Yawn.

Actually, I just realized that I forgot to pay my electric bill yesterday, and it is now overdue. I'm taking a sort of perverse pleasure in that fact. All that good behavoir was getting a bit annoying.

I'm still thrilled with my new coffee technology. My new machine brews excellent coffee, which shouldn't be surprising as it was made in Italy. And that sucker is fast: it doesn't have a brewing cycle so much as a time trial. I splurged on some Italian coffee. Actually, I take that back. It wasn't much more expensive than domestic brands-- just a few cents, really. Although had I been able to find my favorite brand (Lavazza), it might have been much more. And life is just too short to drink bad coffee.

Actually, I'm rather surprised that Portugal doesn't have better coffee. They certainly have a coffee culture, much like Italy. The ways to order it rival Starbucks in complexity. You can even specify where your cup comes from: some people don't want a cup from the top of the machine because those cups tend to be hot and they might burn their lips. And the Portuguese certainly seem to drink enough of the stuff-- you can see them at any time of the day, bellied up to the bar, knocking back bicas like shots of whisky in a John Wayne western.

I suppose they need to-- Portuguese coffee is weak.

I've lost track of the times I've been asked, after telling people that I just moved here from Italy, that I must miss the coffee. A significant number of people asking have been Portuguese, which I imagine should tell me something.

On the other hand, the Portuguese tend to serve their espresso hot, which-- outside of Napoli-- is pretty rare in Italy, or at least the parts where I hung around. Tepid seems to be the standard, although I'm not sure why. So the customer can drink it immediately, presumably. Gotta have that caffeine. Right Now.

I mention this because I just went back for another cup and the coffee is still hot. Mr. Coffee was never this good at keeping it warm, although maybe he was at the beginning and I've just forgotten. Which makes me wonder if my machine was really made in Italy after all. Then again, Italians aren't really big on drip coffee. They might order cafe lungo or americano, which is espresso in a larger cup, diluted with hot water. Some places even serve the water on the side in a little tea pot so you can dilute it to taste.

Right now, I'm marvelling at how little it takes, in the materialistic sense, to make me happy. The smell of fresh brewed coffee. Major appliances that work (well, most of them). Shiny red toenails. Not having to wipe cat-pee off the bathroom floor (that was a short-lived pleasure). An absence of plumbers. Funky shoes.

I'm getting good milage out of my funky blue flats, by the way. The �ber-points don't seem to catch on the cal�ada the way they tended to catch on proper cobble stones.

Have I mentioned cal�ada? I'm not sure I have. Google doesn't think so, anyway. It's what they use on sidewalks and some streets in the Lisbon area, instead of proper cobbles.

Cal�ada is sort of like a large scale mosaic. It's smoother and flatter than cobbles. They use a rather shiny type of stone, and it's quite slippery, especially when wet and even when not. This can be rather dangerous, as this area is nothing but hills of varying steepness. Also, cal�ada tends to get pretty wavy over time, especially when people drive their cars over it. This being Portugal, people do.

I've just wasted too much time looking for a picture of cal�ada. In Lisbon and Cascais, it is made of black and white stones and is often laid down in a wavy pattern, in addition to the up-and-down, uneven pavement phenomenon that comes with time. I'm not explaining this well, am I?

Well, I'll keep looking for a picture, and insert it later. I know I've seen them on the net before, although you can never find stuff when you're actually looking for it.

Well, I can't, in any case.

Time to put on my blue �ber-pointy, very funky shoes, and hit the cal�ada.