two weeks at home for some much needed quiet work time.

on the way south, we stopped in porto alto to put some gasoline and to check out an asian supermarket that looked interesting. it was huge, and we stocked on laoganma, noodles and some other staples. i regret not bringing a cooler because the selection of fresh and frozen stuff was really promising!

that said, i dislike the long drive north-south and hope we can go back to doing the trip by train soon. some people enjoy driving, but for me, it just feels like a huge waste of time that could be used for something else.

paulo went to a geek thing in faro and i spent the day puttering around the house and just doing random little things. it astonishes me how difficult it is these days to find time for these things. but then i look at my screentime and oh… i guess that’s where the time goes. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

i’ve been sick for the most part of this period though. lots of cough, malaise, and nose running like a fountain… it hasn’t been fun. but there’s been quite a bit of reading (howl’s moving castle, this one summer and aqui é um bom lugar). these last 2 were actual physical books from the library!

this turned out to be an unexpectedly deep week.

i finished listening to when the cranes fly south, and ugh… what a punch in the gut it was. maybe it’s because we’ve been on the other side of this story so recently, but i feel like this should be required reading for anyone with aging parents. the whole thing is just an awakening call to the realities of aging, from the side we don’t usually hear about: the person who is old. as children, we do what we can to make sure our parents or loved ones are safe and comfortable, but from their perspective, do these decisions actually benefit them? and if they’re not perceived as beneficial, then what are we doing…? it made me take a step back a bit, and look at situations from a different viewpoint.

and then, later in the week, we went to the theater to watch “catarina e a beleza de matar fascistas”, to which i had gotten tickets in december last year, not even knowing if we’d be home for it in march. the play was as poignant as everyone said it would be, both inspiring and really painful to watch to the end. i still don’t know what to think about the whole thing — especially of the public’s interaction with it while we’re all collectively trapped there, forced to listen to hate speech for a long time. the reactions of the audience feel both staged and also inevitable, like people are trying to prove themselves by shouting louder… when in real-life i think we would just switch off the TV. my sister-in-law also watched it recently and was as troubled by it as i was. i’m glad we got to see it though!

we’ve been doing some morning walks outside, to catch some sun early in the day and see if that improves our sleep. i’m not sure it’s having that effect, but it’s still nice to start the day with a walk and an opportunity to notice the start of spring all around us. it feels like hope is coming back with the flowers!

it was the boy’s birthday this week, 44! we went to the west coast to celebrate, where the wind was stupidly strong — even the surfers were staying away from the waves. we had really nice pizza, some bolas de berlim and burek from apolónia. we also started a big stamp-themed puzzle that my brother gave us last christmas!