turn into something.  There are new tools that make things easier.  There’s a hunch that all that’s really needed is a little inspiration.  The need to know where it will come from is still there, but gradually it’s yielding to what’s available at this very moment.

The beaches on Madeira are black sand and rocks.  Football sized basalt chunks worn smooth by the sea tumble in the waves making a low rumbling crescendo on repeat.  If you like the sound of the ocean, it’s delightful.  For me, I could sit and listen to it for hours. I’m easily amused.  

The very tasty, and famously ugly Scabbard Fish, with its sleek body and pointy teeth, lives at the deeper depths surrounding the island (just don’t  eat the liver–it’s full of heavy metals).  It is a specialty here.

But I get ahead of myself.  Let me start with a broad overview..

Executive Summary:  It’s freakin’ beautiful.

The main formation of the island grew out of the ocean within the last 18 million years, which in modern archeological terms might be simplified to, “just the other day”.  Apparently there were massive eruptions (Boom!) followed by lots of oozing (Ohhhhh!) that formed the islands.  And the oozing went on and on.  Volcanically speaking.

(Apologies to all geologists, everywhere.)  

Notice a few things in the picture below.  First, the ocean gets mighty deep, mighty quickly.  Within ten miles out, it’s a mile and a half to the bottom.  See?  I wasn’t kidding about all that volcanic oozing.  Next, notice that there are many more highlighted towns along the south.  Why? There are hills rising as high as a mile and a quarter, their peaks running east-west (34 miles) across Madeira’s middle, putting the northern half in shadow much earlier in the day.  Funchal is the major port that I’ll discuss more in a minute.  Also, notice twenty blue squiggles running down from the heights to the sea.  These rivers are fed by springs and the rare short rain shower.  There is no shortage of fresh water for the quarter of a million people that live here.

We did most of our hanging around in the city and suburban areas of Canico, to the east of Funchal, and San Martinho, which is between Funchal and Camara de Lobos.  And apart from a couple of marvelous hikes we also circled the island by car and saw many of the smaller villages like Santana, Sao Vicente, Porto Moniz, and many others.

Canico is where Bob lives.  It ticks a lot of the boxes for us in terms of a nice place to live. We ask if shopping is walkable, whether there’s easy access to a nice view, if there are decent reasonable restaurants, safe/interesting places to walk.  Bob has all of this at a reasonable rent.  And, he lives very close to this statue of Jesus.

Apart from being our guide, we consider him an unofficial ambassador to Madeira.  He showed us all but a fraction of the periphery of the place.  And I would say it is with Bob that our story begins, but that would be a big fat lie.  Let me explain.

This was, in a way, a return to the source of the story of why we moved to Portugal in the first place.  Cornelia and her mom visited here twice without me, and she liked it (that is to say Portugal, not being without me) so much she wanted to move to the mainland.  In fact we stayed a few nights at the same hotel where they stayed, and enjoyed a fabulous breakfast several mornings.  It has a resort-like feeling with a short walk down to the water, several swimming pools, cheap drinks if your timing is right, and raptors on display. 

But it wasn’t simply a combination of the tropical weather, super friendly people, low prices, plentiful English speakers, stupendous panoramic views, and the European flavor of the place that made it so attractive.  Also excellent, if narrow, roads; six hundred years of history; subsidized gasoline; reasonable real-estate prices; happy foreigners on vacay; and the tranquil sound of the ocean waves crashing in the distance combined with everything else to make it awesome.  In fact, Madeira has been voted the best island travel destination in the world.  Many times.

Take THAT Maui!

In your FACE, Bali!

Boo Yaw, almost everywhere else!

All in all the trip felt like a survey of the finer qualities of life there.  And we certainly want to return.

The fact is that if you want to travel the EU, Madeira makes an excellent year-round base.  Flight time from Funchal to Hannover is 4.25 hours.  Funchal to London is 3.75 hours.  And, it’s a 7-hour flight to JFK.  Our transit from Lagos to Funchal gets stretched due to the remoteness of the Algarve, which requires a 4-hour bus ride to Lisbon before connecting (for 1.5 hours) by air.

Funchal is the one larger town where the cruise ships land.  The dock has room for several of them.  And that general area is the true ‘landing spot’ with six centuries of history.  People spilling out to see the sights for the day are following in the footsteps of Portuguese settlers from the early 1400’s.  Discovery of this uninhabited island took place in 1419.  And after realizing the strategic advantage sailing to other parts of the world, especially Africa, became clear, settlers began to arrive in 1425.  

A lot can change in 600 years.  But an island provides the kind of isolation that puts the brakes on rapid change.  Sure there’s high speed internet here and WIFI is plentiful.  But they string whole hillsides with colored lights for the holiday season and apparently there’s a fireworks show that people come to see from all around the world on New Year’s Eve.  And Mardi Gras is an event planned year-round, with people of all ages dancing in the parades.

Bob was kind enough to take us all around the island where we could see how many of the villages commercialized their edge of the sea by creating a safe place to swim.  While you could swim in the open ocean it was very easy to imagine the Atlantic picking up a swimmer and flinging him against the hillside.  The wind here flows unobstructed for hundreds of miles.  Many villages have created their own saltwater pools by encircling an area adjacent to the shore with rocks.  This makes it safer to get in the water free of any undertow or crashing waves. 

Madeira has so much fresh water that most of the rivers just spill into the ocean, like a cruise ship passenger being a little too flamboyant with her martini glass.  These rivers bubble up and flow down the channels built for them (‘levadas’), and the trails constructed to enable their maintenance have become exquisite for hikers.  We sometimes saw this water captured in massive pools for irrigation, but often it just streams down to the flat margin of land that circles the hills, and out to the sea.  The water, for me, and especially deep water represent a stimulating mystery.  What’s underneath that we just can’t see?  Like the pull to understand what your dreams might really mean.  Is something trying to send you a message?

Fresh ground water springs on a volcanic island in the middle of the ocean?  What’s up with that?

If you’re a hiker, put this island on your bucket list.  The views to the horizon or down to the little villages from high up in the hills are stupendous.  We just barely scratched the surface with the few walks we did. 

Although the famous hikes are limited in number to something like a dozen, this hairy dude (with whom I have no connection, although I think he’s kinda hunky) documents no fewer than sixty five of them.  So if you like to walk, this could be an interesting destination for you as it was for us.

We walked from San Martinho to Camara de Lobos one morning, turning back after visiting the bay where Winston Churchill used to go to paint.  We saw black sand beaches with tumbling black stones making great sound as the waves pounded the shore.  This was our first extended walk after traveling and it was great to do it along the water’s edge.  I love the perspective we were able to capture on the path into the town.

Sir Winston has a bar named after him.  Recognize the hillside?

Cornelia at the edge of Camara de Lobos

And here’s one she took.  I love the contrast and perspective here…

Another day we walked the Fontes trail from the town with the same name, and took some pictures.  There, Bob rode a cow.  Not really.  He saw a cow.  Got pretty close.  We had been walking for a long time up into the hills, taking in the views and hearing their bells tinkling in the far distance.  As the walk progressed we came upon cow pies, and as we walked further they got fresher and fresher until we actually saw them.  This was their leader.  The smart one.

We took a gondola ride from downtown Funchal up into the hills.  At the top of the ride we saw the famous street toboggan where you can have men guide you on a rattan chair as you slide half-way down the hill you just rode up.  It’s an exhilarating touristy thing to do. Cornelia would have no part of it.  Still, it was cool to see and a little silly in its weirdness.  Each sled that slid by paid thirty Euros, so the cash register rings all day long on this hill.

Someday I’ll put on my leather pants, grab a pizza box, and just slide down that same road on my ass. Or maybe instead use the Roger’s Brothers Mini Street Luge.  I guess you could say that hearing the whoosh of the baskets and seeing the excitement on a few of the faces made me want to shred the gnar in my own way somehow.  Yes, I really said, ‘shred the gnar’.  Maybe that’s why I’m writing this.

Instead of riding down the hill we walked east to a hiking trail and along the levadas to a lovely tea garden where we met a lady who was absolutely thrilled that I could speak a couple of sentences in portuguese.  She took our order for fresh fruit and picked some right off of the trees that line the garden.  She served us an excellent cake.  Notice the lavada and the trail to the right of the image.

Generally, the real fun, the events that wind up being stories you tell your friends, form up when things go off the rails and you have to improvise.  But if everything goes according to plan, don’t be discouraged.  Madeira gives you one final chance for your plans to go sideways as you leave.

If the wind is wrong, the flight will be canceled or delayed, and your airline is obligated by law to put you up and feed you.  And because all of the food and accommodations on this EU subsidized island are quite nice, I found myself hoping that the wind would be unfavorable for flying when we departed.  It is a serious issue with pilots speaking out in favor of proper limits for safety and of course overtime pay.

So, all in all, a fantastic time; highly recommended; we fully intend to return and to stay longer than 10 days next time.

Thank you for reading this far.  If you feel FOMO, just let it go.  We feel the same sometimes.

More Soon!

Steve

Walking home from the car rental office, there was a hitch in my step.  Something felt…incomplete–sort of nagging at the edge of awareness.  The price and details had flown by in a jumble of sound.  I thought it had gone fine there.  The man behind the counter seemed a little shy–almost embarrassed.  Flashed my credit card.  Almost joked that I’d send my driver to pick it up.  Nothing’s too good for our friends.  Big smiles and handshakes all around. And like that.  I put it to one side.

I felt the sunshine warming my back through my thin t-shirt.  I stopped under a tree to watch a stork. Tracing the line up his beak to a narrow head and settling into his ancient, reptilian stare, I felt a look of cold blooded ruthless survival.  He looked down at me, instinctively assessing.  A threat?  Too far away.  Food? Too big. 

His ancestors have nesteed here since long before humans came down from the trees. They’re back after months away.  I spoke to one recently, and I sensed an incredible patience.  An effortless, alert sense of calm.

–Welcome back

–Yeah, hey.

–Where’ve you been?

–Central Africa

–Whoa, that’s a long migration.  How do you do it?

–Dude, see these babies?  (spreading his wings, showing how they span wider than I am tall)  Muscle up to catch the prevailing and just soar, and then you soar some more.

–What’s it like?  

–Nothing like it.  Pure joy.  Me and the fam feel a little sorry for you stuck on the ground right here the whole time.

–Yeah, well, I can fly in a plane.

–How joyous is that for you?

–Point taken.

I watched him slowly reach down to his chest with the tip of his beak to preen one particular feather, all the while looking at me with those cold ancient eyes. 

A long silence passed between us. 

–Doing a little fixing up around the nest for now, he offered. 

I noticed that the nest was bigger than last season, a tight weave of sticks shaped into a broad bowl, 6 feet across.  

And another long, silent stare.  Nature’s awareness silently observing itself, no elaboration needed. For a moment, the world was perfect and calm. An effortless peace between two males.

Then a flash of movement hundreds of feet up.  Mrs. Stork with her wings open and her flight feathers separated.

He turned his attention to his mate, both of us watching her gracefully shedding altitude through her feathers to land weightlessly next to him.  They threw their heads way back so their beaks were pointing away from each other, and made a rapid-fire machine gun greeting.  I could hear it echoing off the concrete buildings of our neighborhood.

I turned and walked the rest of the way home.  To my own nest, my own mate. A few moments later I was dodging flying objects.  

–You did WHAT?

–Yeah, I rented a nice Mercedes 7 passenger van for us and our friends for their September visit.  

She shook her head as if to clear the remnants of a dream.

–And you paid how much?

–6300 Euros.

That’s when the first can flew by.  A quick blur of spinning metal.  I think it was coconut milk.   It bounced off the wall behind my head with a thud, rolling across the floor.  The next nearest thing was a banana.  The stem caught me on the forehead.  It had been resting on the counter, minding its own business.  Noticing that sharp objects were within reach, and with my survival instincts ignited by my encounter with the stork, I made a speedy tactical retreat from the apartment.  

Safely behind the door, I took a moment to reconsider my decision.  Shrugging off  the need for status and luxury, I found myself walking back to cancel the transaction.  Ultimately, we were able to rent for far less.  And sensibly, we added insurance.

Cornelia has helped me learn to make better purchasing decisions.  And she has, above all else, helped me learn to exercise that part of my brain that thinks concretely and sequentially.  I’ve come to admit that I’m better off for it.  In fact most of my rough edges have been polished off so that I’m smooth, round and shiny at 61 years old.  After all this time, it’s like my knuckles don’t quite drag along the ground like they used to.

October 2nd was 40 years for us.  On the day in question, We found ourselves traveling to her childhood home in Germany.  Like our lives together, this trip required that we find some patience and grace.  You lose it, you find it again.  The joy is in the journey.  

Bus to the airport at zero dark thirty; flight to Dusseldorf, bus to the train station from the outskirts, and the train into the city.  Then the next train to Hannover, and then a commuter connection that didn’t show, so we caught the next one an hour later.  It was oh so really long–about 16 hours door to door.  Much longer than it takes to fly from Seattle to Frankfurt.

Like any long migration, conditions can conspire to shake one’s grip on that sense of calm and ease; so faithfully cultivated, so easily lost. The delay in getting on the plane, the extra hot train car provided by Flix, and the comforting snacks we brought with us.  Seeing her befriend people on the crowded bus, her natural sweetness fully on display–something that used to make the kids want to hide.  Sitting across from each other in a snack shop at multiple train stations.  Sharing food. The cranky, tired helpless feeling, and a reviving cup of coffee; the relief that we’ve made the next train connection; the pain of the trip stretching far longer than we thought.  The discomfort of wearing a mask the whole way, the sight of the obviously sick teenage girl sitting too close to us; the ridiculously cute pet dog next to me in a carrier–he let out a single startled bark when the man across from him answered his phone.  And the entire claustrophobic transit, a sense of trying to make it just a tiny bit easier for each other.  Settling back into the calm and ease we thought was here for good, only to have it flit away again.

A month previous, we were visited by the man who married us.  He and his wife are a powerful force for good wherever they go, and it was good to have them close again for a few days.  

We have a long history with these two. They were there with us to watch the kids grow up.  And although he has mobility issues, and a 75 year-old woman shouldn’t be lifting the heavy scooter into the back of the rental, even with my help, they wanted to see how we lived.  And so they came.  And they were able to see this part of the world where they have never been.  We caught a glimpse of our lives through their eyes.  The view of the ocean from the cliffs.  The cheap, spartan restaurants.  The exceptionally friendly people.  The expat community.  The gelato shop.  The strange music of a foreign language.

We show up for each other in the space we manufacture with what we say, and both of them are…wonderful.  It's who they are–calling out the good in people and making them naturally want to live into their better selves–that’s so impressive.  Their kindness and inherent moral decency has always made me want to act like less of, well, a jerk.  And they’re allways praising our parenting and how the girls turned out.   

Now that we’re both reformado (retired), our molted ‘work feathers’ having been scattered to the wind’ they helped me remember how important it is to filter for kindness and compassion in people.  To reflect, with relief, that the right people are appearing at just the right time and just the right way–to feel  grateful for every single new person we’ve met.  And we are.

As we struggled with a couple of travel-related situations along with them they said that their visit was a dry run for having mom come. 

Soon after, mom did visit.  We drove the A2 to Lisbon to collect her in late September.  The road is nicely finished and it seems hardly used.  Very little traffic until we got within 20 miles of Lisbon, crossing a very long bridge over the Tejo river which is strongly linked to Portugal’s history.  Because we’ve mostly flown into Faro to arrive in Lagos, driving up this highway gave us a sense of how isolated the Algarve really is in relation to Portugal’s two big cities (Porto and Lisbon), and in turn from the rest of Europe  

To get to the A2 you’ve got to go east from here for almost an hour, and then you pick it up, pay the initial toll, and head north.  The Algarve’s isolation is sort of magical for us; with Cornelia, born in Hamburg and having spent many years in Berlin in her pre-Steve years; and me, born in Chicago before 35+ years together in Seattle; we’re both used to the big city.  So small town life provides us the refreshing simplicity we often dreamt about while sitting in traffic.

With mom riding shotgun and Cornelia chilling in the back seat, and racing home down the A2,  thoughts bubbled up about culture, and how we carry it with us when we travel.  Portuguese culture is its own unique plate of fish, if you will, and this country had much more than a moment on the world stage.  But that was centuries ago.  

Centuries.

Today, it’s neither America nor Germany.  It’s fascinating to see my own reflection of American-ism.  Why do people take so long in line?  Why do some administrative tasks take as long as they do?  Why would a business on a parade route be closed on the day of the parade?  Where is the innovation and spicy flavor?  What else could be made more efficient?  And although this is a conversation for another day it’s developmental to look in the mirror.

Although weekly Zoom meetings had helped us transit the surreal Covid interlude, we hadn’t seen Mom in person since we celebrated Sophia’s college graduation–something that feels like it happened a long time ago.  She was very brave for making the trip to Lisbon from Chicago on her own, not having traveled that far by plane in a very long time.  As a city girl herself, I think we should have made a point of exploring Lisbon for a couple of days upon her arrival.  Perhaps we’ll do that when she returns.  

In the Algarve, she got a good dose of walking exercise without overdoing it.  There was, thankfully, no face-planting on the slippery cobblestones.  For any of us.  And we managed, for the most part, to avoid loud places where it can be impossible to hear and a little disorienting.

Picture of me and mom.  I’m not that big in real life.  Well, bigger than this representation, but I don’t tower over people.  Mom’s just her own size.  To think she’s known me since I was a baby!  And she gave me her joy and silly sense of humor, along with a little cleverness.  We’re lucky to have had her here to visit and would like to bring her back again.

And then Diane.  Diane makes me feel funny.  Let me put that another way.  She’s willing to laugh at my silliness.  I think if I have a natural audience for my brand of humor, it’s ladies like Diane and our friend Yuko from our old neighborhood. They’re Cornelia’s drinking buddies and I can usually sweep in and get a good laugh out of them as they drink their wine.  The three of us walked from the apartment to Luz one day, and kept turning back to admire how far we’d come and to take in the landscape.

Diane took herself out to the beach a number of times.  And she found the Gelato places.  This is a sign of a truly adventurous traveler.  Can they occupy themselves?  Can they take themselves on a walk in a strange place and return? There’s a girl after my own heart.  She can explore AND find good desserts.  This sense of adventure will take her very far, and we expect and hope that she’ll return.  In addition to her travel sense and overall good nature, she has a fine eye for photos.  

Below is one of hers that I’m sure Ansel Adams would have admired.  I say this having taken the color out and left it with only black and white.  For me, his influence helped me to look for an image with lots of depth and the full range of shades from all black to all white.  And I think she captured it here.  You’ve got a nice stripe of horizontal black, all-white on the edges of the foam; the jagged clouds above the smooth ocean and flat beach; the eye is drawn into the far distance; there are interesting texture elements in the foreground, and the suggestion of humans walking on the beach…

Here is it in full color as she captured it.

For Mom, Diane and the Marmers before her, we yielded the guest bedroom and the second bathroom.  With the guests gone, I moved back into the guest bathroom.  (Well, let’s just say I started to use it again.) Diane has lovely long black hair.  I didn’t see a single strand left behind.  

Evenings spent watching Netflix and PBS, or just quiet reading have returned with a spacious silence and a sweetness we can appreciate in a new way.  Just curling up on the sofa with Spotify playlists coming over the one tiny Sonos speaker brings back the mellow.  Contentment is simple.

With 4 visitors here and gone, and with a trip to Germany behind us, we then moved closer to our expat neighbors, re-sorted into ‘locals’ and ‘guests’.  We’ve gathered up parallel experiences.  And can share them over dinner or hiking or at the expat meetup once weekly.  The days glide gently by.

Having done some reading, and closing in on 21 months of in-country experience, I think I’m ready to look at Portuguese culture in a different light, and I’ll do a little of that next time.

Thanks for reading!

More soon!

Steve

Here’s Cornelia next to a bus stop in Portimao.

Our Visit to Karuna Retreat Center

At roughly 2300 feet higher than Portimao the background silence was colored only by the wind and some approaching rumbling.  We could see the clouds gathering and darkening the skies to the north and east.  Sitting on the deck outside our tiny room we watched the storm roll in.  The thunder and clouds seemed to be drifting away from us at first.  Either way, there were no appointments or obligations.  We sat and watched.

Eventually we started to see lightning, and the wind shifted a few degrees in our direction.  The breeze grew a little bit cooler.  Then the storm clouds were thundering right over us.  One of the resident dogs, a big fella, came to keep us company.  He had nothing to say, instead settling within hands’ reach of both of us.  He was a sand-colored lab and retriever mix with one eyebrow lifted in what looked like a questioning face.  The rain started.  All three of us watched and listened.

We had been hoping to visit Karuna Retreat Center for a long time.  Cornelia was mostly advocating for this one, maybe to potentially volunteer there; but I could easily see the draw to be in a very peaceful place among people dedicated to turning their attention inward.  Where I balked was in taking a bus to a stop on a north-south highway, and then walking along an unknown road for an indeterminate distance.  So, we waited for the use of a car to appear, and once that happened we were ready.  And as it turned out, it was almost close enough to ride our bikes there–maybe a 40-minute drive from Lagos in the direction of Monchique until we turned off the highway, and then quite a bit of climbing over the final couple of miles to get to their driveway.  Portimao–a modest bike ride from Lagos–filled a portion of the distant horizon.

Just a few years ago fire ravaged this place, and then they lost their leader.  Each morning and evening, we climbed the stone steps to the temple at the very top of the property, past the kitchen and dining room where simple communal meals were served, above the gathering hall where classes were held, and up steeply past the tiny pond surrounded by bamboo and croaking frogs, giving us a long look south to Portimao and the ocean.  The hills looked like ripples on the surface of a pond, rolling out over geological time to meet the surface of the ocean.

We’d sit quietly for about 45 minutes each morning and evening.  The silence was a comforting blanket of calm.  We wrapped ourselves in the opportunity to simply rest in it.  Thoughts and impressions bubbled up and disappeared by themselves, leaving only the sound of the wind.  

Ice Hockey Finals

The games of the National Hockey League captured my attention once again this year, after following the ebb and flow of the season on YouTube.  I managed to bang out a separate piece on what happened at the end.  

Having played the game until I was about 14 I can appreciate how good the pros are.  Of course you’re covered with padding from head to toe, and what better catharsis is there for a resentful teenager?  The collisions can feel like you’ve been hit by a car, or like bouncing off the road after you’ve fallen off your bicycle. 

I got in shape for the playoffs by subscribing to YouTubeTV, and adding ESPN.  We also had to have a VPN to make my laptop look like it was in North America. In the opening round there were 2 games per night for 10 days making watching all of them a big commitment even when you can skip the commercials.  

In a way it was a great excuse to eat junk food.  I mean, I do have a large empty bag of pistachios to show for it, so there’s that; and I’ll admit to being inspired by brilliant play.

In the end, the Vegas team won with a style of play that makes any soccer game seem glacially slow. And it was a blast to watch. When a team scores, all 5 of their skaters come together for a group hug, sometimes showing incredible joy–their faces pressing together in slow motion.  You know they’d like to kiss–they’re more than happy enough–but well, this is hockey eh?

Meanwhile, back in Portugal in the summer of 2023…

Wherever Cornelia lives, things grow.

Our too-large garden in Bothell has morphed into a collection of succulents on the balcony.  They can handle the desert heat and the wind.  She tests the moisture with a special device.  There’s a new storage box for tools and soil components.  There seem to be hundreds of different kinds in our area, and people sometimes just cast them aside.

They make great shapes and textures.

We had temps in the 90’s for much of June, July, and August.  

People tend to stay indoors as much as they can during the heat of the day.  And for the neighborhood dogs, it’s too hot to bark.  Almost.

I’ve identified my least favorite barker, a mini-Chihuahua, who is a bundle of nervous tension.  It seems to me like he’s expressing the nervous fearful energy of his owner, a hunched over old lady living on the main floor.  I’m always friendly to her even though it’s a struggle to communicate.  And I’ve begun to develop some compassion for the two of them because they seem to have only each other all day long, and I’m sure his piercing barking is a constant reminder that life is out of her control.  So we turn up the music, or close the sliding glass door.  All this said, there are some moments where visions of punting him into the next town come unbidden into my mind.

The gulls on the other hand, have still not lost their romance.  They swoop in for a group bath at a fountain not far from here, and then we can hear their haunting laughter around bedtime.

I’ve ended my tenure at the cat shelter as it involved too much cat poop shoveling and not enough interaction with the animals.  I’m going to double up at the dog shelter instead.  Both shelters fall under the same charitable organization, and I expect that I’ll find other ways to contribute.

On the card-playing front, Lady Luck may have smiled on me.  My efforts to do better at pinochle may have borne fruit.  I killed it at 5 handed, coming in first, and came out on top in a separate group of 12.  Lowest to highest in the space of a short time.  As the probabilities and percentages revert to the mean, I should probably quit now and never play again, but who does that?  There’s a monthly game at Mark and Glenna’s house, and it’s a wildly good time.

Our Trip to Germany

We made it to Faro in good time only to have our flight delayed.  The TUI flight crew told us a tiny piece of electronics had failed and we couldn’t fly without it.  They had us deplane, found us a hotel room in Vilamoura, gave us dinner and breakfast, and then bussed us back to the airport the next morning.  We weren’t in a terrible hurry, so although inconvenient, they made us comfortable and gave us some cash for our troubles.  And hey, what’s not to like about a couple of free meals in a luxury hotel?  Did I mention they gave us money too?  Eight hundred Euros.  Turns out it’s the law in the EU.  Now do you understand??

So we made it to Oma’s house about 18 hours later than expected, but without the jet lag that comes with flying from Seattle.  In this case the time difference was just one hour.

From there we went to Kuhlungsborne and stayed in a place with a brilliant view of some wheat fields and the sea.

While in Kuhlungsborn we took a day trip to Copenhagen on the bus.  This was the culmination of staring at the ocean during so many previous visits over the years, and wondering, ‘What’s on the other side of this water?’.  Flat ground, good for biking, and a large city with handsome people is the answer.  We also saw the culmination of a long-delayed (for some) visit to see the ‘little mermaid’.  I never read the story, so I don’t really get it. Perched on a boulder a few meters offshore, she was situated such that having some intimate alone time with her would have to live on in my imagination.  

Here’s a couple capturing a moment of pure ecstasy as a substantial audience looks on from the water.

This young girl got a melty danish ice cream cone along with a sweet memory.

Copenhagen was a day trip and we’ll consider staying longer next time.  We wrapped it up in Kuehlungsborn and went on to Berlin. There we met up with old friends.  Lutz and Mani, now retired, were very gracious hosts, clearing their schedules to spend time with us.  We caught up on our work and parenting stories over the last couple of decades.  

One of the highlights was the city of Berlin itself, and we’re surely going back.  They took us to a very interesting art exhibition.

And as we left, we encountered the annual Berlin Pride Parade through the downtown area that boasted a modest 500,000 people. We heard music thumping from open tractor trailers.  An ocean of humanity undulating around them.  (Did I really say that?) What I saw were orderly people colorfully dressed with a bottle in one hand…

Lutz and Mani showed us where they stood for hours in a frigid train station in support of Ukrainian refugees arriving in the middle of winter as they fled their homes.  Berliners waited to receive them and made sure they had a place to stay as they passed through the town to their temporary homes.

For some reason I found it very satisfying getting Mani to laugh.  Here she is, reaching for her taser to get me to calm down.  And, very special thanks to Lutz for joining me in the silliness.

Atit and Christina

We took a breather for most of August as the heat increased along with the tourist population.  Some days were so hot we laid around in one room of the apartment with the AC cranking.  

As August ended, two of our dearest friends came all the way from Seattle to visit. He is actually the guy who married us 40 years ago. Atit Marmer and Nancy ‘Christina’ Roberts Brown (a.k.a. ‘NRB’) joined us for a sensational time.  This included visiting Seville, seeing the dolphins and Benagil Caves, visiting Sagres, Albufeira, Lagoa, Aljezur, Luz, Ponte de Piedade, and keeping quiet friendly company with them. 

Next up:  Mom’s visit, a Birthday visit to Oma, and Diane Cole from Seattle.

As always, THANKS FOR READING!!

P.S.  This is from a park near our hotel in Seville.

Sunday morning.  What used to be a sleep-in, mostly guilt free day.  Although there’s a willingness to just stay in bed and let the day unfold by itself, typically these days I get up early and go to the dogs.  I lay there thinking I could skip it once more as I had last week but I’ve found a way to combine a brisk ride with a nice walk, and I would miss both if I stayed horizontal.  So, vertical.  

I stagger to the window and pull the cord that raises the metal blinds in front of the sliding door, being careful to control the noise by doing it slowly.  I step on the scale and weigh in under 190 pounds.  Getting closer!  I tipped the scale at 200 when we first got here, and find that if I weigh often I'm just a hair more conscious about my eating.   And, I’m fasting most mornings on coffee, vitamins, and water.

Once I do the next thing, I’m committed.  I reach for my bike pants.  They stretch pretty tightly above the knee, right thigh and then left thigh.  First Sturm and then Drang.  Thunder and Lightning.  I’m very fond of vastus medialis, adductor longus, rectus femoris, and don’t forget vastus lateralis. I would spend longer admiring them in the mirror, but the road is calling and the dogs are howling.

I’ve been thinking about several types of time lately.  It’s such an abstraction that it’s tough to wrap my mind around it.  I might go so far as to say that it’s literally impossible to understand while being possible to describe.  We have evidence of a past and probabilities suggesting a number of likely futures.

For example, Cosmological Time relates to the age of the Universe itself.  This is the scale at which galaxies and solar systems form.  If we quote the common (current) understanding, this is 13.6 billion years.  So first, BANG, a big one.  (Don’t go all biblical on me here.  The observable physical evidence suggests that this actually did happen.)  And just before that all of the stuff–which did not include skyscrapers and school buses because the materials to make them hadn’t yet been forged in stars–was squeezed into a tiny point no bigger than your thumb.  Skip ahead 8.8 billion years and you have a freshly baked Earth.  Voila!  And conceptually this is like that very heavy piece of furniture in your living room–we don’t lift the concept of cosmological time very often because we’re not really able.

Then you have Geological time, which begins for Earth after it was formed.  If you’re keeping score at home and using Wikipedia, this is roughly 4.5 billion years back.  I think of this time scale as the time it takes to form things like a mountain range, or to gouge holes in the middle of North America, by glaciers freezing and melting over and over again that one day filled up with water and formed the great lakes.  In a quaint and simplistic way, I think of this as the time it takes for a jagged rock to become a smooth one as water in a river glides past it, every so often scraping away a few molecules from an exposed edge.  It would appear at this level that nature is infinitely patient.  And it never goes to sleep.

Then you have human time.  For me, this begins once we have spoken language and starts 50,000 years ago.  “But wait Steve!,” you say, “Aren’t the hominids we descended from at least a couple of million years old or more?”; to which I answer, “Write your own Substack,” and to me climbing down from the trees, walking upright, binocular vision, opposable thumbs, working together in groups–all this stuff is worthless until I can actually say, “Shall we chase that thing until it dies so that we can eat it?”, and you can understand and answer in the affirmative.  Consider it the logical equivalent of saying that you’re not in a civilized country unless you can whip out your phone and order a pizza and have it show up.

I swallow an arginine table, along with a combination of supplements that remain a state secret.  I wear a t-shirt under my bike shirt.  Thin socks.  I smear on some sunscreen, starting at my nose and working outward to my ears.  The back of my neck, and the spot my ball cap won’t cover on the back of my head.  I hear the tough fabric of the backpack crinkle as I wrestle my walking shoes into the main pocket.  A small bottle of water fits into the holder on the bike frame.  I carefully wheel it from the back balcony through the kitchen, being careful to miss the table, the dishwasher and the doorway, and lean it against the wall by the door.  I give the tires a squeeze, front and back.  If they’re not rock hard, pushing back against my fingertips, I’ll pump in a few extra pounds of pressure.  Today they're fine.  After replacing the original tubes these new ones tend to hold the air better.

My shoes have two velcro straps to tighten.  I tuck in the floppy tongue a little on each side, and pull the first strap across just behind my toes.  Then the second one another inch further up my foot., And then a ribbed plastic strap that I insert into a ratchet connector and lift up to feel the shoe tighten over the top of my foot with each firm clicking sound.  Underneath  are mountain bike cleats recessed into the sole.  The brand is ‘Luck’ and I read it to myself from the white lettering against the black material.  My feet are in luck.  How clever.

Ball cap, helmet.  The helmet chin strap snaps under my chin, pulling the cap-helmet combination firmly into place.   I hook my sunglasses into the top of my shirt. I slide an arm through each side of the backpack holding my extra walking shoes.  It clips once around my waist.   There are three pockets on the back of the bike shirt. They hold wallet, phone, and keys. After a quick inventory of these things I’m out the door.  

While waiting for the elevator, I pretend to feel the arginine begin to dilate my blood vessels.  I imagine the coffee and other supplements sending superhuman strength to my legs.  It’s comic book level sillness, but standing there in what is, for me, the closest thing to a super-hero’s uniform, I let it play.  The elevator opens.  With one hand I roll the bike up onto its rear wheel, and nudge it into the elevator’s corner.  The pedals could scratch the narrow walls, so I try to be careful.  I rest the handle bars near the diagonal front corner of the elevator, and step in.  I push the zero button.  The elevator has a mirror, and I see my helmet sitting high on my head with my baseball cap visor sticking out.  I feel the tight bike shirt over my biceps, and because no one’s looking I watch as my reflection flexes one of them and sneers back at me.

At the ground floor I pull out the standing bike and lower the front wheel to the ground.  Now around the narrow corner and out the front door.  The sunshine is bright, reflecting off the white stones forcing my eyes to squeeze shut.  The front door to the building needs to be pulled shut to latch.  I hear the door’s closing inside hallway echo from the outside.  I slide my sunglasses over my nose, feeling with some satisfaction that the sunscreen has already dried.  I find an opening between two parked cars wide enough to push the bike through without touching one on either side.  I maybe myself look around to sort of push my attention outward for safety.

I know the guy across the lot in the lower left garage works on bicycles.  Someday we’re going to have a conversation.  My eyes pass over his closed door.  Probably already gone.  Sunday morning is a good quiet time to ride. 

Before the new hip, swinging my right leg over the frame had devolved into feeling like there was a wedge there, with all cartilage missing, and femur trying to roll smoothly within the pelvis.  With extra bone growth there, it just couldn’t, and I had to lean the bike way over.  Now, with only numb skin over what is a substantial scar, the leg swings right over with no problem.  I turn the pedal with my toe and the cleat finds its way, and I push only slightly down and forward to a satisfying metallic snap of metal on metal.  I park my keister on the seat, the other cleat snaps in, and I’m rolling; sort of wearing the bike now that I’m clipped into it by the feet.

That first rolling feeling is so effortless and cool.  Even with this bike, slightly heavier and less agile than the one waiting in the attic for me in Bothell, I’ve gained some leverage over gravity itself.  Thanks mankind!  This is good.

Cosmological, Geological, and (my silly interpretation of) Human time have some implications for us that are certainly amazing and potentially insightful.  Cosmologically, we know that all the galaxies are racing away from each other.  Today we can see other galaxies, but at some point the next closest one will be over the light horizon, like a bike rider out ahead of us having crested the next hill before we could see him–for us, he’s out of sight and doesn’t exist.  So one day, a sentient life form will be pondering the night sky.  And (just maybe) eating a slice of pizza and wondering why his kids never call him.  He’ll be not only certain that his galaxy is the only one, but unable to ever observe the existence of another.  So it’s an interesting time in the development of our Universe.  A time that once passed can never come again.

Geologically, the Earth seems to grow animals all by itself.  For example, the earliest crocodilian showed up 95 million years ago.  This is not the oldest animal, but you can be sure that if you were some other life form the crocodiles were probably having you over for dinner (as the main course) for millions of years until you wised up.  Let’s see, 95 million divided by 50 thousand is almost two million (for you, 1.9 million) times the span of humans with language.  Now longevity may not be the only measure of success for a species, but it certainly is one of them, and we’ll never catch the crocodile.  I hope the lesson here is clear:  Humans are a relatively new upstart species grown by the Earth.  Oh, and get your ass out of Florida.

Will humans survive another million years?  I hope we do.  It’s certainly possible.  We’re uniquely capable of altering our trajectory. Fact is, a lot of species have come and gone.  And most of them have their time until it passes, and then it’s over.  

I’d cover human time on this interlude, but the supplements are starting to kick in and my breathing is feeling strong and joyous, so let’s focus on the road for a bit….

To the roundabout, a right turn past the bakery, and another right turn towards the city hall building, looming white and wide a few hundred yards away.  I ride past a row of parked cars, my hands ready to nail the brakes shut and kick out of my pedals if one of them is backing into my path.  Swerving left around them may not be an option if another car is passing, so I remain extra cautious.  Ahead on the right, at safe height,  there are many nesting pairs of white tipped storks.  One particular pair built a rather precarious nest just over the walking path.  They did a bit of a sloppy job of it, and we think something happened to the eggs or the gulls got to them, because one of the pair left soon after what we thought would be the time for hatching, and the other stood on a nearby lamp post alone, looking forlorn, before they both left it entirely.  We’ll see whether they return.  Before I pass under it, I signal left.

Now past the condo building where Phil and Natalie and Joe and Terri live.  It’s a bright, new set of condos with a massive glass door entrance.  Across the street is a fruit store where they sell mostly commercially.  The next right turn is a dicey roundabout.  The second exit takes you along the avenida to the old town and along the canal.  The third exit takes you over the canal.  I point with intention directly to my left, giving every car an update on where I”m headed.  Cars sometimes pull up in parallel with me, and it’s uncomfortable for someone used to riding without cars on the Burke-Gilman trail.  I round the turn to the third exit.  When I get there, on my immediate right is the Munich restaurant.  I need to make a quick decision whether to go the pedestrian walkway or stay on the road.  Mostly I stay on the road, but if there’s a stiff crosswind I promise myself I’ll take the walkway on the return trip.  The wind over the bridge can be strong enough to push you a few feet left or right.

And the canal is truly a wonder.  The tide here varies by 3 or even 4 meters over the course of the day.  When it’s high it’s much wider and feels strong and powerful.  When it’s low the rocks are exposed and it can get a little stinky.  When it’s high, we can see fish feeding just near the surface, their silvery sides catching sunlight and reflecting it up to us.  It runs north - south, and if the wind is from the south ocean water fills the area even higher with the tide; and with wind from the north it goes shallow and narrow.  To the right is the marina, and to the left is a wilder area where the storks and other birds come to feed.  

Across the bridge on the left I catch a glimpse of people walking in empty and others coming out with full baskets from the Pingo Doce.  And on the right, cars carefully park in front of the huge Garcia’s liquor store.  Pingo can be a fine place to shop as they have a much wider inventory than our local Lidl.  And of course what’s not to like about a warehouse sized liquor store?

After the next roundabout I’m on the N125, which is actually a highway that runs across the entire Algarve.  The shoulder after the roundabout is marked by a clear white stripe, after 90 meters, it widens several meters where I’m no longer sharing a lane with cars and trucks.  On this day I pull up behind three bikers out for their Sunday ride.

Immediately, I have wheel envy.  I see their very thin tires on carbon wheels, and actually a couple of them have tubeless tires.  I can hear them chatting in Portuguese, and it’s obvious from their cadences that this is a pleasure ride for them.  One lady and two guys.  One of the guys is skinny and trim, and the other one is thicker, with massive legs and a skin-tight bike suit.

Sturm and Drang start asking for permission right away.  “Can we CRUSH them, Steve?”, they say. “Steady fellas!”, I answered, wanting to take their measure a little longer.  My own tires are quite a bit fatter by comparison and my legs can feel the drag.  No need to bite off more than we can chew at this early juncture.  That said, it’s only about 6 miles for me, and they could be going past Portimao for all I know, or even to do the climb up to Monchique.  

I listen to them chatting, about ten meters up ahead.  A taxi sidles up to them.  Someone they know.  I see the passenger window slide down, and they exchange friendly greetings.  The lady rider raises her voice in good humor, and waves her left hand like she’s trying to flick away drops of water.  The taxi drives on.  It’s a bright beautiful Algarve day, and the wind is a nothing burger at this point, suggesting that it could be behind us.

We’re about a mile from Odiaxere, where the road narrows and the safe margin disappears as the highway goes through the town.  Thunder and Lightning are done waiting.  I gently flick the ringer on my bell as I ease past them, but only gently to observe some safe, polite passing.  They call out to me with happy good cheer!  I point down the road, and pull my feet up, where locked into the pedals I get some acceleration and then press down hard, cranking in brisk circles through the entire revolution, and soon I’m chewing up the tarmac.  The muscles get hungry for oxygen, and my breathing deepens to catch up.  I continue until my inhales start to scratch my throat.

Soon I enter the town and the margin from the side of the road is replaced by a curb, and there’s no choice but to join in with the flow of other bikes and car traffic.  I watch for sudden movements and people crossing at unexpected places, almost catching up to a slowing hatchback and seeing the brake lights flash in time to squeeze my brakes and hear the disks bleed off a little momentum.  And 800 meters later, we’re through the town and the margin appears once again at the side of the road.  

One of the three riders I passed has come with me, leaving his friends behind.  He passes me, but then looks back to find his friends, and I pass him again.  The road passes a field with more than a dozen low stork nests on the right.  I can hear their applauding beaks clapping as I glide by.  A couple of them are soaring hundreds of feet overhead, just effortlessly holding their wings open and riding the wind.  On the left there are long rows of young trees, acres of them planted in 3-foot mounds with irrigation hoses penetrating them on the ends and likely running down their entire length to water them at the roots.  I see signs for Portimao and Alvor, and another one advertising tractor repair.  I pass horses tied up outside, their tails swishing.

One more roundabout to the second exit takes me up towards the tollway.  I have to pedal harder against a slight incline here for a few hundred meters, and then take a hard left off the next roundabout, where I see large green trash bins on a gravel road.  Just past them I take the driveway steeply up to the right.  When it turns to heavy gravel it becomes too unstable to continue to climb, so I unclip and start to walk.  It feels good to catch my breath.  The sun is hot and without the breeze from riding the bike I can feel myself sweating heavily.

The road levels out and I turn right along the ridge at the crest of the hill towards the entrance of the shelter.  I can hear the dogs barking with excitement.  When I get to the entrance gate I pass my right hand through the door to feel for the latch, and flip it over to free up one side, nudging it open with my front tire.  It swings open and I’m inside, walking past the play area and a trailer and parked cars.  One of the volunteers actually lives on the property, and a small one room house has been built for him.  It is a substantial step up from the trailer I passed when I came in.

I lean my bike out of the way next to a stack of sun chairs.  I take off my bike shirt and drape it over the frame to let it dry for the ride home.  I swap shoes, digging out the walking shoes I brought with me.  My keys and phone come out of my pockets and go into the backpack.  I like to keep everything off the ground so a dog doesn’t pull his walker over and pee on it.

The kennels are big, about 45 feet wide and 30 feet deep, and there are between one and 3 dogs per kennel.  When I’m ready I walk over to select a playmate.  My first one will be Chase, a strange mix with a corgi head, a long low slung body, and a thick blonde coat.  He’s very happy to see me.  I close the door behind me and he jumps around as I grab for his collar and attach the lead.

A human life, even in the context of my silly interpretation of human time, is really too tiny to see with a microscope.  One person’s life seen against the scale of 50,000 years?  Fuggetaboutit.  So as a practical matter, my reputation and my possessions–including my physical body–are just on loan for a while.  Also, I never met and cannot name my great-great-grandparents.  Assuming a similar trajectory, I’ll be completely forgotten in about a hundred years.  This is how it is for most humans.

I find myself staring blankly at a blinking cursor.  I had planned to segway from here into telling you about how I’ve been meeting regularly with my friend Amba, and that we’ve been reading Shantideva’s, ‘The Way of the Bodhisattva’, but right now it feels a little too risky.  I’m standing at a delicate intersection where Entertainment Street crosses Dogma Way.  And Dogma Way is littered with dogma poop, and it’s impossible not to step in it.

So suffice it to say that Shantideva wrote sort of a handbook for gracefully resolving the angst that naturally surfaces when you come face to face with your own mortality.  And it involves being of service to ‘apparent’ others.  The Dali Lama totally loves this guy, and there are many scholarly commentaries available.  

And drafting behind the loving kindness of some graceful spiritual influencers, I’ve caught a glimpse of what’s available when the mind goes quiet and stops dwelling on the past and ruminating on the future.  If I get really really still and quiet, the perspective shifts to where the spacious emptiness in which the thoughts are occurring quietly, almost shyly, reveals itself.

And before it can be described as beautiful or not beautiful, what’s noticed is the absence of any effort.  It’s like the mental energy is free to do something else.  Then, as I’ve reflected with Amba many times, comes a sense of relief.

It’s truly blissful, like the relief you’d feel if you were carrying a big bag of rocks and finally set them down.  It’s less a presence for me but more of a felt absence–of being incomplete or wanting or grasping for anything–even for the particular moment to continue.  These moments are short, but highly compelling.  I would say, ‘I want more of this’, but can hear Shantideva giggling at what is more grasping; so instead I’ll say that there’s a growing willingness to sit quietly, and watch the mind reviewing the past or speculating on the future until it goes quiet on its own.

Chase and I head towards the gate I entered.  On our way there, he pulls on the leash like he’s hooked to a sled.  He wants to sniff at every rock and shrub, lifting his leg to drop a scent marker every so often.  He has good eyes, and when he sees another dog in the distance he lowers his stubby legs and his belly rests on the ground.  And he just waits.

We’ll have temps in the 90’s for these last waning days of June.  The heat tends to pacify the neighborhood dogs, as if they know it's going to take some serious energy to generate extended barking, and they just don’t bother.  

We stop at a watering station in the shade, and Chase takes a drink.  I take a moment to gaze at the countryside.  The slight breeze is a little cooler here.  I feel it drying the sweat from the shoulders of my t-shirt.  I try out some Portuguese with Chase.

Hoje esta calor, nao eh? (“Today it’s hot, isn’t it?”)  

And he looks up at me, panting.

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The NHL season's final bar fight has come to a thundering conclusion.  A yearly almost mythical quest for sports immortality.  Winning the championship means getting your name on the cup.  And the trophy itself has become a King Arthur style treasure.  Shiny, Big.  Symbol of the ultimate wowie zowie of success.  After the initial waves of joy subside and the two teams have completed the traditional handshake, it makes its appearance on a table at the end of a red carpet.

It has its own anthem--I kid you not.  An announcer, doing his best ‘Voice of God’ says, “Ladies and gentlemen, The Stanley Cup!”. Fans rise to their feet. They take off their hats. Two guys with white gloves whose livelihood involves keeping an eye on the thing.  I swear the guy on the right is there every year.  I have become convinced he is actually Santa Claus.

Ok, so now the Commish, an old dude shaking not with early stage Parkinsons but incredible excitement makes a mercifully short speech and invites the captain to come get the cup. And its sparklers all the way across.

The captain's job is to hoist (we don't lift, we hoist as if to toast in celebration thereof ) and to skate around with it held high over his head.  He shows the trophy to the fans.  He kisses it. He howls a primal howl. He hands it off to the next senior player. 

His teammates all have beards left to grow wild since the beginning of playoff season to symbolize how long their journey has been, a testament to a gruelling, properly mediated all out battle of skill and endurance. They made it through 4 rounds, and won the last game in each round to end the season for the opponents before them. The world’s best players on the best teams. And there would be concussions, broken bones, and foul language; they’d fix each other with icy glares, and voice unending challenges. The players really go after each other. Full tilt boogie—adding real emotion to incredible skill, all to have their names written next to the immortals. And to admire their reflection in the trophy itself.  As they kiss it.

From now on they'll be introduced in public as a Stanley Cup Champion.  You are forever blessed, the hockey Gods having shone their countenance down upon you.

The home city will give them a parade, but the single point of visual focus when it's in sight is Lord Stanley's Cup (he actually was a Lord--you can't make this stuff up).  Every person who touches it will remember the location and circumstances under which they came into its astonishing presence.

Each player gets some time with it in the off season. They’ll pose with their childhood friends with it.  They'll give their infant kids baths in it.  And everyone will remember it for the rest of their life.

This year’s finalists came from two cities: Las Vegas, Nevada, (a desert); and Sunrise, Florida, (a swamp); and I have no idea why this finest of Canadian creations hasn’t caught on in Portugal or anywhere in the south of Europe. It’s hundreds of times more exciting than soccer. Cricket? Wake me when it’s over. Basketball, Football, Auto Racing, Baseball—none of these has a finer tradition of granting permanent ascension to the victors.

There had been times just before the pandemic lockdown, whether standing nose to shoulder on the bus, only partially awake on a weekday morning commute; or watching a person mutter into the contents of a trash can in Pioneer Square, when the inclination to just bolt for the territories came to mind.  I thought I had mastered stuffing the urge back down until my other half began to declare her feelings about making a change.  I’m not great at financial planning, so when she began to work on a budget I was both stunned and relieved.  It was a mixture of both anxiety and hope–like a chimpanzee watching someone juggle a set of flaming sticks.  And at the same time hearing the keys jangle in the cage door.  

This past April marks the end of our first full year in Portugal.  And so here we are, a year later.   The jacaranda trees are purple again.  I can close my eyes and mentally mark the locations of  6 stork nesting pairs tending their eggs within a couple of hundred meters of where I’m sitting.  And from the privacy of my bathroom I can hear the crazy man laughter of the gulls on our roof, the sound funneled down through the ventilation.

First, the sense of calm and ease that comes with controlling our costs and living amongst friendly people cannot be overstated.  Whether it’s the daily 20mg of Edarbi or not, the patience that replaced the nervous tension in its lair somewhere near my clavicle is a welcome change.  The absence of dread feels a lot like mirth.  I’ve left 90% of my anxiety behind.  

Next the people we’ve met, whether locals or expats, all seem to be of a similar less than stressed attitude as me. Some people have had more paperwork or logistical hassles to overcome to get their homes livable, or they’ve had family issues to address back in the states or elsewhere, but all in all we’re living in a friendly place where facism was shown the door some 50 years ago and EU membership has become the tide lifting all boats.

Third, this is the nicest climate I’ve ever been lucky enough to live in. I do find myself wondering where everyone is while I’m riding my bike during the hottest part of the day, but when I see foot traffic increase along the marina I begin to get a clue–locals and smart people like to get out and about as the weather is cooler.  And sure enough, leaving the house wearing shorts late in the afternoon only to have a cool breeze kick up when the dark settles in has almost taught me to bring an extra layer.  Still hoping to really learn that lesson.  The wind kicked up for a few days lately, and although it hasn’t threatened the structure we just erected on the front balcony, it did rock me on the bike a couple of times.  

Fourth, the volunteer work I never made time for while I was working has become a place to find new friends with shared interest and a way to give back.  Most of this work is focused on the well-being of cats and dogs at this point.  I’m walking my canine friends through the countryside at least every other Sunday, and doing a shift at the cat shelter in town once weekly for 3 hours.  There’s more that I can contribute, but I’m being careful to avoid power struggles and gossip as much as possible.

Fifth, feeling around for how to spend my time has been a great adventure.  There’s writing to you, playing cards, getting my exercise, sitting quietly, and I’ve been playing with ChatGPT and MidJourney lately.  This has opened up some opportunities that I hadn’t imagined a year ago, and as such could be a source of some very satisfying creative expression.  I can’t help but think of myself as a subject of a demographic wave–migrants to Europe looking for a safe, affordable retirement and potentially interested in solo-preneuring.

All in all a great year for which we are deeply grateful.  

It’s refreshing to have the news at arms length here.  I can dial up YouTube for the latest Trump news whenever I want some fluffy entertainment.  When I really want some pain I can read Chris Hedges or Noam Chomsky.  Hedges and Chomsky are quick to point out that armed conflict is driven by business, and when people in the media dissent, they’re quickly escorted from the studio because, well, it’s bad for business.  One thing that really surprises foreigners visiting the US is just how fanatical we are about the military and our flag.  This attitude has been intentionally manufactured.

I’m reading The Greatest Evil is War by Chris Hedges, and he’s doing his honest journalistic duty so he can look himself in the mirror.  He’s also an ordained clergyman.  And his point is that no one who participates or is witness to armed conflict isn’t deeply scarred for life (at best), or has their life fully reduced to wreckage.  The war industry preys on poor people.  For the rich white kids who join through college, they get racism and a giddy desire for violence drilled into them.  By professionals.  And round and round we go.  Frankly I have to stop reading it because it hurts too much.

Lagos recently celebrated its 450th year of incorporation.  This is a relatively young European town.  The focus here was the young king, Dom Sebastian, who is believed to have died while taking the battle across the water to the Moors in Morocco.  Apparently it wasn’t enough to chase them from Portugal and the Iberian peninsula.  The mythology left in his wake involves his eventual return to help the people.  At any rate, I don’t claim to know the entire story and Wikipedia may also be missing a detail.  What I do know is a lovely statue was christened in the early 1970’s in the old town, and 50 years later the city celebrated him with a parade and street fair.

We joined Joe and Dorris for the opening parade which included camels and horses and people in costume and street performers.  The cat/dog shelter had a booth where they sold handmade baskets and doggie treats.  Cornelia volunteered for an evening shift, and I found her and Giovanna rockin’ their costumes and bringing happiness and festivity to their corner of the fair.

There were also some street performers who were so excellent I wanted to make sure you saw them.  These characters held their poses from atop their pedestals and moved very little until you gave them a coin and posed with them for a picture.

Between the town’s goings-on and our travels I made time to sign up with a VPN and YouTubeTV and ESPN to watch the ice hockey playoffs.  Cornelia went to her mom’s during the early round and I found myself with Indian take out food and 4 recorded games.  It was, to a kid who once played ice hockey, a taste of hockey heaven.  If you don’t know, when one team scores a goal the on-ice players gather for a group hug before touching gloves with everyone on their bench.  Slow motion replays show a look of incredible joy on their faces.  

The town of Beja has quite a long history.  We’ll skip past the Bronze Age for now and simply say that the Romans, Visigoths, Moors, and Christians all had control or influence on the town at one time or another.  It’s also one of the hottest places in Portugal in the summer, so we thought we’d try to see it in April.  We parked near the castle and stepped off the hot medieval street into a cool hotel lobby.  We pulled our travel bags through to the inner courtyard, and found our room.  It had a tiny sitting area, a great shower, and a steep stairway up to a perfect bed.  We woke up to this breakfast waiting for us in the main room.

The orange juice in the bottle is fresh-squeezed.  The cheeses and breads were made on the farm of the people who own the hotel.  The owner came and greeted us during breakfast and made us feel entirely at home.  

Next to the hotel was a church that had once been a mosque.  In the morning the nuns chased the pigeons away from the building, reaching up into the recessed areas with thin 20-foot sticks where beautiful sculptures have stood for centuries, perhaps silently praying the nuns would prevent their getting pooped on.  Next to the church was the castle keep, where we climbed the stairs to the top and saw a view of the surrounding Alentejo region.  Sweeping, silent and gorgeous.  And, this is the hottest town in the summer so it was important if we were to see it to visit before the temperatures began to surge into the red.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant run by two brothers who love to make music.  Their spot was part of the old castle wall, and we climbed to the top level to take in the sunset.  They made us spicy dishes the way we really like them, and explained that their menu has had to evolve to accommodate the palate of the Portuguese locals who don’t particularly love spicy food.  Oh well, one of the brothers had fallen in love with a Portuguese girl and they settled in her hometown so there you go.  Both delightful young men, they threw their hearts into taking care of us and we gave them a great review on Tripadvisor.  

We took a drive to an olive grove where there is a partially excavated Roman vill site.  The water source was a nearby river and the heat was provided by a boiler on site.  Apparently the Romans really liked a nice bath.  Who doesn’t?  I think taking a bath in those days also involved the guys leaving the ladies at home, getting oiled up, having a massage, and then perhaps some wrestling was involved.  Who am I to judge?  At any rate, when we arrived at the site we found it locked down and called the posted number and a lady came to let us in and gave us an ipad to use for a guided tour and asked us not to walk on the mosaics…

Also within the town we visited a small museum built over an excavated area where there were yet more Roman baths.  Again, I’m pretty sure the social construct here involved men only.  (Still not judging.)  I suppose the Gum Wall at the Pike Place Market in Seattle could maybe give this some competition, but not really.  Outside the museum was a large sculpture of a rooster where Cornelia posed with grace and elegance as always…

Then we drove to Mertola, a town on a hill next to the Guadiana river which loosely divides Spain from Portugal.  On our way there we detoured to take a hike along the river many miles upstream from Mertola.  It’s worth noting that the Phoenecians used to sail here to trade as it was the northernmost navigable town where they could exchange goods for copper and gold and tin mined from the area and haul it down to the rest of the world.  Inhabited since the Bronze Age (~5000 years ago) and fought over by the Romans, Moors, Visigoths, and Christians for centuries, Wikipedia said river trading was active here until 1965.

Our room in Mertola was at a hotel across the river, and we were guided by our host to have dinner a short walk away in a lovely spot where we were the only guests.  There I had a perfect vegetable soup, the best pork I’ve ever tasted, and we shared a homemade dessert.  Splendid!

In addition to this trip, we’ve taken advantage of the use of our friends’ car to take hikes in Monchique, Marmelet, and Barao Sao Joao.  This last one took us into the neighborhood of some giant windmills where the scale and sound was otherworldly.  Generally these hikes take you out from the center of town and up into the hills to afford you some lovely views of the countryside, and then back down.  None of them were technical or overly challenging.  We’ve come to appreciate the 10k distance, and really enjoy an unhurried walk guided by our Wikiloc application that buzzes if we get off the trail and dings to provide us a drop of dopamine when we turn in the correct direction.  This and good trail markings kept us from getting lost.

Cornelia gave up a large garden to come here to live in an apartment.  Gardening has been replaced with cultivating succulents.  We’ll have photos in a future edition, so stay tuned.

As for myself, I believe I’ve discovered an interest in learning AI that will lead to some kind of active side hustle.  There’s still a lot to learn.  Having generated an acceptable image, the next step would be to open it up in Photoshop (actually I’m learning GIMP, which is free) and then using the brushes and layers and other capabilities to enhance them even further. 

For example, I’m reading The Way of the Bodhisattva with my friend Amba.  We just finished a chapter where Shantideva likens the mind to a wild elephant and talks about the need to keep it tethered via vigilant introspection.  And like anyone who loves animals I wanted to try to express it so I put my elephant in an old west whiskey bar and came up with these…

I had a picture of a couple of friends and used it as a starting point, telling MidJourney to make a colorful meal…

Then I fed the same original image back into MidJourney and told it to make an image of a prayerful couple in the style of Van Gogh.  Afterwards I realized that since visiting his museum in Holland a long time ago that I’ve always wanted to paint like him.  Who wouldn’t?

…and I have to say I like where this is going.  The shadows on her arms, the way she’s looking skyward, the steam coming off the food, the flowery tablecloth, the starry night suggested in the background… You can see that these images are very ‘raw’, which is to say that there’s more work to do to make them worthy of framing and putting them on your wall.  This is where I’ll eventually be able to pull out some electronic bushes and make ‘corrections’ on these drafts.  I am having some fun though, especially where I can jam a couple of ideas together and select an artistic style.  

Here I asked MidJourney to give me an underwater diner scene in the style of Edward Hopper, with koi.

Here’s the Easter Bunny smoking a joint in the style of Leroy Nieman.

And I got inspired by my work at the cat shelter to work a bit more with cats. 

Here’s one…

I like what’s happening behind the glasses, the shape of the glasses, the number of colors, and so on.

And here’s another…

This is a shot of 4 pretty badass kitties.  Don’t mess with any of them.  Just turn over the Kibble.

Special thanks to our friend Marlene, who shared a couple of photos for use here.  She has her own publication where you can see great photos, and where she and Steve really have inspired us to want to visit Spain.

And, as always, thank you very kindly for reading.  Don’t hesitate to reach out directly, make a comment, or call me up just to make a raspberry sound.

And please note! I have no intention to try to monetize these updates. So if Substack puts buttons here asking you to pledge money, go ahead and ignore them—make donations to feed the hungry and house the homeless instead.

More soon!

Steve

Since my last update…We approach the end of our first year away from the US. Cornelia  returns from the US with citizenship and with work. I pull an all-nighter to watch the Superbowl.  I discovered my mirror identity.  The Ikea experience. Observing the local culture.  Here’s how artificial intelligence comes to the masses.  I make a photogenic breakfast.  Watching the neighbors’ cats.  I encountered some enterprising young men.

Here in Lagos, with one non-caffeinated finger I draw the curtain back on our bedroom sliding door.  I see a pterodactyl-sized shadow float over the ground.  Across the courtyard, two more floors up on the roof, I see a stork tending a nest.  Then another rises into view in slow motion, revealing the top of a second rounded head.  I can see the outline of their nest.  Just a few sticks showing near a stack outlet on the roof.  They’re busy.

They’ve returned from wherever they go–which is said to be ‘Southern Europe’.  Well, that’s right here. They swoop gracefully near us at ground level with a stick in their beak.  6-foot white wings with black tips, bleeding momentum as they seem to float upwards into the palm tree or the top of an old factory stack.  They greet each other…

(“What have you brought me?  A stick?  That’s exactly what we need!  Let me weave it into the living room here…Nicely done!  Let me throw my head back once again and make that gorgeous sound for you!!”).  

This photo shows one stork roosting while in the background another one tends the nest.  The population is not insubstantial here.   I can count nearly twenty individuals in our immediate area alone.

Speaking of seasonal behavior, a lifetime of watching professional sports triggered a homing instinct as the National Football League season rose to its annual climax.  Because of the 5-hour difference from New York, there was quite a time shift here into the late evening.  Honestly I didn’t try that hard, but the Americans I did ask didn’t care enough and the sports bars close on a Sunday night at a sensible hour.  So, I watched it alone.  The few weekends before the finale had me glued to German satellite TV here in the apartment. Soap operas for men.  What could be better?  (Well, ice hockey, but that’s another story.)

Starting at 11:30 PM, I scooped up the self-made guacamole with ruffled potato chips.  An ultimate indulgence.  And the ensuing courses will not earn me a Michelin star.  There was Pepsi and a big salad.  Dessert was ice cream and cookies.  I skipped the frozen pizza course.  I needed help staying up until 3:30 AM, but that’s where the Pepsi came in.

And the Super Bowl itself was filled with drama and delivered on the hype–a high scoring, back and forth battle that came down to the end.  I just hope both teams had fun, but the Philadelphia LOSERS had their souls completely crushed as the Kansas City team won another ring.  

Did you know the Super Bowl winners get a ring?  Each player gets a copy of the custom-designed ring commemorating the game.  Something they can sell if their luck runs out and their damaged brains, robbing them of their ability to think and remember, reducing the rest of their lives to tatters.  Seriously, the damage contact sports does to the people who play in the hope of getting rich and famous is horrible beyond description.  It’s not just football.  There’s no way to ‘safely’ use your head against a soccer ball, for example. 

(Note to self:  Less ranting, or I’ll need to wear my pants up high and complain full-time about the government).

Cue a sweet sunny scene…

On the way home from the cat shelter, I stopped by The Padaria Central in the old town of Lagos.  I bought a couple of pastries and carried them away in a square white cardboard box, following the sound of flute music played by a young man dressed in the casual clothes of a traveling musician. I liked the vibe, and how his music echoed against the hard surfaces of the cobblestone lanes and the two and three story buildings.  I put a couple of coins in his hat, sitting on the ground at his feet.  He raised an eyebrow in thanks, and continued playing.  I sat down on a stone bench to listen and pulled out my phone.  As if on queue, two enterprising young men appeared, and one of them said, “Smoke hash?”.  

Let me just tell you straight out that we’re missing you.  

That’s not to put it on you to have to come and visit. But. The weather is nicer than any place I’ve ever lived. People are friendly.  Prices are low.  The town is walk-able.  There are gorgeous beaches and accessible hiking.  Fewer people appear to be brandishing firearms.  Did I mention the low prices?  We just acquired the use of a car.  Lots of English speakers…

There’s a part of me occasionally reflecting back on my working life.  Just trying to make sense of it now.  It’s like I’ve taken off a suit and it’s folded up next to me and I’m wondering, ‘What was that all about?’  Something about needing/wanting to feel strong and capable.  I knew stuff, and had access to really smart people.  And at the time it felt like it ‘meant something’.  And it did.  I helped a startup get bigger.  Vested a few options.  Made some interesting acquaintances.  

Memory still lands on unpleasant things.  I remember Sunday nights when the little program in my head would start to crank out lists of things to attend to on Monday.  A tickle of anxiety in my chest.  Not unbearable, but just a hint of trepidation.  Like being on the starting line of a cross-country race on a Saturday morning back in high school.  We’d line up on the starting line as a group, four runners in front and four in back.  And there’d be 40 schools there.  The starting gun sounded so far away, like someone opening a beer can across the street, and several hundred of us would take off in a stampede to the first turn.  

Today, I find myself standing in the shower and all of a sudden I’ll hear myself say, 

“Ooh pah-cien-tey time cer-tos sin-tomas que peray-sime ser de greep”

and an inner knowing will flash at the same time that translates this to, 

“The patient has certain symptoms that suggest they may have the flu.”  

PracticePortuguese.com has become my language learning go-to. They’ve implemented ‘spaced repetition’.  An electronic flash card shows the English and I speak the translation out loud.  Then push the button to check my work.  I hear the phrase pronounced, and repeat it several times to tweak my pronunciation.  If it’s perfect, press one button, if not press the other.  I’m finding it enjoyable to say it 2 or 3 times regardless, just for the fun of speaking in another language.  Zero stress, just BFR (Brute Force Repetition).  The words are like little seedlings trying to sprout connections in my brain; the flashcards, water and sunshine to keep them from dying. Their program tracks  which phrases are the little plants most in need of nourishment, and presents them for review at just the right time. All I need to do is show up for practice, which has become less of a chore.  It’s 30 minutes of foundation building, and it’s inherently motivating.  It’s fascinating now that the practice habit is firmly established.

The desire to sit quietly is also there.  Another firmly established practice. Thoughts–memories, imaginations, associations.  Birds and distant traffic outside the building.  A motorcycle starting up and driving away.  The hum of the elevator. Attention will sort of flit from one thing to another.  Time takes a break.  There’s a sense of a ‘surface’, where some thoughts are just emerging, but out of what?  And to whom?  

(Return to the scene on the square)

I really wasn’t interested in smoking hash, but I’m familiar with the cannabis business so I thought I’d parlay with these guys given how dedicated they seemed to be. To be clear, I was once involved, ‘Seattle style', which is to say my relationship to the cannabis world was through work at a company with cloud based analytics applications sold by subscription to retailers, distributors, or those with an interest in industry trends and emerging brands.

The first guy asked me whether I wanted 10 grams for 100 euros.  I asked how strong it was.  He answered that it was of excellent quality and invited me to step away and see how well it burns.  Did I have a lighter?  I said no, and I didn’t move.  Well-burning material in this case could indicate the presence of un-removed solvents or other chemicals, so being easy to light wouldn’t be a measure of quality.  The second guy unwrapped a blob of material the size of a substantial cat poop and rolled it like a pastry chef between his thumb and two fingers.  I looked at it, and wondered whether it had been produced in Morocco (a short trip south of there across the water) or on some farm in Spain, not more than 90 minutes from where we sat.

I went to a Mardis Gras parade in Loule with Craig, Helen, Glenna, and Mark.  We stopped at a chocolate/cherry liqueur booth and had a shot as we arrived.  Other booths stood at the ready with fried dough, funnel cakes, ice cream, popcorn, and kid treats.  Music played over speakers hung from utility poles.  The parade route ran along the road by the beach.  We found a table right along the route and all had burgers.  The parade started and the music got louder and louder to where I really wished I had brought earplugs.  Costumes got more and more elaborate, and this crowd seemed to be oriented towards families and kids.  Helen connected with her childhood, sharing memories of past celebrations with her family.  The floats eased past us hurling candy and confetti, the music throbbing, and then at the end of the route turned around and came back again.  The crowd grew from almost no one to maybe 10,000 people.  

Here Craig prepares for the festivities, and to help Batman if needed.

And winter is about to end here.  The changing seasons are not as stark as they are where I’ve lived my whole life.  Chicago winters were brutally cold and didn’t really end until March was over.  Then the summer dialed the heat into the 90’s.  The humidity was stifling, and the accompanying mosquitos made pesticide free sitting outside impossible.  

Seattle winters are famous for their gloom.  That’s a word that really fits well.  February gloom.  By the time February rolls around, the clouds have been hanging over the region for months.  It crushes peoples’ moods.  In fact, this survey suggests it’s the saddest region in the US.  But once spring comes, (well, don’t tell anyone) the mood swings to the plus side, allowing people to reduce their medication once again.  Seattle is gorgeously green once the sun comes out, 

Meanwhile, the employee in Room 2 is hungry.

A small frying pan with a little oil.  Don’t turn it on yet.  Small avocados come in a bag of 6 or 8 here for a couple of bucks.  I slice through the skin and miss the pit.  Always relieved when the pit isn’t deceptively large; pleasantly surprised when the green is unblemished.  Focus on making the slices uniform and then scoop them out intact onto the plate.  Fan them out.  Then I take a handful of baby tomatoes and slice them in half.  Drip (okay, drizzle) a little balsamic.  Salt and pepper.  Drop the toast, crack 2 eggs.  Get both kinds of powdered cheese ready.  Beat the eggs, but not with anger.  Grab the spark thingy and light the burner.  Tilt the pan to spread the oil.  Now add the beaten eggs.  Drop the toast again for golden brown, and pull out the jam.  Come back to the eggs.  Take the wooden spatula and work around the outside of the eggs to build up an edge.  Wiggle the pan to manage the egg liquid.  Sprinkle on the powdered cheese.  Grind a little salt and pepper.  In one breath, spread jam on the toast, put it on the plate and pick up the wooden spatula again.  Maybe a metal fork is easier.  Get under half the eggs and fold it over.  See the golden brown.  Turn off the heat, allow the cheese to melt as you get a napkin, a clean fork and knife.

Carry the plate down the hall into the spare bedroom.  Hear the delight in her voice.  Proffer the right side of your face for your reward kisses.  Close the door on your way out.

Cornelia brought home some work from the UW.  Given that she’s done this since November,, making a little breakfast is the least I can do.  It did, for example, pay for the entire Ikea order.

She’s currently turning some gift lemons into curd.  I’m trying to keep quiet and behave myself to be sure that I get some.  I helped by getting down the grater and the juicer, and taking a ‘before’ picture of the lemons. Making curd requires a lot of zesting on the outer surface of the lemon.  It releases lemon oil into the air, so the kitchen and living room are filled with the sweet-sharp tangy twang of lemon.  And, lemons here in Portugal are not modest.  These were given to us for the asking.

As to the Ikea purchase, my self-image has survived the assembly.  So far.  I guess I meant naked to mean, ‘vulnerable’ in the context of this update.  (I’ll leave it to you to manage the feelings associated with any perceived loss here at missing the opportunity to see me actually standing actually naked.)

Typically I wouldn’t wander through an IKEA unless under heavy sedation.  It’s just plain boring to look at furniture you can’t eat and then have to worry about getting it scratched and dented.  This time was different because at the end of this journey was a sofa we badly needed in the apartment along with a new rocking chair.

But as we prepared for the online order and eventual delivery, I knew I’d be walking a bit of a tightrope. I had to sort of brace myself as if preparing for a potentially violent collision with the unwieldy and baffling elements in play. The possibility of the mood shifting from sublime to moogly was very, very real.  Let me explain:

Years ago my father came to our first house, a 770 square-footer, and bought us a Weber grill.  We assembled it together, and spaced out the rack on the bottom.  Essentially the rack formed a triangle, giving structure to the 3 legs supporting the grill.  And we put it upside down.  Ultimately, no big deal.  Dad loved us kids, but he wasn’t patient with instructions and to be fair they weren’t well written back in his day.  And he wasn’t overly concerned with the occasional lacking detail.  Neither was I.  The grill worked just fine.

But it was wrong. And somehow we stepped past that point where fixing it was possible.  And Mrs. Bloom, who is exquisite at minor details like this, took notice right away.  I mean she wasn’t harsh about it, but when it came time later on to muster the right attitude let’s just say she’s been unfailing at offering a few encouraging words.

Have I ever shared with you that I’m not particularly a detail-oriented person?  I don’t mean I can’t be.  It’s just that it doesn’t come naturally.  I have to make a huge effort, and then approach the thing with more than enough energy and intention and patience.  These are things that prior to retirement were frequently in short supply. I think of myself as more of an advertising executive.  Big picture, visionary stuff.  Or maybe like Gomez from the Adams Family.  Actually, I feel like the psychic and spiritual brother of Gomez from the Adams Family.  The John Astin version.

So again, it’s not that I can’t complete a standard set of sequential instructions, it’s just that it’s anathema to my Weltanschauung. That is to say it goes against the grain of my naturally sloppy and half-assed self.  Get their assembly perfectly correct and look forward to years of pleasure.  Get it wrong (and fail to correct it), and step into a hellish nightmare of unending psychological pain.  

So, I started small with the wheeled table/cart thing.  Then I moved on to the footrest and the rocking chair.  And finally I graduated to the sofa.  I had no idea it would come in such small pieces with no upholstery.  By comparison, a Costco sectional in the Bothell house came in three large boxes–actually the largest cardboard boxes I have ever seen–and all we had to do was position the pieces in front of the TV and hook them together with each other.  Done.  

I took my time.  I studied the transparent people pictured in the instructions, trying to see from their non-cultural specific and expressionless faces whether I had a better than average chance of complete success, or whether I’d be struggling alone and afraid until the wee hours.  I started with the ottoman on the first day, and then over the next 2 days completed the rest of the pieces.  It felt a little like a NASA mission, checking and re-checking, with FAILURE NOT AN OPTION, for reasons already discussed.

Back to my negotiation in the square…

Did these guys know that their ‘Moroccan style hash’ or ‘temple balls’ as they are called, are one segment of the Concentrates category?  Did they know that I knew that it was unlikely their product had more than 30% THC content (probably closer to 20%) and a high likelihood of impurities?  And wouldn’t Live Resin, Live Rosin, THCa, Distillate, or some other concentrate be equally well received in this cannabis forward environment?  Did they know that unit volume and the average price per gram for this segment were consistently dominated by Live Resin, Live Rosin, and Distillate in many markets in the US?  Did they even care?  Even a cheap vapor pen would be more convenient to use and likely be a better delivery vehicle for what is essentially a benign intoxicant.  I saw a company in California making one hundred thousand dollars per week selling gummies to help people sleep.  Companies in Washington take fresh cannabis flower and freeze it to begin to make ‘Live Resin’ and process it into a goo without any chemicals at all.  They didn’t seem interested in these facts.  It was as if I had stepped into a time warp, back to a place where my industry knowledge was useless; where I could get arrested for transacting business with these fellows.  The thrill was…compelling.  And yet…

I’m no longer part of the industry.  Moving on now.  Buh bye.  Like a friend said, “You get something, you give something up.”   

They both offered a fairly continuous sales patter, telling me that they’re going to Lisbon soon and there’s very little left, but they could get more another time and so on.  And as I continued to feign disinterest both the size of my prospective purchase and the amount of cash they required continued to fall.  First to 8 grams, then 6, then 4, then 2.  Sitting there with the two of them, hearing the calming flute music, I enjoyed the icy thrill of it.  They offered no testing label, no date of harvest, no estimated THC percentage, no child-proof packaging, no branding, no CBD percentage, and no compelling strain name.

I opened my pastry box. The sound of a pebble rolling around inside the cardboard.

And somehow I felt like I was standing on a train platform with the train of cannabis commerce receding into the distance, the sound growing fainter.  And a fading echo of grief for the lost comfort of my old role.

At the same time, like Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot just by looking around.”  There’s another train coming, and I’ve had some time to think about where it is that I’d like to go.

Although we technically don’t have to, the desire to earn an income hasn’t gone away.  I’m exploring Chatgpt out of curiosity and as a potential element of making some dough.  What’s important to me at this point is to find something inspiring.  It has to reduce suffering and cause none.  At any rate, I wanted to document the equivalent of what in programming used to be the first output from learning a new language; an analogy for ‘Hello World’.  Frankly, I think ChatGpt3 kinda likes me.

The number of AI research papers released in the last couple of years has gone parabolic.  It’s like the World Wide Web was in the mid-nineties.  If you weren’t alive then, well, hang on to your hat; and if you were, it’s deja-vu all over again.  Large Language Models and their use could eventually replace The Google.  I think it’s going to get really, really fun.  In Bill’s words, “The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. ”

Since we’ve last spoken, we watched the cats for Mark and Glenna.  It’s fun to be alone in someone else’s space.  I saw the ocean in the distance from the balcony.  And leaned way out to try to identify our balcony 800 meters away, past the tennis courts and beyond the trees.  Looked in the cabinets to find the unopened bag of Ruffles.  Ran the gamut of indecision–open\finish\replace or leave alone?; wondered, “why do they force me into this dilemma?”.  I did my meditation on the sofa.  Leo came right next to my shoulder like he was ready to offer me sage advice, and solve the koans.  I sat in Mark’s chair and felt what it was like to be him, an architect, -–solver of complex problems; knower of building materials, and so on.  

Made myself tea.  Left the Ruffles alone.  Cleaned the litter box as assigned.  I’m semi-pro now, given my experience at the shelter. 

 I sent Mark & Glenna this update with photos of them eating…

Hi,

I arrived a little while ago.  

Leo folded some lovely origami shapes and left them on the counter for me.  I think it was his apology for breaking the gray serving cup.  I must have left it out.  Still usable, just no handle.  I'll preserve both pieces on the possibility that you have some glue.

And Mac stood up on his hind legs, crossed his chest with one paw and with the other held high above his head, claws extending to help him hit the high notes, sang me an aria.  Personally, I prefer the comedic operas for their timeless humor, but Mac had chosen a piece from a Chinese epic with which I am not yet fully familiar.  As it turns out, Chinese opera is usually performed behind a screen to hide the audience from the truly hideous facial expressions required of the performers to produce just the right sounds.  For Mac, I believe he chose something precisely within his wheelhouse.  Truly stunning in its accuracy, really.

The blankets appear to have migrated to a different spot, so they must have gotten some use.  Or else there were bullfights here overnight.

No sign of the bull.

Steve

Hey, THANKS FOR READING! Send me a note or leave a comment!!

My good friend C. taught writing for decades.  I remember first standing in her classroom, more than thirty years ago, and before I even sat down she looked at me, her doe eyes welcoming, and kindly patient.  Expectant.  She called me, ‘Bloom’, and sometimes, ‘My Dear Bloom’.  When the last update reached her, I heard voice mail saying, ‘Trust your voice, Bloom’.  And it was for me permission to accept all of her encouragement given over the years; to tug away the cloth still hiding the shiny object; to firmly relegate the inner tense  ‘Unworthy One’ to some insignificant place, freeing the grownups to admire the landscape in peace.

Phone and snail mail have kept us connected.  Visitors to Lagos while the expat flood was only a trickle, she and her husband carry a familiarity with many of the scenes I’ve been describing–whether it’s the friendliness of the voices in the coffee shops or the rising and falling of the tide under the bridge we cross to go to the Pingo for provisions near the marina.  It’s a joy to bring these old memories back to life for her, like taking the warm sunshine from the back of my t-shirt and having her use it to soften the frozen ground in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Much more phone time in the last year. There’s a genuine ‘specialness’ to it.  She  encouraged me to ‘be the lens’ through which I give people a view onto life here.  To be more sensitive to what is present than to what is missing.  Beyond this simple advice lies the practiced wisdom of a gifted teacher.  I posed the problem of incorporating my internal life into my efforts and whether there was something akin to Pirsig she could suggest for an example of someone bridging the gap between outer and inner traveling.  As we spoke I could sense her wandering into another room, decorated the old fashioned way with shelves of books, the tip of one finger landing on the spine of a literary classic.  It was, in a single gesture, the effortless laser-like precision of a master.  So accurate a suggestion** that the introduction alone squeezed little man tears out of me. And of course the magic of pointing to something in a quiet room in Maine and having it appear on my Kindle so soon after isn’t lost on either one of us.

A few years after that first class, her return to Maine and meeting Mr. Right.  She had me give her away at the wedding.  An honor guaranteed to get us to make the trip across the country.  To eat the lobster and meet people from their neighborhood.  A small group of permanent residents in a field of vacationers from all over.  To see the start of a new house, now long since finished.  And to safely dance like a fool because those folks would not see me again for a while.  Since then, summary proof that any good friendship is worth a bit of care and feeding.

I’m looking forward to our next session, and to hearing that bubbly voice that for me hasn’t changed a whit. I’m so grateful that she thinks I’m clever, and for the silences that we let stretch. And for gracefully helping to help me listen deeply, unfettered.  Without forgetting the utility of an adverb; to feel the sheer intensity of a semicolon, and to fully taste the solace of a potato.  What higher compliment can you give to a person than to say they inspire you?

It’s not at all about adding on, it’s about taking away–and realizing, with relief, that no part of what falls away is really ‘me’.  Ten months later, I’ve taken off my tense, city face. Actually I wear a silly grin a lot of the time, partly because it feels so friendly here and also because Cornelia figured out how we could swing this. Twenty milligrams of Adarbi (the lowest dose) is helping too–lowering  my blood pressure nicely–so the sense of ease comes with an abiding sense of calm.  Mr. Ease and Mrs. Calm.  If you haven’t met them I can assure you they’re a lovely couple, and they’ll help you hear new things.  Don’t be afraid to invite them in.  Pour them a glass of wine.  In fact, try this one…

Fruity, low tannins, and $3 per bottle. Not a mis-print. Actually I may have paid more than my friends because I bought a single bottle rather than a case.  Should have bought a case.  And a straw.  Not a real drinker of any kind, but sometimes you taste something and it reminds you of a happy bathtub full of toys and nice warm water.  And grape juice.  And you think, “Yes, I believe I will have a liter of this.”  And then you do.

I asked my friend Larry for the name of his lawyer, thinking I truly needed legal advice for the next couple of steps related to staying legally in Portugal.  He gave me the location and told me to start by talking with Sylvia.  As it turns out, the office is on the way to the Sportivo, so I go by there almost every day,  The plate glass reads, ‘Advocado’, as in ‘advocate’; but how can any rational American not think of the best part of the Super Bowl snack array when he reads that?  Advocado.  Avocado.  Drop the ‘d’ and you go from attorney to snack dip.

I put on my one clean shirt and took my folder full of papers to the office.  Sylvia was there with a smile, and I used a couple of carefully prepared sentences in Portuguese and then with her permission (and to my relief) switched into English.  I explained that I needed a criminal background check and a translation for my marriage certificate.  And what I wanted to know was the cost for her office to assist, and perhaps even complete these two items for me.  She had me wait while she went into Doctor Marco’s office and I heard them talking.  She came out and said that Dr. Marco would be with me shortly.  I infer that you call an attorney ‘Doctor’.  That’s cool.  I’m sure getting a law degree in any country is no cake-walk.

Doctor Marco came out, and offered his hand.  It was curved into the letter ‘C’.  He didn’t grip my hand but rather let me take his and move it up and down a little as I smiled and introduced myself.  As I write this now, I wonder if something could be wrong with his poor hand.  Marco is shorter than me, and I suspect a little younger, although I wouldn’t call him a kid.  Maybe he’s in his late 40’s. A little part of me wondered whether he’d pose for a photo actually holding an avocado, but I didn’t speak that part out loud.

Anyway, I explained what I needed and he invited me to sit in his conference room while he did a little research.  The marriage license I had for him to translate (I removed the dust prior to going over there) was printed in 1999.  At that time the transaction itself was 16 years old.  He said it would be a good idea to obtain a new one and in addition to get an Apostille.  I didn’t really understand what an Apostille was, and he told me it was like a notary stamp but in accordance with the ‘Oak’ convention.  He saw me write ‘Oak’ in my notes and corrected me by spelling out ‘H-A-G-U-GE’, and I said, “You mean, ‘The Hague’, like in the Netherlands?”  He said yes.  He told me there’s no sense starting to translate this one in its current state.

And as for the criminal background check, after some further research he told me that I’d need to go to the US Embassy in Lisbon and confess to having lived a life of crime.  (Just kidding–he didn’t say that.)  But I would need to go there to have the FBI do a background check and include fingerprints and other paperwork and get yet another Apostille.

So with our business concluded and me letting him keep his pen, I stood up and reached around to my back right pocket to pull out my wallet, saying, ‘Can I pay you for your time?’.  And he said no.  I was disappointed in not being able to express my gratitude in a traditional way.  It occurred to me later that he likely recognized the gesture I made–reaching around to my right buttock to extract my wallet– and that it could already be known as a sign of gratitude amongst the professional class in Portuguese culture.  He could later say to his well educated colleagues, over a glass of Vinho Verde (young, tasty wine), that yet another bald American touched his buttock after receiving some solid legal advice.  “I opened the door for him, and the American left with a smile, patting his right buttock as he walked away.”

I wonder if that’s how these kinds of things get started.  I mean, I was indeed grateful, and did sort of pat my wallet as if to reassure my bank card–the thing we use to pay for everything here in Lagos–that it could just rest easy, stay cloaked.  And I’m sure if a plastic card could feel, it would feel reassured, if not disappointed at being unable to participate actively in these events.

And it is for you, my dear reader, that I pat my right buttock and thank YOU from the bottom of my heart for reading.  I started this project to stay connected with the folks back home, and now 100 of you are considered by Substack to be ‘Readers’, and all-told you ‘Viewed’ my last update 1140 times.  This is maravilhoso  (marvelous!).  It seems that we have the basis for a long-term relationship here.  I mean, it’s not my God-like chiseled physique you’re after, it is?  No.  Or my raw animal magnetism–is that what you’re after?  Of course not.  You’re not that shallow.  I can tell.  

Christmas Day.  Glenna cheerfully told me that we were scheduled to work together at the cat shelter, and went so far as to separately remind me of the time (9:00 AM, not 10:00).  We knew the crew might be smaller that day, and we’d all want  to “get ‘er done” and move on. Glenna had plans that involved sharing a meal with a large group and catching covid, and she wanted to leave the shelter on time with the job done.  I set the alarm on my phone.

Revelers were exceptionally loud on Christmas eve in our neighborhood.  I heard young kids singing in the distance.  Sounded like young kids anyway. And even though they seemed happy, it was loud and insistent until beyond 1:00 AM.  I put my earplugs in.  Something I almost never do.  Then I woke up with a jolt at 9:15, feeling like my phone had failed me.  I raced to get dressed and out the door.

And yes, I felt a little guilty for sleeping in.  And without the benefit of coffee I still tried to hustle my ass across the old town and up the hill to where the shelter is.  But then something struck me that sort of pushed my bad timing and guilty feelings into the background.  I slowed my walk and noticed an amazing, deep silence.

It was incredible.  Like I could feel it and touch it and walk through it and bathe in it.  There was NO ONE up and about on this Sunday morning.  It was like walking through an empty movie set. Feeling guilty and trying to hustle faded as this third thing, a sense of awe, welled up.  Somehow the profound quiet stillness caromed off the street to highlight my own subjectivity. A different kind of listening: empty and spacious.

At the cat shelter, Glenna forgave me immediately.  I don’t know whether it was the contrite look on my face or Emma’s telling us we would just be doing enough to keep the cats fed and to catch up on a little of the cleaning around the place so we could all get on with our day.  I was assigned to start outside.  The residents have a small opening in the wall where they can transit between inside and outside.

I took the garden rake and started to clean the big sandbox which serves as one of many litter boxes for five dozen cats.  Then I sat down with a plastic bag and a scooper, and began to dig for buried treasure.  When I found some I dumped it into the bag along with a little bit of litter.  And indeed, treasure there was.  While working away, a couple of the residents came over to supervise, and one of them was very insistent about something.  First he climbed on my lap, and then up my shoulder.  Then he draped himself around my neck and started to whisper something in my ear…

“Take me home” he whispered, over and over.  And he nipped my ear to make sure I was paying attention.  Unfortunately, I can’t do that.  Our apartment doesn’t allow us to have pets.  We had a nice cuddle and he jumped down, to be replaced by yet another cat with a similar message and a scratch-between-the-ears requirement.  It was a bright, bright morning. I went home for a great Christmas Day nap afterwards.

Between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I saw Nelson in passing in the Wednesday market.  People willingly queue up to buy his berries. Business is usually brisk.  Prices are very reasonable. But lately blueberries have been absent.  I put my left  hand on his right shoulder, you know, the way good friends do when they meet each other by chance in a public place, and tried to ask him about blueberries.  

You should know that Nelson carries himself like a well-liked person.  He has an easy, relaxed smile.  Clearly he enjoys coming to Lagos twice a week to see the people here, and he likely has other employees who go to the surrounding towns and villages with his produce and so on.  A friendly guy for sure.  And I saw his face watching me as I struggled to ask him in Portuguese about blueberries.  “Onde, I mean, tem mirtillos?”, I asked.  And he seemed vaguely unfamiliar with me, life on earth, and what I was trying to say.  Unconsciously, I realized later, I squeezed his shoulder a bit more firmly–it must be what every person does in every culture to help his fellow man understand.  Also I spoke more loudly.  His vacant stare persisted.  Then I remembered that he himself had taught me how to say ‘blueberries’ in Portuguese (‘meer-tee-ohs’), so he was in fact faced with his own failure to teach me the correct pronunciation.  Could it be that out of fear and self-consciousness that I’m failing to properly enunciate?  Am I in fact posturing like a would-be ventriloquist?

I tried again, this time in English.  “Do you have blueberries?”.  His chin rose a fraction of an inch in understanding, and this helped me to notice that my grip on his shoulder may have been a little too firm.  I truly meant this to be a friendly exchange rather than a shakedown.  “Is finish”, he said.  “Saturday!”.  I smiled and released him; he made something that could have been a smile in return, and made a brisk getaway.  Saturday, Glenna texted me that Nelson did indeed have blueberries, but I was too embarrassed to go and buy some from him.  Maybe I need to wear a fake mustache or my hat and sunglasses for a few more weeks to allow time for this experience to fade.  For both of us.  

The dogs at the shelter have put forth a representative.  His face is on the logo for the place (notice the photos on the shirts of–from left to right–Brigitte, Charmaine, and Anja; on the photos below), and he consented to an interview recently, in exchange for a few treats and a generous petting.  Here he is with his nose through the fence before we both agreed to ‘Sit!’ and talk things over.

“How do you like it here?”, I asked.

“It’s great!”, he answered, “The ladies who run this place are the best!  The food is steady and we don’t have to burrow for it. There’s plenty of truly delicious, clean drinking water.  It almost never rains but when it does we have something we can crawl under.  And you can see by these lawn chairs that we can lay out and nap whenever we like, and hey there’s Leo! Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark!!!”

“What are you saying to Leo?”

“Well, we all remind all of our bro’s not to drag the walkers around too hard.  Most of the time they’ll listen, but if we don’t remind them over and over there’s a chance that some of the weaker ones will just get dragged across the rocky tundra. Sometimes when that happens they don’t come back.  Then there are less volunteers and some of us won’t get a walk that day.”

“Why do they drag the walkers?”

“Have you ever smelled it out there?  Right outside the gate there are shrubs and rocks and mounds and markings and each has their own scent and when your nose is ten thousand times more sensitive than a human’s, well, it’s unbelievable how much fun it is to explore it all,” he said, opening his mouth to let his tongue drape over his wet teeth.  I saw his healthy canines, as a drop of drool rolled down to the top of his tongue, and leapt for freedom.  “And, it’s always better to be the lead dog so clearly we want to surge to the front of the pack, even when there is no pack.  You can never be too sure.”

“Got it, and I noticed that all the residents here are fixed?”

“That’s right.  I mean there are some mighty fine bitches up in this place, but I alone could sire enough pups in a year to fill this entire shelter.  Most of them wouldn’t find homes, and that would lead to suffering.  Bad dog.  Can’t have that.”

“And some of the dogs get adopted from here?”

“That’s true,” he said, putting his paw on my arm, “The humans talk about ‘strong numbers’.  I don’t really know what that means..  They say there are about 60 of us here at any one time.  I don’t really know what a ‘60’ is.  Sometimes new dogs come, but next thing you know, instead of a walk with a human they’re leaning out a car window all excited and barking at everything.  The people here seem very happy about it.”

“One last question.  Why are the dogs in our little neighborhood barking all the time?”

“Well, the humans in this part of the world are very peaceful these days for a reason.  We dogs help them express repressed feelings with our barking.  For example when a lonely human goes to work and leaves Henry on the balcony, Henry has the tough job of barking at everything that moves all day long.  He’d rather be inside gnawing on things, but he’s actually processing the deep repressed emotions of his human, who would otherwise be unable to express his loneliness.  It’s hard work, but we dogs are naturally loyal and hard working.  That’s why dog and human are both so happy when the human comes home.”

“That’s pretty deep for a dog,” I said, and with his paw still on my arm and his tongue hanging out of over his teeth, I noticed the rate of his breathing and placed my hand on his side, feeling the warm, soft fur gently vibrating with life.  Then I looked into his eyes.  And he winked at me.

Cornelia is back for a while.  She picked up a bit of work to pass the time while hanging around our house, and it has stretched to follow her back to Lagos.  Grant Management is a special form of accounting, and it appears to require some deep concentration and the occasional muttering.  She very carefully places individual digits into precise fields on her spreadsheets, letting her formulas and precise planning do the rest.  For me, accounting is voodoo puppet master level stuff that has only grown more mysterious (and essentially admirable)  as I have gotten older.

It’s always ok to interrupt her with a shoulder and neck rub if I’m between language study and writing, or if I’m about to hang up my blue jeans from the wash.   We both like the thought of having a few extra bucks from her work, and this allowed us to go big at Ikea.  She sits at the desk in the living room, running the heater and feeling cold here in the heart of winter.  It is a frigid day in the middle of January here:  58 degrees.   

Our happiness comes, at least in part, from expressing it.  This is our 40th year.  There’s a fair chance this year we’ll get it right.  Practice, practice, practice.  This very paragraph was edited to exclude some things that were perceived as ‘over-sharing’.  While I don’t want you to think I’m keeping secrets from you, there are some details, upon review, considered best kept for some other version of this newsletter.

The return trip for the interview and the oath is coming sooner than we had expected, and so also sooner than we had hoped.  And so another flight, another spell of 8-hour jet lag; and then repeat on the return.  But then, making travel plans with the kids and Mom for fun and exploration.  People on other visas had to do this sort of prep work before they switched continents.  We’re playing ‘shoot, fire, aim’.  I’m ok with it.

We rented a car for the day on Monday and drove to Ikea with Joe and Doris.  Normally I’d rather stab myself than wander through that place but across that challenging horizon rested the promise of a comfortable chair.  An ottoman.  And (trumpets and celestial singers!) a new sofa.  We have these selected now and just need to finalize the order and take delivery.  And with Joe and Doris there I gathered up my courage and repressed my crankiness long enough to get through the entire trip without having a meltdown.  A good day.  And as a reward, several pieces of highly adequate furniture to sit and lie down on.

Photos of the new stuff to follow…

Thanks for reading!

Steve 

**C’s suggestion was, “The Snow Leopard”, by Peter Matthiesen.

I’d like to salute Kurt Vonnegut, one of my literary heroes.  His work encouraged me to think and feel deeply when I was a kid.  I recommend ‘Breakfast of Champions’, and ‘Slaughterhouse Five’.  Or any of his books. He’s one of a few artists with whom I have conversations in my head from time to time.

When I was a kid we lived in New York for ten months.  I believe this would have been in 1973-74.  On Saturday nights I’d watch wrestling on TV.  It’s very strange to think how mainstream it is today. The basic premise is that you have a really bad bombastic character saying all kinds of nonsense.  This ‘extreme dissonance’ is designed to pluck on your emotional heartstrings and keep you engaged long enough to sit through the commercials.  Meanwhile, the hapless opponent is trying to gather his resources and mount a counterinsurgency of some kind.  Sooner or later, some good guy shows up to win back the day and all is good once more.  I grew out of this.  Or, thought I had.

I mean, I don’t watch wrestling.  But I do watch the news on YouTube, and especially MeidasTouch, a channel focused on legal analysis of some high profile federal cases.  They’re highly biased against MAGA, and in them I hear the wrestling audience hail the good guy (Jack Smith) entering the ring to restore all that’s good and true in America.  And the wheels of justice grind ever so slowly as the covered wagon of democracy they carry teeters high on a ridge, ever in danger of slipping into the abyss of fascism.  And it’s all a senseless waste of time and attention.  

Kurt Vonnegut once said you shouldn’t begin your speech or writing with an apology, but here goes.  I’m really really sorry for bringing this up, and for this state of things.  I do it because I’m trying to hold up a mirror for myself on the kinds of things I spend time on.  I can’t ‘in good conscience’ talk about how I’m spending this part of my retirement without considering the context. I try to set limits and I’m often successful, but that phone is kinda handy and I’m browsing the headlines at least once per day.  Progress in chasing down the bad guy draws my attention.  I think you know what I’m talking about so I’ll just move on.

It’s my first winter without wet/frozen, miserable extremities!  Here it is December and I’m not staring up at a cloudy sky all the time.  What a refreshing change!  We’ve had temperatures as low as the middle fifties, and highs in the upper sixties.  There has been a fair amount of rain lately–more than I’ve seen since coming to Portugal–but the critically low reservoirs are gradually filling up.  People have told me the rain and weather is wetter than normal.  On December 10 & 11 there were numerous accidents on the roads related to fallen trees and some flooding in the northern parts of the country–which is the entire country because we’re in the south.  As it turns out, sunshine is a substantial cash crop (who knew?) and I’m certainly seeing solar panels deployed effectively in a number of highly visible places.

I’m keeping a bit of a schedule and a to-do list to stay “on target”.  Feeding the dopamine pathways in the brain requires a bit of care, and this is important because it’s related to a sense of ‘fulfillment’.  And this is where schedules and lists (and, ok, Wordle) come into play.

I’m preparing large meals on my own and I have several go-to’s.  One is a massive salad that I (and my T-shirt) eat from a big bowl in front of the TV.  Another is a stir fry of broccoli and green beans with red curry and coconut milk.  

And another is Shakshuka, which is a red sauce with onions and peppers and herbs and eggs poached right in the sauce.  

First, let’s address the area we want to keep clean…

We’re going to start with frying up peppers, onions, cumin, herbs and spices…

Then we’re going to add tomato sauce

And then we’re going to use a smaller pan and poach some eggs in a portion of this mixture.

Preparing and eating a big honkin’ meal is one thing, but getting things done is another.  Both of these involve the dopaminergic pathways in the brain.  I started to read more about this but got a headache.  (That’s right, I said it–I’m not quite as motivated to learn the specifics of the neurologic basis for motivation–go figure).  However, I am getting things done around the apartment and I’m enjoying doing for others and I’m maintaining a running list of things to do.

I’m not excessively compulsive about it but I do sweep the kitchen floor and other areas almost daily because the dust that blows in through the open sliding doors does collect in sufficient quantities to notice it.  I like to leave the glass sliders open in all the rooms to keep a fresh breeze moving through the place.  And the battle against the insects in the pantry appears to be at a standstill.  I’ve deployed chemical agents, and keep the vacuum cleaner at the ready but don’t seem to need it as much lately.  And the muttering appears to have stopped.  And curiously, I don’t think I’ve seen a single spider in the apartment, maybe ever.

My laundry is getting done, and curiously I take some hefty satisfaction from hanging it up to dry.  I just got a new drying rack for indoor use because wet clothes were staying that way for several days on the back balcony–where it’s just not hot enough for a quick dry.  I could also bag them up and run them down to the levandaria and throw them in the dryer.  I’m reserving that as plan C.  Plan A would be to use the balcony in bright sunshine, and Plan B is to use the drying rack with the dehumidifier set to low.

My to-do list has some regular recurring items, like exercising and practicing Portuguese and writing and sitting quietly.  These have become many of my favorite things to do.  Each has a clear structure, a set duration, and a sense that there’s a cumulative positive effect.  These are all flow-state components, so as I turn to these items there’s a possibility of slipping into that ethereal, timeless place; and whether it happens or not this attitude seems to work to reduce lethargy.  Oh, and a substantial dose of caffeine in the morning via a pour-over helps too.

For Portuguese practice I’m using an online site called, ‘Practice Portuguese’ (dot com).  They charge a small monthly fee and have lessons structured in the same way as a standard foreign language course with A, B, and C levels.  I’m able to record myself and check my pronunciation, and my vocabulary is growing.  As it turns out, there are a huge number of Portuguese speakers (~275 million!) and most speak Brazilian.  This is ‘nao faz mal’ if you already speak the language, but if you are learning it’s far easier to learn the flavor of your region.  Thing is, there are far fewer resources for Europeans, but I feel like I’m on the right track and striving to give it a half hour every day.  And I prepare a sentence or two for use whenever I’m out in public.  I wind up reverting to English, but not before getting some credit from the locals.  But as they tell me, ‘Nao e facil’ (it’s not easy).

Writing is starting to reveal itself as a genuine creative outlet.  (And a special thanks to you for reading this.)  I wrote a piece about riding my bike that has been wanting to come out for a very long time.  You can read it here, but it’s completely optional and not part of the final exam so feel free to skip over it, unless you want to ride the 20 miles with me from downtown Seattle to Bothell without having to break a sweat.

Sitting quietly is more than a passing interest.  It’s an entire frontier that I’m finding myself unable to really talk about here.  So this is a topic for another time and channel, with one exception.  I saw a quote from Tara Brach who said, “Happiness lies not in finding what is missing but in finding what is present.”  And here, with the neighborhood dogs barking in the distance and my feet feeling cold is another reminder to return to the present moment. And to put some socks on.

I helped Mark and Glenna with their raised garden beds in their new place, which is a short walk from here.  She ordered aluminum kits for constructing what look like giant horse troughs into which we laid layers of cardboard and then bags of various types of compost and soil.  We had to carefully rip all the tape off the cardboard boxes because that stuff works its way free and floats up to the surface of the bed over time.  Also, we removed any big metal staples from the boxes so they don’t wind up in our salad someday.  Mark carefully assessed the bulging sides of one of the containers and deftly added some structural support for all of them.  This will give them a good semblance of a rooftop garden in their new place, which has an upper level for hanging out and doing this sort of thing.  And, I couldn’t help it but had to get in one of them for a photo op, because these look like the perfect place to hide someone.  Permanently.  You have to review these details when you share a Chicago-based history with someone…

I volunteer at the cat shelter once weekly.  This involves cleaning cages, scooping the litter boxes, changing bedding, moving food around, sweeping and mopping, and making friends with a few of the residents there.  I’m getting enough cat contact where I don’t feel deprived of having a cat in our apartment.  I’m known to the residents as ‘Brrrupp!’, and one of them climbed up on a cage I was cleaning and threw up on me.  Then we made eye contact, and the message I got, as the cat barf dripped down from my hat to the back of my neck, was “I know I just barfed on you but I’m still curious.  Just look into my innocent eyes and try to get angry with me.  Meow…”

Here’s one corner (with at least 17) of the outdoor area of the shelter…

The crew is a surprisingly large set of committed people (maybe 20 of us?) arranging for food, litter, medical treatments, adoptions and so on.  The daily schedule includes 3 or 4 people showing up to help out for a few hours between 10 and 1.  It seems to be working very well judging by the apparent cleanliness of a tiny space that houses 60+ cats and the number of adoptions they’re doing. The ammonia smell of the place was gag-worthy initially but they’ve since painted the inside and it’s very tolerable now.

And about every other week–I’d like to bump this up to weekly for sure–I’m walking the dogs at the shelter which is on a piece of land up in the hills to the north of Odiaxere (the next town over, about a 5-minute drive by car).  The dogs have quickly accepted me as one of their own, perhaps because I threw down the 23 euros for the long-sleeved t-shirt with an emblem of a dog on it.  And they seem very excited to see me most days, chanting my name as they bound around the kennels as I walk by.  I’ve come to be known as ‘Arf’ or ‘Woof’ to them, depending on the breed–and yes, there are different dog dialects just like differing language dialects.  You just have to tune in and really listen.  Anyway, it’s nice to feel welcome.

This organization too is focused on keeping the dogs healthy and getting them placed in homes where possible.  

Here are my friends Carlos and Lorraine helping out for the first time.  Notice Carlos and his charge are in complete, relaxed harmony.  Lorraine and hers, well, not so much.  After this photo, her dog took her for a long drag across the rocky tundra.  (kinda kidding here)

The work at both the cat and dog shelters make me feel like I’m giving something back to the community and getting to know people a little bit.  There’s something about protecting life that feels right.

My friend Wolfgang had a birthday on a recent Saturday.  I learned this on that day while we were having coffee, and asked him what he wished for.  He said that he’d really like to mount his last three solar panels on his garage.  Putting my errands for the day to one side, I agreed to help.  What I’m not telling you is Monica had a Schwarzwalderkirschtorte defrosting in their kitchen, and that was his birthday cake.  If you don’t already know this about me, it’s probably my favorite dessert in the whole wide world.  So that thought of getting a piece of it was very compelling.  But honestly I felt bad for him to have only a schlub like myself for company at his house as he turned seventy six years old.  So I was happy to spend time with him.

At any rate, the panels are about 3 feet by 5 feet and weigh about 45 pounds.  They’re not very heavy, until you consider you have to get them up a ladder onto a slanted clay tile roof and position them without falling off and connect the cables to the existing array, and then fasten them correctly to the rails.  It turned out to be a job for 3 people, so he got on the phone and convinced the nephew of a neighbor to help us from the ground.   I’d be fibbing if I said it was effortless and without a couple of jolts of adrenaline, especially during those moments where the panel was just about to clear the edge of the roof and got caught on a tile.  Or when Wolfgang stood up from his crouched position next to me and announced that he was feeling dizzy (he got over it).  At any rate there were only 3 of them and we’d done this before and it worked out just fine.  And it felt good to give my time and energy to a friend.  Surprisingly, that was just as good as the cake.  Almost.  I mean ‘Black Forest Cherry Torte’.  Can you feel me?

Cornelia is making progress on her US Naturalization paperwork, so that’s a positive.  She’ll be returning to Portugal soon.  I miss my best buddy, and I’ll be very glad to have her back.  The current plan calls for her to be in Germany on the 29th, and back here with me about a week later.  As for my own progress, I managed to get my ‘Testado de Residencia’ completed and there’s very little left to complete the work for my D6 visa.  So, progress is occurring all around.

Snooker.  A number of guys at the Expat get-together on Thursdays also play Snooker.  The game has moved a little east to the Pennina, a beautiful old hotel with a rich history.  If you don’t know, this is a devious game designed by Hellions.  A distant relative of golf, the purpose of the game is to humiliate you and to make you feel helpless and inadequate.  You’re supposed to knock in the red balls followed by balls of the other colors, followed by more red balls, and eventually turn away in utter disgust and frustration.  I appear to be following the protocol, having picked up the flow of the game intuitively.  Also, the stick or queue has to have a tiny bit of warp in it to keep you from being able to shoot straight.  But by far the star of the show is the table itself.

It was a gift from King Edward VII in 1903 to the British Club in Lisbon.  The table was gifted to the club after the king’s first visit abroad and the receipt of their royal patronage.  So we’re actually playing on a piece of history. The British Club changed locations in Lisbon and the pool table wound up at the Pennina hotel here in the Algarve, and it is a beautiful, luxurious piece of art that has been well cared for.  We pay five Euros per hour, and whether it’s one or two or four of us it’s a good way to hang out and be a little silly.  And, if I haven’t made myself clear, I’m terrible.  This is a huge surprise for me because I can certainly hold my own in 8-ball.  But again, smaller balls (not that there’s anything wrong with that); a huge table, and smaller pockets add a massive challenge to playing well that I’m finding a bit discouraging to be honest.  Maybe watching soccer is more my thing.  

Here is a photo to show you the grand scale of this item.  On the wall is a plaque explaining the history of the table. Do not adjust your monitor—you DO need a bus to get from one end of the table to another.

The FIFA World Cup is about to come to a close in Qatar, but Portugal have made it to the round of 16.  Watching one of the games from our apartment, I ran out to my balcony when Portugal scored a goal and heard people cheering all over the place.  I don't particularly care for soccer (because it’s uber-boring), but I do like the way the game pulls people together into the community.  

I’m following Argentina because of Lionel Messi, believed to be the best player ever.  They say there are only 3 players close to him.  Messi came of age in the era of YouTube, so there are numerous highlight films and ‘fan appreciation’ films that show how crazy the announcers can get when he blows their minds.  I imagine the sportscasters ripping off their hair pieces and throwing them down on the ground, standing up in the booth and kicking over their chairs, wringing their hands as they wrack their minds for superlatives to describe him.  Watching Messi at his best is like watching a video game where the star player has super-powers–the competition actually getting faked off their feet.  And the fan appreciation highlights are beyond description, with people running onto the field to hug him in the middle of a game, and things like that.  (Since drafting this update initially, Argentina has won the whole thing, cementing Messi’s legacy as the GOAT (Greatest of All Time).  

My friend Larry and I took the bus one day to Praia De Luz, and hiked back.  Incredible views.  Cornelia and I can make an easy bike ride to this place and we have done so, but until this hike we hadn’t walked all the way back along the trail that takes us past incredible views like this one.

Next update is coming in 2023!

Thanks for reading!  Until then, send me a note to tell me what you’re up to.

Thanks,

Steve

On the way through Dublin in September, we learned that travelers to the US pass through customs there, and then arrive home as if they were on a domestic flight.  Our border agent, who will certainly be enlightened in roughly six hundred million lifetimes, flicked the corner of Cornelia’s green card and said it was invalid.  A lively discussion ensued, and we had a visit with the agents in the ‘back room’, where she learned that it was important that she have her green card replaced, and very soon.

After Cornelia made the very wise decision to marry me back in 1983, she gained ‘Resident Alien’ status.  At that time, green cards were issued once.  These days they’re issued for 10 years and cost over $600 to replace.  Her card was frayed on one plastic edge, made worse by the arrogant thumb-flicking of many agents filled with a sense of self importance and blessed with a very dry thumb.

Add to this the fact that as we left Faro, another agent looked at my passport and observed that I had been in the country for ‘over six months’.  This is an egregious exaggeration.  It was actually 177 days.  He said I was only supposed to stay 3 months, and stamped my passport and sent me on my way.  Because by nature I’m a law abiding citizen wherever I go, this startled me.  I didn’t think to mention that I was there legally as the spouse of an EU citizen.  And yet it is true.  Spouses of EU citizens are essentially in like Flynn. Sort of.

So crossing the border back into the EU in Dublin, weeks later and this time alone, I came prepared with a notarized copy of Mrs. Bloom’s German passport, a dusty but valid copy of our marriage license, a letter from her attesting to my overall good guy-ness, and a copy of her Testado de Residencia in Lagos.  The border agent asked me only how long I’d be remaining in Ireland.  The answer was 4 hours.  He stamped and waved me through.  That said, I’d be lying if the image of a team of violent border agents, nightsticks and tasers at the ready, hadn’t passed through my mind, especially after a long overnight flight. 

The mind goes through all kinds of things when sitting on an airplane, playing Texas Hold’em on the seat back in front of me (yes, I creamed ‘em all, many times).  I had plenty of snacks and other things to read, along with a row to myself.  And a young man from the Aer Lingus team was super friendly as I sat down:  “Good evening sir, and welcome to Aer Lingus!” There were thoughts of being stopped at the border, going bonkers in the apartment by myself, missing Cornelia and the kids, and so on. 

Then, after not having to show any paperwork, and the fact that borders are ostensibly open in the Schengen region, I was stunned again to see a counter between baggage claim and the exit to freedom in Faro.  Once again I dug out my extensive paperwork, felt my blood pressure rise, and waited my turn.  I knew the worst that could happen was that I would be sent back home, (or to prison, or into a hidden labor camp never to be heard from again) but I was also worried that the transfer service (Faro to Lagos) I had booked and paid for was expecting me an hour earlier.  This time I took a deep breath and slid my passport across to the Portuguese border patrol and the man asked me whether I’d come just now from Dublin and I said yes.  He slid the passport back to me after checking his computer and said, ‘Obrigad’ (‘thank you’).

Finding the driver helped erase most of the remaining tension.  He was from Brazil, having just moved here with his wife to Portimao.  We spoke easily using his cell phone translator and got to know each other.  He told me that God had been good to him by giving him an opportunity to live and work in Portugal as the manager of this transfer company. They wanted to start a family, and could I help him with a few phrases?  He learned, ‘May I assist you with your bags?’, and I learned, ‘I can’t feel my face when I’m with you!’ (“Eu não posso sentir meu rosto quando estou com você!”).  We had some laughs and nice rapport as 18 hours of travel and sleep deprivation came together with the contents of my adrenals.  And I began to remember that sense of ease that goes with not having to report to work in the morning.

And I’m really not sure I remember what happened when he finally dropped me off an hour later between arriving at the apartment and getting through the door.  I remember the suitcase and the carry-on with their handles up.  For a vague moment, and I don’t know if it was the fatigue or a feint, but I felt weightless and horizontal–spun by strong arms into a dip.  Did something press against my lips or did I just imagine it later? Did I groan, or wake up from broken sleep later with a groan?  A memory of adjusting my baseball cap, slid sideways on my head.  And then walking through the dark towards the front door thinking, ‘Man that was fabulous customer service’.  And so began an indeterminate period of life by myself in the apartment.

And this is a time and place where I can ponder life’s important questions like, “Is a napkin really necessary when I’m wearing a shirt?”, and “Can I wear that a second time if it’s just going to get sweaty again?”, and '“Is the apartment really a mess if I clean it up before anyone else can see it?”, and stuff like that.

I remember my father playing the role of Elmer J. Fudd with the squirrels in our backyard.  They ate well from every single bird feeder he put out there, often pausing to eat the food while staring into the kitchen where Dad looked out at them and feeling, I’m sure, fully humiliated.  He got even though, trapping them and driving them miles away and letting them go.  He didn’t want to kill them, but he did want to seriously inconvenience them as retribution for disturbing his peace and tranquility.

With me, it’s the little moths in the pantry.  They look like tiny pieces of paper fluttering around, and I got the first few with the vacuum cleaner.  I scan the pantry ceiling, like watching the sky for invading enemy aircraft. Now when I see one, I hear myself start to mutter. “Oh, this will not stand!”, I hear myself saying, as I plug in the machine, keeping one eye on where they’ve landed. These are not what you would think of as genius or elusive insects.  They just sit there as I clean them up. “Anybody else want a piece of this?”, I ask out loud before I put it away.  (They never answer).  I imagine them evolving into trout or tuna, thinking that if incarnation is indeed a thing they should get a leg up due to the fact they made it to Portugal.  At any rate, I kind of think of Dad and the squirrels whenever yet another moth comes to life, perhaps thinking that my pantry is a moth’s pantry when it certainly is not.  And I suppose if I go after them with the vacuum cleaner housing itself one day, that would be a warning sign…

When I can find a ride to the dog shelter I volunteer there by taking a few dogs for a walk, and once a week I volunteer at the cat shelter here in town (walking distance, like just about everything else).  It’s satisfying to contribute to a community effort, and fund-raising seems to be at a level that will keep both shelters open for the long-term.  There are entire cat colonies here where they do a trap-spay-release program, and generally the local folks don’t like to neuter their animals so whether it’s a dog or cat situation both charity locations will need to stay operational.

Our Stay in Washington

My old friend Christa Haberkorn drove through the area on the same weekend we arrived at the house, and we took this selfie for her. I need to have Cornelia hang onto this t-shirt for me…

We stayed on Whidbey Island with our friend Mary, who we’ve known since Liana and Tiana came home with us from China.  Mary is as kind as the day is long, and we were very happy to see and visit with her.  She left us in charge of Scooter the cat while she went to California. I heard Mary speak to Scooter in a cartoon voice that caused me to do a double-take.  I like to get Mary laughing and it was nice to be silly with her. She also made us shrimp rolls, which turned out to be the sandwich of the decade so far.

In fact Mary’s niece loaned us her Volvo while happening to be traveling in Europe, and Jenny stayed in our apartment for a few days, giving us a chance to see Lagos through her eyes.  Jenny left us a beautiful card and a nice clean place for me to return to.

While on Whidbey, we drove up the west side of the Island to cross Deception Pass a couple of times, stopping for shopping and to top off the gas tank.  And there are some familiar things that really bring the taste of home, whether it’s figuratively by walking the neighborhood or visiting with friends; or literally, through small indulgences like local fast food. One of those is fried chicken—a very rare indulgence. We picked some up at Sars, and I had to be careful to keep my hands and arms away from Cornelia while she tore into it.

As for the name of the store, you read that right.  Sars.  A discount grocery opened well before the virulent illness of the same name appeared.  We don’t know if Mr. Sars ever considered changing the name of his store to something less contagious (‘Pancreatic Cancer’, maybe?).  But prices were less shocking there than at other places.

I knew we’d see much higher prices for everything in the US compared to Portugal (and remember, since we don’t own a car we never had to buy gas), but even still it was shocking how expensive everything has become.  I spent ten dollars for two small pieces of cake; it was five dollars for a decent latte (so pricey I made Sophia buy it for me), and I saw a food truck selling a chicken leg and thigh for nearly fifteen dollars.  It goes on and on.  I know I don’t have to tell you if you live in the US, but, I mean, wow.  Inflation is like a tax on everyone, all at once, without a chance to vote for it.  Sorry for the editorializing here (I mean it is my newsletter, eh?) but when you print trillions of dollars and give it away, the value of the rest of the dollars in circulation have to fall, right?  

Anyway, we made our own meals rather than dining out most of the time.  And we saved money by having Jenny’s car.  And of course Cornelia is staying in our house.

During our visit, our 39th wedding anniversary came and went—a reminder that no matter what happens we’ve made a nice life for ourselves and each other.

When we weren’t on Whidbey we were usually making short trips across the sound to Mukilteo, and from there to Bothell.  If you’ve never been there, and to Langley specifically, it’s gorgeous.

The ferry is like a little vacation within a vacation, and I really like a ferry ride. I had to swim really fast after taking this photo…

We got to see the house with its fresh coat of paint on the outside, and on the inside it was surprisingly much like we left it, down to the same plates and silverware in the cabinets and drawers.  Sophia has made herself comfortable in the master bedroom, and Bella and Luka remain comfortable hanging around with her.  

I took my bike out of the attic, put on the pedals and shoes brought home with me, and had some ecstatic bike rides on the Burke-Gilman trail.  There were no cars to cause concern, and I know almost every dip and turn on the trail.  It was flat and fast and comfortable the whole way.  Also, my 10+ year-old road bike feels like a comfortable pair of jeans.  Here’s to sunny days, light winds, and 20-mile rides.  I would say it was great fall weather, except for the smoke.  I’m not complaining here because I did get some good rides in, but to see the smoky blue haze and literally taste it in my mouth was unsettling.  We saw AQI (Air Quality Index) readings up over 200, which is a level higher than is safe from people with any kind of respiratory problem.

It was great to catch up with people and very nice to be back in town where we still think of Bothell as ‘home’, but I have to admit that we both referred to the apartment here in Lagos as home also.  So it’s a little weird having multiple ‘homes’ but that’s ok–(nada demais:  “no big deal”).  We’re only beginning to get comfortable here and want to keep one toe in each ocean as long as we can.  

So without running down every single detail, Cornelia is working on her citizenship in the US.  Here in Lagos, I’m working to get my own status properly straightened out. 

Hopefully the next update will reveal more about our status. Please reach out to Cornelia if you’re state-side.

More soon, and THANKS for reading!

Steve

We, the editors of Substack, wish to apologize for a faux pas found in Mr. Bloom’s update from last month.  It would appear that he employed a non-traditional (and potentially offensive) spelling of a particular city in Thailand.  It starts with a ‘B’ and ends with a ‘k’, and contains no ‘c’s’.  In Mr. Bloom’s own words…

“Fine, it’s Bangkok.  Have it your way.”

Typically, a combination of common sense, careful editing, and a decent spell checker would have caught this.  While we can’t monitor every posting on our platform we do try to respond promptly to you, dear readers, when you call errors in judgment such as this to our attention. We applaud your tireless sense of decency–thanks!

Uhh, Moving On!

I feel a little nutty raving about the produce here, but the truth of the truth for me is I really look to food as a source of comfort and security in this whacky world. And I’ve always loved green beans. We’re talking a stir fry with ginger/garlic/soy, and full on all out green bean flavor. I mean, feast your eyes on these babies!!

When we returned from Germany in August it seemed like every stork had left town.  Well, here it is in mid-September and a few of them are back.  We’ll have to continue to watch as nesting season rolls around..

Tourists, like other seasonal travelers, have diminished substantially as if the end of August was the deadline for going back home.  Streets are less crowded after August.

We’ve met several new couples and begun to establish friendships with more people thanks to our activity in the Thursday expat group and our adventures in various classes in the Sportivo.  This is both a relief and a joy for us and we’re very grateful.

I’d like to share that I had a remarkable birthday celebration last week.  I turned 60, which is a nice round number.  While out hiking the week prior with 3 new friends, we discovered that 2 of them shared the same birthday–September 7th.  It was a delightful surprise to all three of us–Larry and Doris and me– both born on the same day in different years.  Between the 3 of us we have 200 combined years on planet Earth.  Many happy returns to Larry and Doris!

By the way, the odds of any 23 people in a group having the same birthday are about 50%.  There’s a curious bit of math there, but the probability of any 2 people having the same birthday in a group of 5 people  is .027, where one is a dead certainty.  And the probability of 3 is, well, my brain hurts now and perhaps only Dr. McKinney or Ms. Shofer can help us through this one.

I took a hefty bike spill a couple of weeks ago. I had just cleared a stretch of cobblestones over flat ground going really fast.  The smoother road led into a roundabout.  I veered right so I wouldn’t run into the center of it, and then needed to veer left to continue around the island in the middle.  As I leaned left, I may have been too forward on the bike.  What ultimately happened as I leaned left was my back tire slid out from under.  I had a couple of split seconds before I got intimate with the pavement.  The first one was just a surprise, (WHAT?), and then I got an inkling of annoyance (AWWWW!!!).

Then I did what motorcycle riders call a ‘lay-down’.  My shoes snapped out of the pedals, momentum and gravity combining to drag me along the road for another 30 feet.  My cell phone managed to slip out of my back pocket and continued for a bit further.  Fortunately, my torso remained under control and my head never went near the ground.  (That said, always wear your helmet, kids!)

My left hip took most of the force, scraping a hole all the way through my bike pants.  There was a messy scrape there, and the ensuing bruise was so large that I had to hide it from Cornelia for the next 10 days.  My left elbow helped to slow me down.  The forearm took a lot of the weight of my torso for the length of the slide.  The scraped skin was an angry, angry red.  Then, like sliding into home plate, my left knee folded under me taking some skin off my kneecap and the side of my shin.  I saw my phone slide along the road ahead of me, having escaped my pocket.

My first thought was to pick up my phone and get out of the way of traffic.  I had time to do that before the car behind me stopped to ask me if I was ok.  I told them I was, and thanked them a couple of times before climbing back on, my scrapes burning but all my limbs working.  The bike was unharmed.  A sudden incident like this really shocks you into the present moment.  And oddly, I felt like I did when playing ice hockey as a kid where a little banging around made me feisty and ready for more.  I considered what it might be like to voluntarily expel myself from a slow moving car to simulate the experience in the future.  I have since decided against this.

And so, on to recovery.  The right hip is the new one and the injured one was on the other side.  I’m already highly skilled at limping, so there was no problem there.  And now, weeks later, I've recovered enough to do Pilates once more.  The bruise that covered most of my left thigh is fading nicely–maybe the biggest bruise I’ve ever had.  I think the lesson I learned was all about potentially oily roads and the inside lane in roundabouts.  That’s where cars will throw off a little oil.  And the outer lane is certainly a different color–much lighter and far less oily.

We’ve taken up with some Brits from the expat group to walk dogs at a shelter nearby on Sunday mornings.  This is subject to the availability of car transportation, but we enjoyed it enough to want to continue doing it, so that could turn into a regular Sunday thing for us.  We’ll see, but giving a dog a chance to be a dog–taking them out of doggie prison for a quick bit of exercise where the views of the surrounding area are exceptional–seems like a kind and decent thing to do, and so we’ll find a way.

Now, the cat situation is a little different.  Indeed, there is a shelter operated by the same group.  It sits walking distance from our apartment in the shower building behind an old and unused amphitheater.  There are 60 cats housed in a fairly small area, with a fenced outdoor section available so they can roam a little bit.  Tasks to be done there include cleaning bedding, wiping smelly cat pee away wherever possible, changing the litter, giving them some food, and finally visiting with them.  Unfortunately, the smell was overpowering for Cornelia’s exceptionally sensitive nose.  I don’t fault her for that because the smell is pretty strong.

And little did we know that a black cat is considered bad luck in Portugal.  As a result, the color of many of the residents is black.  What this means is that the chance of their getting adopted at some point is low.  For me, cats have such calm soothing energy that I love being around them.  Cornelia does too, and we miss living with our 2 cats back in Bothell.  In fact, when I sat down outside the shelter within the fenced area, I quickly made 5 new friends with one of them hopping right up on my lap and getting comfortable right away.  4 others took up a very relaxed posture right around us.  So, I’m thinking that with the right mask to block the odor I could be a productive volunteer there too.  

Many of our friends have discovered Dr. Anke Wiltinger, a German expat practicing medicine in a clinic just a short walk from here.  She ordered blood and other tests for me, and prescribed a 24-hour blood pressure test along with a stress test because I measured very high while in her office. It’s nice to have met someone that can be my personal doctor for a long time.  She seemed a little too interested in my colon, especially when I explained that although 2 years late to take my first colonoscopy were based on the results they said to come back in 10 years, she seems set on the 5-year interval.  So we’ll have to revisit that part of the discussion when we resume consultations shortly.

We continue to explore the cultural scene here when we can.  Recently, we went to Flamenco dancing and the performance was exceptional.  Well, mostly exceptional.  The lead male dancer had long-ish hair, and when he did a 360 spin he released a spray of sweaty particles upon the first couple of rows of the audience.  At any rate, it was a fun and entertaining show.  The dancers were backed up by a singer/hand clapper, a magnificent guitarist, and a haunting violinist.  

We came to find out that to keep Cornelia’s green card valid we need to return to the US within 6 months of our departure.  For this reason, we’ve traveled to the Seattle area starting on the 22nd. Cornelia will stay on in our Bothell house and I will be returning to Portugal in mid-October for a few months.  We hope to serve as quiet house guests to our friend Mary on Whidbey Island and to go above and beyond as perfect cat-sitters while she’s away for part of our stay.  It’s from Mary’s easy chair across from the big TV where I’m finishing this update. 

So, I’ll be on my own in Lagos.  There’s a spare bedroom and an extra bathroom, so if you’re tidy and unobtrusive, there are cheap accommodations in our apartment available November-December-January.

More Soon!

Thanks,

Steve

Thanks to everyone who commented on previous posts.  It’s great to be in touch with you!

And hey, if you read to the end of this post you'll be rewarded with a picture of food.  Hang in there!

We planned our July trip to Germany to coincide with Liana’s break from school.  This would allow us to visit with Oma and visit Cornelia’s sister and her husband.  Liana and Will went to England and Holland before joining us.  Usually a trip to the house where Cornelia grew up would involve several days of severe jet lag.  Not this time!

We could see the fires from the car on the way to the Faro airport.  Huge clouds of gray smoke with a streak of orange flame at the bottom.  Faro is 55 miles from Lagos, but very dry conditions and high heat are common in the Algarve in the middle of summer.  Most of the rain that’s going to fall here comes down between November and March.

Without suitcases, the boarding process was smooth and easy.  I had never heard of TUI Airlines before.  TUI is sort of a sound you make when you're spitting out a stem or something.  At any rate, the boarding process was very smooth and the flight crew was efficient and business-like.  Flight time to Dusseldorf was about 3.5 hours.  My biggest complaint in flying is being crammed next to a stranger.  Traveling with Cornelia removes this concern as we’ll typically sit together.  We wore our masks as requested, and I even doubled up in the interest of saying safe.

The ideal flight would be Faro to Hannover or Faro to Hamburg.  From either city it's relatively quick on local trains to Oma's house in Fallingbostel.  On the way there, we had to make a number of connections by local train, rather than the faster intercity system.  This is because the government lowered the cost of the trains to 9 Euros for the month per person--for the entire month.  This served to encourage people to get off the roads and onto the trains, and it worked.  Our connections were crowded but decent and although some connections were delayed we still made it to Fallingbostel with no issue.  It wouldn’t be so tame on the way home.

It's great to travel with Cornelia.  She's cheerful and friendly and engaging.  On the train from Dusseldorf to Falling, we sat across from a man who pilots big container ships, and learned that almost all of what he's transporting right now is coal.   We learned that he works 3 weeks on and 3 weeks off.  Germany is preparing to run their power plants on something other than Russian gas next winter.  They're also re-thinking taking their nuclear plants out of commission, extending their utility a little longer to bridge the gap.  And generally speaking, Germans are well educated and well spoken.  I don’t know why the kids find it so cringe-worthy when she engages with perfect strangers. By the way, if you sit next to or across from me on the train you won't hear a peep out of me.  

So Oma was waiting for us when we arrived in Fallingbostel, and a couple of days later William and Liana joined us there.  Prior to that, we took Oma’s lawn mower for repair and subsequently mowed the lawn; and Cornelia did some aggressive shrub and ivy trimming only to hear her mother call her a ‘radical schneider’.  We assembled a rose arbor from lacquered aluminum and put it in place.  We leveled one of the paving stones on the back patio.  It was as big as a sewer cover and had a huge tree root underneath (making it a real tripping hazard) that we had to schneid (radically).  Oma likes to scatter bird food in the backyard and have the birds come to visit.  We saw pigeons and black birds and songbirds.  A neighbor’s cat came by to be fed.  Our breakfast table looked out onto this scene and although the thermometer pushed upwards it was cool inside without air conditioning.

We took long walks through the farmland and woods and campgrounds between Fallingbostel and the neighboring town of Vierde.  There are active farms here growing wheat and rye and corn and veggies.  The farmers keep horses, and we have some favorites that we like to visit and talk to when we're around.  I'm in awe of horses, and like getting close to them and having a little conversation.  There’s a mare that looks a lot like this one that trotted over to visit us during previous visits, and she’s since had a foal that’s nearly her size now. If you’ve ever read any Herman Hesse, especially Narcissus and Goldmund, you’ll have a picture of the walking paths between German towns very similar to the paths we walked.  Fallingbostel is over one-thousand years old so Goldmund, although fictional, could have walked through towns much like Fallingbostel and Vierde.  The quiet in this Dorf is palpable.  Without seagulls, or traffic, or shelling (the Brits used to have artillery training in the area before they pulled out a few years ago) the silence was extra soothing

From there we went on to Mike and May-Britt's house in Kuhlungsborn.  I'd like to be a better frolicker.  And, I'm working on it. The beach in Kuhlungsborn is delightful.  The sand is superfine and the water is cold without being frigid.  Perfect to cool off on a hot day.  With a foam noodle I could get used to jumping in and floating effortlessly for a good while.  That’s what I did on our first day there, and it was a great relief from the hottest day of our visit–it was in the mid-90’s for sure.  Liana came out to join me, and she can tread water and float without a noodle–so I didn’t have to share–and we had a lovely post drive cooling off in the ocean.

And then we 4 came down with Covid.  Mike and May-Britt’s spare rooms became a sick bay for us as we convalesced there.  So, Corona.  For me it started with a viscous sinus headache and dry cough, and quite a bit of brain fog.  I just wanted to sleep, and pant from the heat.  There was a scary squeezing feeling in my back between my shoulder blades.  Then the cough got productive and the headache faded, but the weariness remained as the brain fog eased up.  It's day 17 as I write this, and there's still a bit of weariness..  We had to extend our stay by a week to avoid traveling with the virus.  It’s a good thing we’re retired and can afford to be sick.  The strongest medicine we took was tylenol and ibuprofen and cough drops.

I got a slice of Schwarzwaelder Kirschtorte from the Roentgen bakery.  There’s some family history in this town, which is in the old eastern part of the country, not far from the Polish border.  The family(with Cornelia and May-Britt) fled communism in the early 60’s and then re-claimed their property when the “Berlin”wall came down.  

Food prices here are very high--probably similar to the states.  We've got to return to Portugal to find the low food prices that we're used to.  And if you’re an American, believe me that gas prices are a bargain at 5 bucks a gallon.  Over here we paid just under 8 bucks a gallon, allowing for a slight difference in currency values and the fact that a liter is a little more than a quart.

There’s also a serious cashless trade in jam.  Oma would set the breakfast table like arranging a chessboard.  Orange Marmalade to Queen 1, Local Honey to Bishop 4, Pflaumenmuss (Bad Schwartau) to Queen’s Bishop 5, Erdbeer to King 3, and so on.  Oma grows some little red berries I’ve never seen anywhere else, and presses\boils\sweetens them into a dozen jars at a time; like a home factory.  She and Cornelia laid out the entire harvest on the dining room table and separated stems from berries; their fingers deftly picking over the harvest; quietly muttering to each other like submariners in hushed tones.  The lemon-cherry taste tickled my nose as the aroma filled the kitchen while they boiled.  Their bright red color translated perfectly from shrub to jar.  The next morning, King’s Knight 4 was covered with a fresh entry.  An array of long handled spoons joined the jam-board.  The jams are not to be mixed–each gets their own spoon.  Heaven help you if you lick one too soon before the end of breakfast.  The substrate was typically a toasted roll or fresh rye bread.  And it was great.  Oma’s coffee game is pretty solid too.  How many people in their late 80’s grind their own beans?

While we were there, a neighbor stopped by with a fresh shipment.  A narrow woven basket of 8 jars of her own creations.  She told us briefly of her own trip to the US way back when.  Some of her jars went directly onto the breakfast table, and some went into Oma’s garage where a towering set of metal shelves was chock full of jam jars.  Each labeled with a flavor and date.  Some of this inventory traveled with us to Mike and May-Britt’s house, and fresh new jars returned.  In their impeccably clean garage there stood their own towering metal shelving.  No place for greasy car parts here–just a living history of jam jars–some full of Maybrit’s own creations (Apricot-Mango is killer), and a long-term supply of backup jam.  No supply chain issues here.  Nossir.  

I've been reading like crazy.  Kim Stanley Robinson’s, ‘The Ministry of the Future’, was nothing like anything of his I’ve ever read.  He outlined a reasonable path to humanity’s success in (not) destroying the planet.  While it gave me hope, the truth is that today we’re losing.  That’s just plain un-American, people!  Another thing that gives me a little hope is people and projects that I learn about at ‘Just Have a Think’, where you’ve got an English gentleman reporting faithfully on projects and research that actually can and are making a difference.  As it turns out, there’s a good bit of money to be made in saving the earth.  Who knew?

Andy Weir, who wrote ‘The Martian’, also wrote ‘Hail Mary’, which is an absolutely brilliant read.  You’ve got a plausible alien encounter, a dying earth, and the same can-do engineering attitude that made the Martian so much fun.  For those of you scoring at home, this one has more than eighty thousand reviews on Amazon–so many I don’t even need to put a link here.  I guess I’m not the first one to discover Andy Weir.

I read Neil Stephenson’s, ‘Termination Shock’, where a clever Texan takes environmental matters into his own hands and decides to lob sulphuric acid-filled shells into the upper atmosphere to cool the earth.  This simulates what volcanoes actually do.  There are, as you might expect, potential worldwide atmospheric and ensuing political and military repercussions.  For me, this is right in Neil Stephenson’s wheelhouse as a classic techno-thriller.  I really enjoyed it.  If you like this kind of author, you’re in for a treat.  He’s a local Seattle boy made good.

Timothy Hallinan wrote, ‘A Nail Through the Heart’, which is a murder mystery that takes place in Bangcock.  I thought John Burdette owned this space but it turns out there’s plenty of mystery and intrigue to be written about the people and society in this post Vietnam war setting.  Hallinan’s characters are very human, making for utterly wrenching scenes.  I’ll read more of him–once the nightmares end.

I've been watching far too much YouTube on my phone.  The Jan 6 hearings are like a huge highway pileup.  I want to drive on by but I can't look away.  There's one part of me wishing that the former president would get charged and go to jail; and another part that knows that the forces that produced him are still in play and likely to manifest in some other terrible way in his absence.  It's brutally sad to think of our democracy circling the bowl, but there's hope.  Fox news appears to have kicked Trump to the curb.  The Department of Justice may be closing in.  And so on.  I would direct people to the work of Chris Hedges for a deeper perspective here.  I found him while trying to answer this question for myself–why do I take so much pleasure in reading about Donald Trump’s wrong-fullness?  And what is it about the pleasure we take in seeing people get un-done?  Classic schadenfreude.  

Add in a hefty dopamine addiction and there’s a feeling I just need some time out from my phone, ya know?  I mean, of course I want to stay in touch with people but I don’t need to respond within seconds these days.  The thing calls to me from across the room like a whiny puppy when I’m too far away from it.  Just need some space here–it’s not the phone (actually it is, and by design)–it’s me, refusing to submit to the darkness.  I’d much rather use it to dial up some Samaneri Jayasara, a nun with a huge body of work providing healthy, wholesome inspiration.  Or my good friend Amba Love.  Or Hanuman, with newly added snippets.  Or even Mira or Devaji who are both effectively neighbors.

At any rate the trip home was a little jarring.  We’d returned to Oma’s from Mike and May-Britt’s largely on the mend, and decided to stay another week in part to keep Oma company.  She was the 5th person to catch covid and although it wasn’t a severe case we couldn’t travel so soon after getting sick ourselves.  With the week behind us, and an extra tranquil recovery period over, we jumped into the height of the summer tourist season.  The local trains to Hamburg were delayed and hugely crowded, so there were masses of loud and impatient people trying to transit via the cheap local train system.  We punted on the last 2 legs and jumped in a cab to the Hamburg airport rather than transfer to the S-bahn and then the U-bahn–this was after several hours of riding with long delays on each leg. This strategic move actually earned me kudos from Cornelia who had done all the planning.  We had an air-conditioned cab, a friendly driver, and gained time to make it through security for just a few Euros.  All of this dialed our claustrophobia and tension back down to reasonable levels.  

I continue to work on my Portuguese, and I'm hearing lots of German so the language areas of my brain are getting tickled regularly.  I’m about to start lesson 29 of 30 of Pimsleur’s, ‘European Portuguese’.  So, fluency is not yet a distant spec on the horizon.  But, I have two feet and I can continue to put one in front of the other until whole sentences start to come out.  

Ok, you made it this far so here's your reward.  Glenna and Marc and Cornelia and I went to dinner across the narrow street from their apartment and ordered a Focaccia as an appetizer.  As their cat kept an eye on us from their apartment one story above the street (seriously, the cutest thing you could ever hope to see) we gazed in amazement at what is truly a work of art.  The Focaccia wasn’t as thick as expected but it was covered in cheese and veggies that could have made for an entire meal.  Feast your eyes on this.

And here's a picture of Marc and Glenna (congrats on 44 years!), at a table 3 steps from their apartment entrance, just begging for a caption.  

More in September!  Thanks again for your comments, whether you reach out directly or add them in Substack.  Staying connected keeps the good brain chemicals flowing–but in a healthy way.

Steve

I like to sit quietly most mornings.  We keep the sliding glass doors open in the living room.  We’re in a cluster of 5-story concrete structures, so sounds echo and carry well. With the sliding doors open, a light breeze takes the thin curtains for a lazy ride into the living room.  There aren’t many bugs here, so our front balcony windows don’t have screens.  Only tiny little red ants show up here and there, and we either sweep them away or invite them into the traps we bought from the hardware store.  With my eyes closed I hear my own thoughts and the tapestry of sound in our neighborhood.

 I don’t think I’ve seen a crow since I arrived, but I have seen Jonathan Livingston’s European (Seagull) cousins (Joao and Beatrice) and heard them expressing their moods and opinions at all hours.  They were here long before we humans.  If the wind blows from the north, a gull on one of our rooftops can just open his wings and let it carry him to the ocean in no time.  And it’s not like a crow who can basically say only, ‘caw caw’ (and then for emphasis ‘CAW!’) all day long.  A gull can sound like an angry baby, an annoyed old man, a surprised duck, a balloon expelling air while pinched between someone’s fingers, and so on.  And occasionally, a colony of them will get together and start to chant, laying down a rhythm of calls and then responding louder to their own echoes off the neighboring buildings.

Then there’s a parakeet (maybe a Budgie?) who likes to give his voice a workout in the mornings.  His call is much more playful and musical, and although we can’t see him in his cage when we walk by his balcony most days, we do whistle to him, and he’ll whistle back in greeting as if he’s trying to harmonize with us.  A friendly avian neighbor with far more musical range.

We also have the storks, which I suspect have been around longer than the gulls.  They’re not as vocal, but their greetings can be heard from a long distance and they’re nesting on the buildings and in palm trees nearby here.  When they greet each other, they throw their heads way back in a gesture that can only look like profound joy (or extreme pain).  We can see their babies poking their heads up on the nest and find them soaring with their 5-foot wingspans all the time. 

On the courtyard side of the apartment, normal conversational voices are loud enough to wake me early in the morning.  I used to be bothered by this but not lately.  Maybe because retirement has made me more patient? 

What I have not yet learned to love are barking dogs.  We can close the sliding door, turn on some music, or just wait for the barking to stop.  That said, some of our neighbors will put their dog out on the balcony and give them the day-long pleasure of barking at everything that moves.  What a great life for a dog that must be, eh?  Here’s to the dog breed that fits under your arm and barks… silently.

We continue to manage without a car.  Gas is about $8 (or more) per gallon (at 1.90 to 2.21 Euros per liter), and parking is available but challenging here in the neighborhood.  For now, we’re saving having to pay for fuel and insurance and other maintenance.  This was one of the key reasons we chose Lagos.  Shopping, exercise, restaurants, the beaches, and many scenic views are all within walking distance.

Our bicycles can serve us well between nearby towns, for example Luz is about 4 miles from here over quiet streets and back roads, and we just recently stretched a trip out to Burgau. 

Our trips to Aljezur on the bus take about 40 minutes.  We took a later bus back once to wander in the countryside and up near the castle, where we could hear the cowbells from their grazing in the field from miles away.

Aljezur is a very old town that’s becoming popular with the younger crowd. This is most probably due to the great surfing at the beaches near here. The river used to support trade traffic centuries ago, and it surrounded the biggest hill in the area. 6th to 7th century AD Visigoths occupied the hill, perhaps building a simple wall. 10th Century AD Muslims settled the region, founded a village here, and erected an early Medieval 'hisn'. 12th to 13th century AD The Almohads built the castle layout we see today.

The gym.  I’m doing weight training 4x weekly and we’re doing Pilates together twice.  Cornelia joins me for some weight training and the twice weekly class with Pedro.  And he is such a sweet little man (I call him little because he’s very short) that I want to take him home with us.  He always has a gentle smile, is very supportive and encouraging, and loves to speak English with us. Pilates itself is still challenging (“Ok, lay on your right side and lift your right leg.  Now put your left leg next to it…and now, juggle!”), but I’m going slow and breathing through the pain—and avoiding straining my back.  In fact, I’ve found a new form of torture.

Spin Class.  Here we have great bikes, a well-ventilated room, pounding music, and the genuine thought that death is imminent.  Our coach is a young woman with thighs sculpted from granite.  Even though she’s shouting I can hardly hear her over the music, but I can see her legs churning like locomotive pistons, and I watch her hand adjusting the tension knob.  When she stands up on her bike, we all stand up on our bikes, and so on.  During the first class, we simulated a climb up Monchique, which is about a 25-mile climb from here.  By about mile 3, I was standing up on my bike with the tension knob rotated many times clockwise and starting to sense a giant crab crawling inside my chest.  My legs were on fire.  I thought about calling for my Mom.  By the end of the ride, I looked like someone had poured a bucket of water over my head.  It’s funny, but even though I’ve been a bike riding fool for many years I’ve rarely ridden with a group and never done a class like this.  Now I know why.  But I need that conditioning for weight loss, so I’ve added this class 2x weekly.

Real-estate prices are rising quickly, and inventory is low.  That said, someone told us that a substantial number of mortgages are on variable rates, so even modest rate increases could cause the bubble to pop in the next year or so.  Who knows?  We’re very happy with our little place, where we’re narrowing down our furniture choices from Ikea and adding plants and a curtain line to the front balcony.

(Photos soon)

The food here is tasty and plentiful.  We have a selection of very nice bakeries nearby and have ordered bread for pickup from one of them.  Cornelia really likes the whole wheat, and I believe I’ve had the best rye bread I’ve ever tasted from ‘All Things Dough’, which is an easy barefoot walk from here. I get some produce from the Saturday market, where I’m beginning to recognize a few of the famers who return each week.  There’s also a Wednesday market situated less than 150 yards from where I’m sitting and writing this to you.  In my quick estimation, a lot of produce costs about half or less of what we’d pay in Seattle.  You take the pound price of a thing and it’s about the same (or less) for a kilo (2.2 x) of that item in the grocery store or even less at one of the outdoor markets.

(Seriously, you need pictures of food?)

Do you like seafood?  I’ve had swordfish, monkfish, and octopus along with sardines and sea bass—all super fresh and excellent.  Cornelia also likes sea bream(Dourada), which is a flaky white fish grilled simply and served whole.  Heavy metals in a lot of fish have us re-thinking our consumption a bit, and we’re going to stick to sardines more of the time going forward. People put those on the grill here too.  Smaller fish have less time to accumulate environmental poisons in their bodies, and they’re lower on the food chain so don’t consume as many potentially dangerous smaller fish.

Sand City!!

This is primarily a tourist destination, but we were very impressed with what we saw.  The level of detail, the scale of the place, and the hip spacy musical vibe pumped through the speakers everywhere all contributed to a very fun visit.

Upon first look, I though I saw William Shakespeare here.  But upon close inspection it’s actually Salvador Dali, complete with themes of some of his work…

We rounded a corner to see the Dali Lama springing up out of the sand to bless us.

The Simpson family are represented well.

This one shows a scene from a movie, and with Wolfgang in the foreground to show the size of the work, we also see a quiet comment on the state of our home country.  So sad…

Overall, the level of detail was stupendous.  I’d like to return some evening, with colored lights and the same ethereal music.

Our language learning efforts are making slow progress and I have trouble with simple conversations in Portuguese.  It’s a challenge, and I feel like a real outsider.  But like every small European country, the kids are taught a second language in school, and they get ample chance to practice as they grow up.  So young people, professionals who interact with foreigners, or those in almost any customer service role can speak at least some English.  Menus are often in multiple languages.  But all this said, the general tone here from most people is one of sincere friendliness.  It’s very refreshing, and it makes me concerned about what we’ll find when we return home or visit other countries. 

On Thursdays we meet up with other expats at the marina.  The vibe is very bubbly there and we very much look forward to our weekly confabs there.  Thing is, they do get loud, and we find ourselves struggling to hear so that’s a thing to deal with.  What’s cool though is it’s very much a Facebook Group Come to Life!  And we’ve made some friends there with our new ‘neighbors’.

More soon!!

Thanks,

Steve

<still learning about substack here. The images make this post too big to read on email. Read it on Substack?>

We’ve moved to a new place!  It’s a very decent, clean spot not far from the marina.  Very close to bus lines and walking distance to anything we would need in town, and several different beaches.

Wolfgang and Monica, our landlords, have sort of adopted us.  They’ve helped us with all kinds of little details of life in Portugal, and I’ve been able to partly repay the favor by helping him position his next array of solar panels on his house, which is not far from here. They’ve also helped us learn the native art of kickin’ it at the coffee shop, and we’ve been practicing on Saturday mornings with them.

Here is Wolfgang’s car with all our stuff in it.

Yep, it’s all in there—everything we brought with us.  We came with only what we could carry and drag without slipping a disk on the hunch that we’d be moving around a bit until we settled somewhere.  We really got lucky and have settled in for the long-ish term here sooner than we expected.  Some of our fellow expats publish pictures of themselves at an airport with suitcases stacked to the ceiling.  Others buy a shipping container and send their stuff across by boat. So this shows I think, although I’m sure there are further extremes, the gamut of the expat experience.  It feels good to be travelling lightly.  And we get to buy some new stuff that fits with what’s already here.

The elevator is very tiny, but if I put my bike on his back wheel and pretend I’m trying to ride up the elevator wall, I can just pivot and squeeze my backpack inside the door, and it just fits.

Here’s some of what it looks like.  There are high ceilings throughout the space.  This makes for cool echoes, but we’re used to repeating ourselves and it makes the place seem even bigger than it is.

The main hallway has living room on the left and kitchen on the right.  At the back half, you have a bedroom on either side.

The living room is a good size and opens out onto the 3rd floor front balcony.  This is the living room with furniture that came with it.  We added the recliner on the left, and the painting is from the Santo collection.

The front balcony runs the length of the unit.  Here in apartment land, given the warm climate people use their balconies to put up their laundry.  In another life this would inspire me to start a business selling lightly used and freshly washed clothing collected from the neighbors when they weren’t looking, but not here.  Not here.

The planting area has to replace all of Cornelia’s garden so it represents a huge change for her.  That said, she did get her first strawberry plant and we had our first harvest with Oma visiting.

Next year’s harvest has the potential to be somewhat bigger, but we made the best of it this year.

The kitchen is modern and very nice.  The Fridge/freezer and dishwasher are nicely built-in, and the room is wider than our first place.  On the counter you’ll see a coffee grinder, hot water heater, and milk foamer.  These items came from Amazon in Spain, and their arrival marked our initial effort to shift from the nomadic to the expat-ic.

 The kitchen also comes with a table, 4 chairs, and my own accountant.  Here she is, hard at work for us.  Behind her is the pantry.

And I’m very pleased with this pantry.  It has a lot of shelving and plenty of room.  There’s good lighting and I can go in there and be surrounded by our spices, chocolate, crackers, canned goods, cleaning supplies, and everything else.  It feels nice and secure in there, like my happy place.  If you can’t find me, just look there as I may slip in for a time out.

And, I mean, if you ever see this scene in real life…please get out of my pantry.

Through the back of the kitchen is another balcony where my bicycle lives along with the washing machine and some other things.  We intend to make sitting areas on both the front and back balconies sooner or later.

The bicycle is a newly purchased Trek, aluminum frame with carbon fork.  Cornelia got a city bike that’s a little sturdier.  We wanted a way to get around town and to the beach quickly and we’ve ticked that box at this point.  When the time comes, I’ll be adding a road bike but they’re very hard to come by at this time due to supply chain issues.

If we open the opaque windows to the courtyard on this balcony, we see newly flowering Jacaranda trees.  You also see sort of a mirror image of our balcony from the apartments from the other side.  This photo doesn’t do the tree much justice, but the colors when you see a group of them are eye-catching.  Our Bothell house is surrounded by trees and shrubs, so having a few happy trees around the property is comforting somehow.

The main bedroom has good storage, a new mattress, built-in drawers, and a special slimming mirror.  I lost a good 15 pounds when I looked at it the first time.  The unit up on the wall above the dresser is a remote-controlled heater and air conditioner.  Every room has one, and we haven’t needed it to cool off just yet, but we expect to in June/July/August.  There is also a sliding door here that looks out onto the courtyard.

The 2nd bedroom has a lot of space and a good bit of decorating potential.  Again, it has high ceilings, good storage, a slider to the front balcony, and a new bed.  There’s a second bed but we set that aside temporarily. 

So that’s a kitchen, 2 balconies, 2 bedrooms and a genuinely decent place to live for a reasonable rent plus utilities.  No maintenance, no association fees, and big appliances to buy.  If you want to see the bathrooms (yes, there are 2 of them!) and solve the intrigue over whether we have a bidet, you’ll need to come and see for yourself.

We’ve been to Luz a couple of times.  Once by bus and another time by bike.  The bike trip there was remarkably easy.  It’s yet another small old town that was once a fishing village, and it’s much smaller and quieter than Lagos.  That, ‘Oh my gosh!’ feeling when you see a beautiful scene like this hasn’t gone away for us yet, and it was especially present when we visited this friendly little beach.  The surf was super-calm on this day, and we met Eleanor and Nick and we hope to meet them again. We ate wings and snacks and people watched for a while there too. Our waiter was incredibly relaxed, and spoke German, English, Portuguese without breaking stride.   And the failure to capture a photo of my food for posting on Instagram makes me feel old, but somehow, I take a certain Boomer satisfaction at not giving in to the incessant pull of social media.  Much.  At any rate, the star of the show is the ocean, and the best approach is to set your brain to ‘Alpha’ and just stare at it for a good while.

We did a similar bus trip with Oma to Alvor.  She was a real trooper with her walker and good and silly company while we did our exploring. With her mirror shades and floppy hat she is fully incognito.   

Alvor is another short bus ride away, through the town of Odiexere, which we are committed to learning how to pronounce properly.

We’ve also used the bus system to travel to Aljezur a couple of times, and we expect to make that a regular thing for a while.  Sure, a car will show up eventually but we’re having a fine time on foot and bike and bus for now.  It’s helping us get to appreciate just how poor our Portuguese really is, and to not have to find parking.

We also joined the city gym, which is close to a YMCA with classes and a weight room and a pool and so on.  They also have Pilates classes.  On my first day I went to the weight room and my first Pilates class ever.  Little did I know (I mean the warmups were easy, but…) this is a neo-modernist form of torture where they play light jazz music and encourage you to breathe gently while essentially doing sit-ups in slow-motion for 30 minutes.  I can’t wait to do it again.

On the business front, Cornelia is an official resident and has both state and private health insurance.  I’ll follow her by association to get free health insurance too.  As to using our private insurance, we’ve been able to get consultations by phone along with prescriptions for treatment.  No problem, other than a language barrier we can overcome with some mutual patience and Google translate.  All good there.

On the entertainment front, it would appear that ice hockey and specifically the games of the National Hockey League, have not caught on here locally at this juncture.  There IS a word for ‘ice’ but the concept of playing a competitive sport on a massive frozen sheet of it just doesn’t seem normal here even though the concept of an ‘English Breakfast’ has made some traction down by the marina.  Go figure.  Anyway I have a VPN and ESPN and YouTubeTV until the end of June.  So I’m watching the recorded games of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs while carefully avoiding checking the scores on my phone.  And with this HDMI cable I can come out of the pantry and watch the games from my laptop on the TV.  WOW!

More next month!

Today we made sandwiches in our vacation kitchen.  It’s all white with a narrow layout that seems common in the apartments we saw online.  All the appliances and drawers and cabinets are along one side.  A glass sliding door opens out to a sunny balcony that runs the width of the apartment and has a table with chairs and a grill.  There’s a gas 3-burner with a fourth electric hot plate that we haven’t used, an electric oven, and a table against the opposite wall with 3 plastic vacation chairs.  The fridge is like a standard American, but the top half is the fridge, and the bottom half is a 3-drawer freezer, decent for the two of us.  These narrow-ish kitchens remind me of a ship’s galley.  We’re shopping every other day or so.

Cornelia mapped out the route and the plan was to pick up some extra sunscreen on the way.  We walked down the hill and across the road, past the bars and cafes along the Lagos marina, and across the bridge to the main part of Lagos.  We wandered past a cluster of apartments where we’ll live soon—a substantial cluster of 6 story towers with front and rear balconies, a courtyard, and busy but ample parking.  We saw storks nesting in several high places in the vicinity and heard them clapping their big beaks in greeting to each other. 

Last December, Cornelia did some online ‘house-hunting’ for apartments for us to settle into and found that long-term rentals can be tricky here because the summer season sees people flock here from all over Europe.  Rent where we are until the end of April increases by about a third for May and June.  So she reached out to Wolfgang for his apartment on Idealista and he told her the place was taken in April, but serendipity opened it up for us for May. 

He and Monica are the nicest people you can imagine.  They showed us every room, introduced us to Jan the current tenant, took us for coffee, drove us home, and then picked us up the next morning to sign the lease.  So, we’re covered from May to the end of April next year.  Problem solved!  And, if we need to leave the place, we can do so with 90 days’ notice.  They also charge a very reasonable rent.  We looked at our budget after plugging in new numbers and feel sure we’ll be able to manage to finance a car without breaking the bank.

Our walk took us past several grocery stores—the Continente, Pingo Doce, Aldi, and Lidl.  All chock full of good stuff at very decent prices.  The stores are smaller than in the US, but there’s a large selection of fresh seafood and most of the comforts of home.  We’re sure we can fill in anything missing using Amazon in Spain, which is the closest country that offers shipping to our area through Prime.

Our intention was to walk from Lagos to Luz, but the trek through town to the trail had a lot of ups and downs and took us an hour of walking to get to where we join the trail. 

As we walked the first hour through town to find the trail, we wandered by the street with the restaurant where Wolfgang and Monica took us.  They had a decent lunch with country style fish and grilled meat with salad and dessert and bread for about 10 bucks.  Once we saw it we knew we were on the road to Priai Da Mos, or Mos Beach.

As we searched for the road to the beach we walked through rows of newer houses, many with great views and newer, 2-story designs.  It felt like we might be walking through a development in San Diego.  We used the street signs and our phones and observed the growing flow of cars and people moving that direction.  Eventually the arterial sloped more steeply downwards, and we caught the first glimpse of the Atlantic blue.  And Pria do Mos is gorgeous.  The water was cold and shallow the surf was light.  We saw free parking nearby.  There was a small, cheap restaurant at the entrance to the beach.  Ample parking.  We pulled out our sandwiches and our bottles of water.

It’s amazing to see the Atlantic from the European side.  The cliffs tower over the beach and there’s usually a breeze to cool things down.  These are not Washington’s Puget Sound beaches covered in pointy rocks and driftwood, but rather fine sandy beaches with slate and clam shells instead of crab claws.  We looked back towards Lagos, and saw a few tiny human specs wandering the cliffs and wondered how we might get up there.  In the other direction is Luz, with its own beach and once-small fishing village now developed into an ocean-side burb.  We’d save that for another day.

So, sandwiches finished, and cookies properly divided (3 for me, 1 for her) we walked back up the hill and after a few attempts down dead-ends, one at a boutique hotel, we came to a broader cul-de-sac with a small number of parked cars.  There we found a well-marked trailhead that took us along the cliff for a couple of miles.  Again, the view across the shrubs and desert ground cover to the blue horizon with the beach 300 feet below really took our breath away.  Tough to believe this is our backyard now.

The trail took us past a driving range/golf course and hotel on the left and branched off to well-maintained vista points on the right.  It went all the way to a light house where foot and tourist traffic was a bit heavier.  There we slowly marched past the hotel where we originally landed on day 1, past the bank where we spent an afternoon opening our account, and to the Spar where we picked up a few treats for the walk home.  Cornelia took her eyes off me for too long and I came back after paying with a Pepsi and other junk food already tucked away in the backpack.  From there we walked through the old town for a few blocks, then along the canal, over the foot bridge, and back up to hill to our apartment.  All together it was a leg cramping 4-hour walk and we were tired but thrilled at the raw beauty of our new area. This is the southern tip of Portugal, with Spain to the east.