Now, I'm not talking about her now-standard passtime of going over our balcony and climbing on the trellis that arches over our downstairs-neighbor's (much larger) terrace. It's not about her refusal to use the scratching post that I spent an astounding 27 Euro on, despite the fact that it looks like a glorified traffic cone, because it was the only damn scratching post I could find in the greater Lisbon area. I'm not even talking about jumping up on the lap of an Italian-suit clad Elvis and doing a bit of kneading, claws extended.

No, I'm talking about her habit of standing in her litter box, and peeing over the side onto the floor, the side of the bathtub, the cabinets, the bathroom door, and whatever else happens to be in range. This is not a new habit, but it's getting progressively worse, and it's just about to push me over the edge. And it's not just once every few days like before. Now it's once a day or more, and it's really starting to piss me off. And don't try to make a pun out of that last bit, as I'm not the least bit amused about the entire situation.

I don't think she's being malicious. She starts off in the traditional feline squat, but as she gets going her butt rises higher and higher, until she's in full stretch mode, like some sort of bizarre, feline urination yoga. And it's not like it's a few left-over dainty droplets, either: what I have here is not so much a cat as a small Chinese racehorse. Although I've never been clear on why a Chinese racehorse has a reputation for peeing more than any other type of racehorse, or than a wildebeest or an English football fan after 17 pints of lager, for that matter. Perhaps I should just Ask Jeeves.

Anyway, Calliope's litter box is very clean, and the type of litter doesn't seem to be an issue. I've bought her progressively higher boxes, and that doesn't make a difference either; her current toilet was originally designed, I believe to be a toybox. Maybe a trip to the vet is in order? Although she doesn't seem to be ill, or to have a problem with the actual urination. Any suggestions will be welcomed and receive due consideration.

Except for kitty-kebabs.

I've already thought of that one.

I had my first Portuguese lesson today.

I think I'll be happy at this school. The owner has tried to make it more of a community. There are all sorts of languages taught, a lovely garden complete with lawn chairs and a picnic table, a bar for coffee and so forth, a take-out service and monthly cooking lessons (rarely Portuguese food, by the way).

My first lesson today was your standard beginning language sort of thing, with grammar and vocabulary and so forth. There were three of us, plus our teacher, and we held it in the garden. For the second lesson, we were joined by three other students and went inside. It was taught by a rather plain looking woman with a truly dirty laugh, and focused entirely on pronunciation.

Portuguese is a Romance Language, meaning it is based on Latin, like Italian, French, Spanish and Romanian. I can pretty much read Portuguese, and quite often understand it when spoke, especially if I have some clue what the speaker is likely to be talking about. It has lots of Celtic influence from the original inhabitants before the Romans arrived, and a lot of Arabic influence from the centuries when Portugal was ruled by the Moors.

But what does Portuguese sound like?

Good question. One description is a drunken Frenchman trying to speak Spanish. Or vice versa. Or a drunken Italian trying to speak French. I've heard that it sounds a lot like Russian. Most people think it sounds definitely Eastern European, in any case. I think these are all close descriptions, but not exactly right.

When I was verging on adolescence, way back in the 70s, there were rumours going around that, if you played rock records backwards (and it was all vinyl back then, of course), you could hear satanic messages-- it was all a bit more scary and thrilling than the "Paul is dead" Beatles rumors that I completely missed, seeing as I was obsessed with Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo at the time. Funny, but they never mentioned those rumors, although they may have been old hat by then. But I digress.

In any case, but there was nothing for it but to wait for my friend's older brother, who looked just like David Cassidy although his feathering wasn't quite as good, to be reliably occupied at Skateland after school so we could commandeer his bedroom. We weren't allowed to go to Skateland on Wednesdays when they played disco and all the teenagers were there flirting and generally checking each other out-- we had to do our roller-skating on Saturday afternoons, with the other kids and the occasional teenage boy practicing his backward moves in the hopes of getting to first, if not second, base the following Wednesday.

So we figured it was only just that we lock ourselves into his bedroom, fire up the stereo, and play Deep Purple backwards by the simple expedient of mashing a greasy finger down somewhere in the middle of the album, dropping the needle near the front, and pushing the disc in the opposite direction of where it really wanted to go. It took some experimentation, but finally we managed to get it going at a speed where the noises it made sounded almost like words, but we couldn't manage to make out what was actually being said. So we kept on trying, with the Stones and God knows what else, Peter Frampton perhaps, but we could never quite get the message. Although, looking back, you'd have thought that Zappa would have worked. But it sure sounded Satanic.

That is exactly what Portuguese sounds like.

All "shhh" and "oo" and "zh" and a whole lot of nasality. Plus, the ends of words seem to be chopped off, provided there isn't some shh-ing or severe congestion involved.

So we spent our pronunciation hour going a, e, i, o, u, ao, eu, ei, em, etc. Followed by tongue twisters that were a hoot. I'll have to remember them next time were at the Pub, altough I'm pretty sure being drunk would be an advantage. Still.