Tuga's Home!

Tuga (or Frankenkitty now, due to the large scar down his belly) came home yesterday! He still has a ways to go for a full recovery, but he is doing really well. He spent his first afternoon home mostly lying on my lap and purring, and he got exuberant welcome back snuffles from both dogs (even Blaze seemed to have missed him). While his internal injuries have all been addressed, he does still have a fracture in his rear leg, but the vet wants to wait a couple of weeks to give him a chance to fully recover from surgery before she fixes the leg. Despite the leg, he is still trying to go back to all of his regular activities, while I am, of course, trying to keep him calm and relaxed. It is great to have him home, and we don't even mind that he is now the most expensive cat we've ever owned!

Think happy thoughts for us

When I arrived home from getting groceries this evening I took the dogs out to go to the bathroom. Tuga followed us across the road to the woods. Normally I lock him in the house when I walk the dogs, because he has tried to follow us before, but this time I told myself "I'll only be a second." I heard the car coming VERY FAST and tried to grab him, but he was scared by the loud noise of the engine, and made a dash for our yard, on the other side of the road. I rushed him to the vet and they operated on him, they told us some of his organs had been squeezed into into his lung cavity because of the tremendous pressure, making it so he couldn't expand his lungs to breathe. He came through the operation, and they told us if he makes it through the next 48 hours that he should recover fully. Though he also has a minor fracture in his back leg that may or may not need repair (they were not concerned about that for now).

I am feeling so very guilty right now, so many "if only I had's"...racing through my head. But I can't change the past and now we can just hope he is making it through the night at the vet's office and we get to visit him in the morning. Here is a picture of our little guy enjoying the sun with Tazzy so you can have him in your thoughts for us.

Wake up and smell the bureaucracy...

After no less than 5 trips to the "Friends and Foreigners" office (each one no less than 1 hour), I have finally obtained my resident's visa (Dan is still working on his...though he has had the work permit for a few months now). And with one day left until my Vermont driver's license expires I was able to get my temporary Portuguese license. I had been operating on a succession of tourist visas that kept getting renewed when we left the country, and it is nice to finally have a sense of permanency, though it still has to be renewed annually. When I finally had all of my paperwork in order, they told me they realized my current tourist visa didn't expire until April 3rd, and I could only apply if there was less than 30 days on my visa, so on March 5th it was finally approved. I also couldn't apply for the license until I had the resident permit, and I had to get it before my US one expired, on March 11...so a tight time frame, but luckily the HR woman Dan has been working with is great, and managed to help us get it all done.

On a positive note, things do get done here, eventually. Of course not without giving us a bit of stress first. Since I am also a procrastinator, I know there is nothing like the crunch of a deadline to get something finalized, and here it seems that is the philosophy the whole country runs on...I'm not sure whether to love it or hate it as a way to live. Is there a middle ground?

Lisbon

After living here for 6 months we finally made it down to Lisbon for a weekend. The husband of one of Dan's colleagues works in Lisbon 3 days a week, so they offered us their apartment for the weekend, which was great to have. With just a quick weekend visit, we only had time for an overview, but hopefully this will be the first of several trips to the area. We started our morning Saturday in Belem, visiting tourist sites like the Torre de Belem and the Monastary of Jeronimos, walking around a shopping district, and of course eating Pastel de Belem, a yummy little pastry from the area. In the afternoon we explored the Castelo Sao Jorge, a large castle at the top of one of the city's tallest hills. It offers beautiful 360 degree views of the city and the Tagus river, with peacocks roaming the grounds and a large castle in the middle.

Saturday night we wandered around one of the restaurant districts. A lively area, full of outdoor cafes, pedestrian squares and walking areas, and considering it was the middle of February, lots of people. It was a warm enough night for us to sit outside and to people watch and to listen to the accordion player who stopped to play us a song for a couple of coins. It definitely gave the feel of the total European experience.

On a drizzly Sunday morning we drove up the coast to the seaside resort towns of Estoril and Cascais. Some grand old (and new) homes are found there, and in the summer months I imagine the traffic from Lisbon on the weekends is at a standstill. Along the way there was some beautiful coastal scenery, though with the rain we didn't capture it with the camera this time.

Our last stop on the way home was the walled city of Obidos. The ancient city walls and castle still surround the city, and it makes for a stunning view as you approach from a distance. We happened to arrive during their annual two week chocolate festival, so the town itself was packed with visitors, and everything was decked out for the occasion. We are looking forward to returning when the weather is a bit nicer and the crowds a bit thinner.

Once again, for the photo tour, click here.

Carnaval!

While more than 90% of Portuguese are Roman Catholic, the majority of young people are non-practicing now, having only grown up with it as a major part of their lives. This seems to be a worldwide trend, but that’s a different subject that I don’t intend to address in this blog. The point of today’s entry is that Carnaval (spelled with an “a” in Portuguese) is still a national holiday. So having a day off of work, we decided to venture to the biggest of the Portuguese Carnaval parades, which is a town called Ovar that is not too far from here.

Now we won’t kid ourselves, Ovar is a far cry from Rio de Janeiro. For one, the weather in Portugal in February is a little cooler than in Brazil. This contributes to a few more clothes on the participants and a bit less enthusiasm among the crowd. But with Burlington, Vermont as my reference point, having never ventured to the debauchery that is New Orleans on Mardi Gras, I came away quite impressed. This was a 3-hour parade in weather in the 50’s that was very amusing.

While the ladies may not have all been world-class samba dancers, they were a whole lot better than I’ll ever be. Some of the outfits were outrageous, and the theme of men dressing up as women (always a good time for everyone) was a popular one. One of our favorites was a group of men dressed as soldiers goose-stepping down the street until their music switched over to YMCA, when they all opened their coats and flashed us in their Superman style red briefs and started dancing like crazy. They even had a keg with a bartender on the back of their float, pretty amusing. There were a total of 25 “bands” that paraded down the street, dancing the entire way, blaring music so loud that your body vibrated on the sidelines. It made me wonder how in Rio, where the parade is longer and the dancing more energetic and the temperature hotter, they manage to stay moving and hydrated. My guess is that there’s a lot of sleeping going on there on Ash Wednesday. For more pictures of the parade, click here.

Remember Me?

Our old friend "Lucky" came for dinner last Saturday with his new owners, Sara and Paulo. Quiet a bit bigger, lots of energy, and always very cute with one ear up and one ear down. Still a real sweetheart. It was great to see him doing so well.

Spring is in the Air

It is only February, but the yard is in bloom, it was 70ish degrees today (and not a cloud in the sky). While this kind of amazing weather may not hold, it is still a lot better than facing another couple of months of winter in Vermont. I took these pictures in our yard on January 27th, and more bushes have started flowering since. Not to make anyone jealous or anything.