It's Grandma's funeral today, and my body has decided to commemorate the occasion with a massive bout of sinusitus. My face feels like it's been whacked repeatedly with some sort of blunt instrument, possibly a frozen leg of lamb. My sinuses are throbbing with pain. I cannot remember the last time I've had a headache this bad. I've tried taking allergy/sinus medication and going back to sleep to let it kick in, I've tried the long hot shower, now I'm trying sitting upright with a nice, hot cup of tea. Let's see if that works. It hasn't so far, but there's always hope, I suppose.

So. I got Elvis a guitar for Christmas. He's been messing around with it, teaching himself via the internet and a book Sean lent him: Learn to Play Rock Guitar Volume II.

"Volume II?" he exclaimed Christmas morning. "Where the hell is Volume ONE?"

Apparently, Sean doesn't have Volume I. He only bought Volume II it for the songs. Hence the necessity of the internet, to learn the basic chords that would have been covered in Volume I, if we had access to it. It doesn't matter, really, because I already arranged for Sean and Seamus to give him lessons, which they are all too happy to do. They start, I believe, next week.

They helped me choose and purchase the guitar, too. By that I mean that one day I took the train into Lisbon and met up with Seamus and a friend of his I'll call the Crazy Irishman (because he is). They took me to a little music store in a part of town I'd never been in before, but appears to be a great place to shop. They'd already been there to see what was available, so they showed me the guitar they'd chosen and I purchased it, along with a bag and various guitar related bits and bobs. This was fantastic for me, since I know absolutely zero about guitars and the purchasing thereof. They're regular customers of the store, so I got a deal on the whole thing as well.

After that, they took me to a little, local corner bar, where they sell red wine straight out of the barrel. It's owned by two rough-looking old men who are apparently gay, or so they told me. We stood by the counter that runs along the wall and had half a pint of red wine each, because that's the size of a glass of wine in this place and there are no tables or chairs. I had to go to the bathroom, and asked where it was.

"You don't want to do that," said the Crazy Irishman. "If you had to go, you should have told me and I'd have taken you somewhere else."

What they didn't know is that I've lived in Istanbul. Dodgy bathrooms hold no fear for me. I asked if it smelled, was told "not much", and so off I went. And it wasn't bad. It was one of those squat jobbies, which I don't mind at all. Much better than a bowl with no seat that forces you to hover, as far as I'm concerned. A little investigation reavealed that the large wheelie garbage bin was not, as they had thought, being used as a water tank for the toilet. It was merely being stored there, on top of the real water tank behind the toilet. A unique design concept, but it sort of fit. In fact, the scariest bit of using the toilet was getting there, down some narrow rickety stairs and through a dark, dank hallway. To wash your hands, you have to return to the bar, where there's a sink set into the wall by the door. That way, everybody knows whether you've washed them or not. Since it was right by where we were standing, we were able to see that almost everybody did.

After the wine was gone came the real reason for our visit: three espresso coffees with a single shot of Irish whisky amongst us, to flavor them with. Except when the whisky arrived, in a single glass, it was at least a triple. At least. And that's when things started to get out of hand. Because we only needed so much for the coffees, and we hated to waste it, of course, so we ended up passing the glass around until it was gone. And after that, another "glass" of wine sounded like a grand idea.

The CI had just ordered us a third glass of wine when Elvis called. Now, I should have been back home by then, or at least well on my way. As it was, there was no way I was going to be able to beat him there. Chances are, I would have ran into him on the train, if not the Metro. So I decided to brazen it out, told him that I had come downtown with some friends to do a bit of Christmas shopping, and arranged to meet him at a pub near the train station.

And when Seamus and I arrived at the pub, half drunk, and I explained that I just happened to run into him in the Chiado and we'd stopped for a drink, he didn't look terribly pleased. Especially since I didn't have any shopping bags, which I would have done if I'd been out shopping with the girls. But what could I do? I could hardly tell him of the necessity of baptizing his new guitar with irish whisky, could I? It would have spoiled the surprise.

Seamus had the guitar, which I proceeded to ignore. Since he is, in fact, a professional musician, that bit should have looked perfectly natural. Elvis and I left him there, with the guitar. He'd already agreed to take it home with him and 'look after it' for me. He was all too happy to do so, since he used to have a guitar very much like it that he loved, and he very much regrets selling to buy a supposedly better guitar, which wasn't really. So I spent all night praying that he didn't get really, really drunk and leave it somewhere. Which he didn't, so that was all right.

There was a bit more subterfuge involved with getting me out of the pub on Christmas Eve, so that I could run the guitar up the hill, hide it behind the couch, and run back down. I had planned to take a taxi, but on Christmas Eve there are no taxis, since it's the night that the Portuguese have their great big Christmas feast and exchange presents and so forth. As it was, however, Elvis was playing backgammon and never noticed a damn thing. So I was able to surprise him after all, and Elvis and his guitar lived happily ever after, or so I hope.

The headache has eased somewhat, by the way. It seems to have been replaced, at least partially, by frequent, violent sneezing.

Perfect.