On Tuesday, I realized that I've been going about my life in the wrong way. Let's face it, when the time comes to leave Portugal (and it will), I won't be regretting not having defrosted my freezer more often, will I?

Or maybe I will. In the past year, I haven't defrosted the thing one single time, despite the fact that it needs it desperately.

In any case, it was a gorgeous day. Elvis had called to say the computers were down at work, and they were all bored out of their minds, since there isn't a single thing they can do without access to the mainframe. What that means is that once the network did come back up, they'd have to work extra-late to make up for lost time. Deadlines are deadlines, after all, which is why they've been working so late as it is. Incredibly, I had no laundry to be doing, and no real need to go to the grocery store. Add to that the fact that the empregada was coming, and I can never get anything done with her crashing about the place anyway, so I decided to go to the beach.

I took a book and a large bottle of water, found a suitably vacant sandy spot, and settled in to beaching. The water was cold-- as you'd expect, given that it is an ocean we're dealing with here-- but not so cold that you couldn't go for a nice swim. There was a nice breeze, but it wasn't actually windy, which is a bit of a pain. Elvis called: the computers were still down. I relaxed and read Dead Famous by Ben Elton, which I really enjoyed, possibly because my experience with "reality television" is limited to one and a half episodes of Survivor.

I then proceeded to see half my social universe, every single one of which I would prefer not to see me in a bikini with my tummy hanging out. Generally, I would prefer that no one see me in a bikini, with the possible exception of my husband and our cat, but there you have it: Sod's Law. Whatever the reason, it seems that I may not go to the beach very often, but everybody else sure does.

After a while, I realized that what I thought was sunscreen was, in fact, hand cream, and I retreated to the relative shade of the Beach Pub to avoid acquiring glow-in-the-dark skin. Sadly, I was only partially successful. I HATE getting sunburnt. I drowned my sorrows in a liter of water, a pint of shandy, and a cheese and salad baguette. By this time it was around 4:00, and I was just contemplating stopping by Jumbo on the way home when Elvis called.

The computers were still down, they had lost all hope of them coming back up that day, and he was on his way home. He considered coming to join me at the beach, but instead we met in the square, where we proceeded to have a few drinks, watch the tourists come back from the beach, have a few more drinks with some friends who happened by, go to the pub when it started to get chilly (I was dressed for a hot afternoon at the beach, not a cool evening in the square), and have a few more drinks with a few more friends. Then we went to the new Indian restaurant that opened up a month or so ago, where I had an excellent curry. The restaurant is called Shalimar, it's located half-way up the flight of stairs leading down to the square, and I recommend it highly. Try the Keema curry, with lamb and chickpeas-- it's spicy and hot, while still maintaining a really good flavor, which to me is perfect, curry-wise.

Yesterday, we got up quite a bit later than usual because, you know, all that beer. Shortly after that, we both discovered that yesterday's curry had, in fact, been quite hot and spicy, in the time honored manner. Elvis went off to work, and I did a few things around the house. It was hot yesterday, as well, and the internet was acting flaky, so I decided to take a swim. I went down to the pool, got myself settled in, and the phone rang.

Elvis was on his way home. Seems they discovered that the computer problem was due to a virus. The system administrators planned to disconnect all the PCs from the intranet manually, scour each one for viruses, and proceed from there. Consequently, they sent everybody home.

Once again, we headed down to the square to enjoy the lovely afternoon. I was up for some peking duck for dinner, but we compromised on a cheese and onion toasty at the pub, a packet of salt-n-vinegar crisps, and England v. Croatia on the big screen.

And, of course, more beer, except my beer looked an awful lot like a bottle of wine.

My fan was there again, and I really don't want to talk about it, except to say that I didn't play darts, I won't be playing darts if he is present (staring at me, thinking things I don't want to contemplate), and I hope he goes home very, very soon.

We slept late again today. Going to the Irish pub afterwards, and staying until they closed, turned out to be a bit of a mistake. Elvis called work, only to discover that the mainframe was still down, and everyone was sitting around playing computer games. Since the PCs are up, which he took to be a good sign, he decided to go in anyway, see if there was anything at all he could do, and maybe the network would come back up this afternoon.

Elvis took a shower, called in to see what was happening, and discovered that the network is still down and everybody had gone home once they discovered that they've shut down the entire national network. So, no work today, either, and no indication of when things will be fixed. Could be tomorrow. Could be next week. Who knows?

It's a shame, really, because today is windy and cool, and not good beach weather at all. We shall perservere, however, probably by hanging out at our table in the square, watching the tourists, and consuming frosty beverages.

But first, I'm off to make a boot disk for a friend. Running an antiquted operating system such as Windows 98, as we do, has its advantages, especially considering all the worms and other viruses that have been plaguing the computer world over the last few weeks. However, this does you no good at all if you don't have a firewall and you don't run an anitvirus program, either. Silly man. He's lucky to have us, really, since Elvis and I are the only ones he's been able to find that still run W98.

In any case, I intend to lobby for peking duck for dinner.