Goodbyes . . .

We said goodbye to the area south of the river and moved into this apartment mid-July, 2006 (and we will be moving out at the end of October). It's a cute little 2-bedroom, 2-bath with a great layout in a fabulous location here along the line of Cascais. We are a 9-minute walk from the train station and a 15-minute walk from the beach:-). In our complex there is a small garden and at the far side of this green space is a tiny mall (called a commercial center here in Portugal) which houses all the services you would need: supermarket, dry cleaner, photocopy shop, newspaper stand, - well you get the picture). Yes, this is a great little apartment.

There are 10 apartments in our building. And while there is no social scene (remember Melrose Place?), all of the inhabitants smile and say hello. One of the people living on the 4th floor is a distant relative of Luis - isn't it indeed a small world? The other apartment on the 4th floor belongs to the son of the older couple living on the ground floor. The lady living below us is elderly and has needed live-in assistance since we have moved in. She laments no longer being able to leave the apartment and the refers to the plants she keeps in the common hallway as her garden. She's very dear. There's a young couple with grade school children as well. Our building is quiet, but bustling with life behind each door.

You can imagine my surprise when on a Sunday evening a few weeks ago an ambulance took away one of my neighbors. From my window I couldn't see what what happening below very well as it was dark. But I could see that a woman was being taken to the hospital. My first thought was that something had happened to the woman in the apartment directly below me.

A couple of days later I found out that it wasn't the frail lady on the 1st floor, but a woman about my own age on the ground floor. This particular woman (whose name I don't even know) was the heart of the building. She had a French Bulldog named Pierre (who is so ugly that he is cute!) that she walked several times a day. She was the person in the building that always had just the right answer and was always there when you needed her. For example, Luís and I were trying to refill the windshield wiper fluid and couldn't tell which receptacle was which and she happened by and set us straight. Just like that! How did she know that?

Her death has hit me like a ton of bricks. No hospital stay, no lingering illness, no big fuss - a call for the ambulance on a quiet evening early in September and it was all over in a matter of minutes.

Goodbye. You will be missed more than you know, and by people that you didn't really know you touched.

Hope we meet again. . .

The saga continues . . .

In early July, 2007 I received a registered letter from the Portuguese Finance Department saying that I hadn't yet paid a fine that they so graciously gave me for not filing a quarterly report that I didn't know that I had to file because I had no income so thought that it would be ridiculous to file and it turned out that it wasn't! This situation was taken care of in February of this year when I reluctantly paid a fine of over €100 . It was a draining day with lots of driving involved and the stress of communicating with the dim-witted in two separate finance offices on opposites sides of the Tejo River, but life goes on (oh bla di bla da).

After receiving the July notification I, once again, trooped back to the finance department armed with paid documents and with my personal translator :-) in tow. I was in a b*tchy mood from the get-go because I anticipated the blank looks and shrugs and the "passing-the-buck - it wasn't my fault" round about that I would get at the finance office - AND in true form, they didn't disappoint.

After showing all the paper work, lots of consults among the workers, they finally agreed that I had, indeed, paid the fine previously and were surprised (more like appalled) that I had an attitude because, of course, they were not responsible for any error as it was the other finance office that I had visited that day in February. They assured me of their efficiency and said they would rectify the situation.

Well, this past week, I received yet another registered letter saying that I still haven't paid my fine. . .

I'm on their shit list for sure!

It's always something . . .

Miau Miau sits around the apartment all day staring out of the window and watching the world below. It's hard being forced to be an indoor cat after having lived a Jack Kerouac lifestyle. I found Miau Miau (pronounced Meow Meow) about 6 years ago - or should I say she found me. I left a ground floor window cracked just enough to stick the dryer vent out and she was clever enough to use that opportunity to get her foot in the door (so to speak). She began spending the night indoors and helped herself to Scarlette's (the stray we found at the beach) leftovers. She was too thin for words and I thought that since she was already living with us that we would buy her a collar and make it official.

A lot has happened in the last year - including my quitting my job, Scarlette getting hit by a car (she's now buried beneath a rose bush), and a move. And so it goes with life - it's always something.



I was passing a pet store a few weeks ago and on impulse went in to browse. It seems that this shop offers a kind of "humane society-type" service. They will accept unwanted kittens and showcase them. The kittens are given away "free" to a good home. I had been considering getting Miau Miau a kitten - thought a little female kitty might perk her up a bit so when I noticed that they had a variety of little ones to choose from, I took a look.



To make a very long story short I ended up taking home a free kitten that day. I was assured that the kitten was a female (which we promply named Princess) and was in good health. It didn't take long to figure out that Princess should have been named Prince and 100 Euros later we found out that the cat was suffering from ear mites, worms, a fungus infection, and was in need of his first shots.





And so, this is the story of how it was that little Mac came to be a part of our family. It's always something . . .