Fitter happier

Last night Betty, Manu, and I went to the restaurant up the road about 30 meters that tortured me every day the last two weeks once the grill started up around 7. At this hour every evening wafted into my room the odor of grilled ribs from Extremadura pigs, the purest example of the porcine family, they are fed solely on acorns and wild black truffles that they smell and dig up. Since I had no functional credit cards, and thus no money, I was starving a bit and the hedonism of the aforementioned restaurant was painfully acute. I could hear every clink of glass, every gulp of Alentejo tinto (a wine region just a few miles to the south of Lisbon known for its thoroughly quaffable reds), every piece of meat being ripped from the bone by unworthy teeth and indifferent palette. Anyway, I finally made it up that hill in a triumphant surge to plant the Minneapolis flag on this uncharted territory. When we got there I discovered they weren’t serving the entrecostos on this night so I had to get a kabob of the same meat. It was a delirious moment when I finally tasted the flesh of this exquisite beast.




When I finished the meal Betty noticed I was wearing my broken down coal miner boots with the soles coming apart from the toe to mid-foot and asked me if I "would please throw those away". I started flapping my boot in her face and did my best interpretation of a Portuguese Skank (the very vulgar sock puppet) and told her where she could shove her high ideals and such with the disconnected sole flapping up and down to mimic talking. Before I knew it I had a relatively large group of 3 to 6 year-olds around me enjoying this crude Portuguese puppet show. They laughed at some jokes I thought they would be too young to get, but then my Portuguese is still a little simple so maybe that’s why it was a little too easy for them to understand. When the show was over the kids went back to their seats but the youngest one sitting next to me kept looking under the table to see if the shoe was saying anything to himself. He got out his toy cars when he realized that the shoe had fallen asleep. I took some pictures of him because I thought he was a real adorable chap, but for some reason every shot I took his eyes would go all funny. I’ve included them here because I thought it very odd that a normal kid would turn into Thom Yorke only when photographed. I imagine this is problematic when its time for family pictures…