Dali

We should have named her Worry instead of Dali for her little shadow of a moustache.
We worried the first night when there was a strange and wild howling outside the house for hours, close and near. B wondered the next day what the wildlife in the area was.
I worried when I went crashing through the eucalyptus forest after a fight with B and almost ran into a strange dog lying at the edge of the trees just watching me. I didnt know if she was friendly or not. She came around to where A was fixing the fence but he just ignored her.
Then when B and I drove the back way to the house, she ran in front of the car and  her bowlegged gait and flying ears amused us and then we knew who the howler was and that she was starved and lost and unwanted and we started worrying about her.
We worried that night how to sneak food after dinner to her without letting A see and then talked about her till late and talked about her first thing next morning, confronted A with a plan to take care of her until we brought her to Canada or a kennel. We put her in the courtyard and were gone the whole day until late and worried about her. while in Nazare on the cliffs and in Peniche in the restaurant.
We worried when she threw up the food I bought her and had diarrhea after her starvation diet.
We worried about A´s unhappiness and mumbling about the situation and the tension and then worried about leaving her in portugal and her ticks and her health.
And when we walked with her and she naturall fell in step with us and waited for us and listened better than any other dog we´d ever seen, we loved her so and worried about how we´d manage without her.
And then at the end when we found out that portugal has an homeless dog problem, we really worried that we´d never find a shelter that had any room for her; we kept getting turned down and there was no way we were leaving her the way we´d found her.
Meanwhile she was happy as a clam thinking she´d found her forever home, which we wanted too. Chocolate brown and soft bright clear eyes and her dancing and intelligence. We almost didnt want to look at her because of the upcoming separation.
And that day was the worst, and again we worried about her car sickness which started right away with her moaning pitifully with her head on my chest, drooling, unhappy, and then when it came after a curving mountain road that would have made anyone sick, I held her out the door just in time, like a little child on my lap. She was miserable the rest of the way.
And then we were crying and she was crying and she wasnt the only traumatized one.
And we immediately worried about how scared she was and shocked and alone with all those strange dogs and people in that concrete echoing place when even the sight of A still caused her to bark, or a broom being waved or a hose uncoiled or a loud noise. And how long would she be there and would someone pet her, and would she be scarred and broken?
And yet, now that we´ve heard that a family has taken her after only three days, the worry hasnt stopped. I worry that they will treat her like so many portuguese seem to treat their dogs, by chaining them up in some dusty yard and letting them exist as some type of lower life form. I worry that they are loud and quick in their movements or used to a less sensitive dog when she overreacts to normal reprimands, or have loud grabby children, or dont let her in the house or dont take her for walks, or dont take those two remaining ticks out that we didnt get, or wont keep her name. I worry that they wont love her the way we do.

sardines for dinner

When I close my eyes I see big fat ugly ticks, attached and sucking with their legs waving in the air and their bellies a pale skin coloured balloon.
Poor little Dali, goes trotting through the woods just long enough to collect about a dozen little pests at a time. We pick them off everyday and still find more.
We get up and go to the window right away to look at how sweet she looks when she sleeps and check again half a dozen times because it's just too cute.
We're fallling more in love with her every day.

Three kids are here and their parents and the dog and martina and peter and the tractor and the kids wanted sandwiches and then didn't and then the dog got them and B went out to try and tell them not to feed the dog and was met with blank stares. I'm running between shooing the dog off the table which is ineffective and skyping with blm which isn't working anyway and avoiding the stares of the children. Everyone's sitting in a different room in various moods. B thinks she got sewage in her hair.

I've just finished a book of short stories by Colette, and am working my way through Monkey House by Vonnegut. One sock is almost done. No postcards sent yet. Some half assed massages given, in bed half asleep when B hands me her arm when it hurts in the morning. I've learned the Portuguese words for dog and bread and water and thankyou and church and right and left and roundabout and cheese and cod and sardine and rabbit and beer and morning, afternoon, evening, tomorrow.

 I've got five days left and the end is quickly approaching and there is so much to see yet though I already have my favorite places, places in which I'd like to have spent my childhood or a month or an afternoon timetravelling; Obidos, Peniche, Ribatejo.

Three languages in this house these past days, we make it work and language flows like vinho tinto.

Dali

We've named her Dali because of her moustache and we feed her on the sly because Armenio pretends to be harsh and heartless about a befriending a stray dog when we're only here another two weeks. And after feeding her out of my hand, I starting scratching behind her ears and she became transfixed and that's when I found huge ugly ticks on her and felt her dirty fur and wondered at her skinnyness.
I snuck her the bowl in which the rabbit juice swam after dinner and set it out past the gate after dinner while Armenio was busy chatting with Peter and Martina. It might not have been her who ate it though, because it wasn't licked clean and the bread had been left behind.
I want to bring her home to blm and brag about our portuguese dog.

After another big fight, I crashed away into the eucalyptus forest and after I could see again, I picked eucalytpus leaves of all colours and patterns and Armenio showed me how to eat the stems of the yellow trefoil flowers, I squirmed at the sourness.

portugal

Eucalyptus, pine, plane, fig, oranges, lemon, magnolia, olive trees. Ivy, wild rosemary covering mountainsides, reed grass so tall it covers powerlines. Red clay everywhere, orchards blossoming. Old stone walls and empty abandoned houses and tiles tiles tiles, the smell of fish and oranges and lemons hanging over whitewashed walls with coloured trim so bright it makes one's teeth ache.

The ocean, small roads up mountains, dogs that look half wild wander the streets. The most exotic and beautiful cats I've ever seen.

atlantic

Damp. Warm and windy and damp. Eucalyptus, olive trees, cork oaks, lemons and oranges everywhere. Palms. Aloe vera growing in piles and climbing up walls, hanging off ledges. Succulents in sand dunes. Portugal loves primary colours, and white.

I feel strange in this land, like everything is alien and  I have felt grounded once, yesterday, when B and I did a road trip to Obidos and I was so happy my chest hurt; I clambered all over the castle walls and imagined shooting arrows at invaders in the valley below, took pictures of the blue and white and black and yellow and red trims along the white walls. Narrow winding alleys between ancient houses, still lived in, quietly, flower pots and lace curtains everywhere.