If it's not one thing it's another...

from chi-chi to xixi

The kitchen is fully installed and you’d think by the way I am burbling on and on that it’s some beautiful, covetous modern affair, open concept with a gorgeous island, tons of storage, a place designed for family living and entertainment right out of Southern Living or Dwell magazine. It is not. It’s a tiny L-shaped room, but after two years it is now a fully functional kitchen, with the last of the counters and shelves installed today.

Step by step, the h likes to say, and it took me awhile to accept the literalness of this. For the first year here we lived in the palaceta, aka Brokedown Palace, which has rooms big enough to pitch a tent in, which is what we did, our sleeping bags on top of a mattress topper, each with a wool blanket and it was *still* cold in the winter, with the wind whistling through the generous cracks between the sagging, broken windows and the casements. The old-fashioned shutters are still in good shape and still close and lock firmly, which helped keep the worst of the wind and rain from blowing in, but we were unsurprised last winter - one of the coldest, wettest in years - when our thermometer showed the temps consistently in the 40s and the humidity consistently in the 90s (I still think in Fahrenheit).

In those days we’d run a generator for a few hours every day to cook one meal and charge up our electronics. The getting of the generator from LeRoy Merlin (the European Home Depot) to the palaceta would be a whole post in and of itself except that I am still to traumatized by that day to want to write about it. Muscles were strained, voices were raised, things were said - it was a day when our collective stress and frustration level boiled over and left us with second degree burns, the scars of which are sometimes still visible.

Back then there was one (somewhat) working electrical panel on the property, in the ground floor apartment of the quinta, which is a few hundred yards up an ancient calcada road from the palaceta. The h worked his magic on the panel, and called the electric company and voila, we had power indoors at about the one year mark. The apartment itself was a disaster: missing windows, no ceiling in the kitchen, drywall peeling off the walls, broken dishes and old clothes and rotted food everywhere. We cleaned it out and bought an air fryer that we plugged in using the only working outlet in the kitchen, which we accessed through a oblong window between the kitchen and a sort of utility room that also contains the only bathroom. What the purpose of this window could be we have never understood - it seems that it existed only to allow someone standing in the kitchen to see who was using the bathroom. It has since been cemented over, and now houses shelves that hold spices.

We huddled around the air fryer we balanced on a board suspended across milk crates, warming ourselves with the steam that rose from our roasted vegetables and we thought it was great! It was such a relief not to have to fire up a generator or go out to eat for every meal, which wasn’t that expensive but 1) lacked variety (not many options in our little village) and 2) tended to be more meat-focused than we were accustomed to, coming from California where we’d eaten vegan for more than a decade. I suppose we could have relied a lot more on food delivery - Uber Eats and the local competitor Glovo are very popular here, the food delivery guys buzzing up and down the avenida are a ubiquitous sight. But for whatever reason, we didn’t make this choice often, other than sushi (a success) and pizza (a horrible failure) a few nights. Usually we’d consider delivery then, instead, rouse ourselves and walk over to the local churrasqueria (where the owners love Jake and call out bonito! bonito! when we walk past) or Cotorinho, both of which are less than a quarter mile walk from our front gate and gave us the opportunity to practice our Portuguese with the owners/wait staff.

Once the electricity was installed, the h ordered a Miele refrigerator and it was absolute heaven to have a place to store leftovers; before the refrigerator, we quickly learned there was no such thing as ‘leftovers’ as anything we didn’t consume during a meal and left on the counter would be promptly eaten by a rat. That’s a whole other, disgusting story I will not get into here, you’re welcome.

Being the only domicile on the property with working electricity and a bathroom that didn’t require too much renovation to be workable, we knew that the garden apartment, small as it is (<500 square feet) would be the first place we could make comfortable enough to live in. The first step was to install a ceiling in the kitchen, and rip out all the existing cheap metal cabinets, which were far too big for the space, permanently stained and with moldy, peeling formica tops.

Slowly (step by step) we made the place livable - new floors, new windows, paint, an Italian convection oven with an induction stovetop, a compact dishwasher, new cabinets, overhead lighting, and the all-important water heater. Before the water heater, we took outdoor showers in the carport where the h installed a propane-powered affair which worked great but was a bit of a drag on nights that were windy and/or cold.

angolan granite counters, a breadbox stuffed with bread

The granite counter tops and the sink were the last pieces to fall into place. It’s probably the smallest kitchen I’ve ever seen - a tall person like my h can spread his arms like wings and touch walls on all sides no matter where he’s standing - but with careful planning we have made it a highly functional space that meets all of our needs and is a pleasure to cook in. And it’s even beautiful, the thick black, gray and white Angolan granite countertops and glossy black granite sink are the epitome of chi chi, modern practicality. Finally, a well equipped kitchen! All felt so right in my world. I turned around and around in the middle of this tiny, perfect kitchen, feeling more fortunate than any princess in any ball gown.

Then, this morning, I heard Jake’s toenails hit the floor, and immediately rose to let him out. Good boy! I said. Jake didn’t wag as usual, just walked out. I was congratulating ourselves - lately Jake has been a little incontinent, rising in the late evening or early hours of the morning to go to the bathroom but mis-timing it and doing his wee in front of the door, unable to hold it those few extra steps before he reaches the outside. We’ve begun making sure his last walk of the evening is late, and restricting water after 10p, and this morning it seemed we’d solved the problem - no accident in front of the door, he made it outside…or so I thought. I made a coffee and opened my laptop and did some work, keeping an ear out for the sound of him scratching at the door to come back in.

After ten minutes, I went to see what was keeping him, and the smell hit me right away, so strong it permeated the entire apartment - the yellow acidic smell of urine. Jake had had an accident all right - he’d wet the guest bed, and how. A literal ocean of pee, which, in Portuguese, is xixi (pronounced shee-shee). I opened the door and he was sitting on the patio, head bowed in shame, his sad eyes so heartbreaking I went out to comfort him.

So this rainy day has been spent doing loads of laundry and reassuring Jake, who recovered from his embarrassment with a nice breakfast with potatoes and chicken, his favorites. The h ordered some doggy diapers.

I woke up at 5:45a and asked him if he wanted to go out and he just looked at me, the h said. One of Jake’s many nicknames, since puppyhood, is Jakey Jakey Slow to Wakey, because he loves his sleep and will not rise and leave the bed until it is clear the rest of the family is up. Like the Last One Standing, except in his case the Last One Laying.

Clearly, he’s not the best judge of when he needs to go, so the h and I agreed to take turns herding him outside between 5a and 6a no matter how grumpily he insists he wants to keep sleeping. Monday we head to the vet for some updated vaccinations and to make sure there isn’t something more serious gong on besides the decrepitudes of age (Jake will soon be 14). Other than the overnight incontinence, he appears healthy and in good spirits, starting each walk off with a trot, sometimes even breaking into a run when we head up the public steps that lead to the mountain bike trail that is a favorite spot to ramble.

our best boy

Meanwhile we hug him and tell him many times what a good boy he is, and only hold each other and cry out of his sight and hearing - Jakey is a sensitive fellow, and cannot bear my tears. Tears and toast is the inside joke in the family - the sound or smell of either brings Jake running with ears laying flat against his head in concern. Ponytail ears, we call them. How we love him.

The weather is warming, but I’d know winter is ending even without a thermometer by the number and type of plants Alberto brings to our door every day: strawberrys, succulents, carrots, onions. Always, he brings (courtesy of his bartering with a baker friend) a bag of fresh rolls for humans, and a bigger bag of slightly less fresh bread for the chickens, who are admirably fattened on this diet.

Are you planting seeds? he asks. Now is the time! I tell him about the wildflower seeds the h scattered on the campo above the horta, and the sunflowers and the petunias for the palaceta garden which did fantastic last year, until the four orphan baby chicks discovered them and gobbled them right down, and who can blame them.

Sierra with chicks high and low

Speaking of chi chi, the workers are almost finished with repairs and enhancements to the chicken coop, just in time for I Dream of Jeannie’s peep, which we are expecting to hatch any day now, possibly this weekend. If all eleven eggs hatch, that will bring our number of chicks to twenty; the law of averages says ten of them are hens. This time last year, a fox was stalking the flock, killing all but three of our adult hens. Strange how rescuing the orphans from those attacks will result in a fully populated and (crucially) domesticated flock of hens, less than one year later. Life has a lot of twists and turns, and I’m learning to let go of thinking of the outcomes as good or bad, since bad things often lead to good, and vice versa. It’s just life, all of it, to gobble as you will.

sweet dreams