Actually, it was working just fine early in the morning. Then I went and did some stuff around the house, and made some business type calls before leaving for the coffee morning. I wanted to follow one up with an email, but the server had vanished by that point. It was the most annoying kind of outage, too. All the little lights on the cable modem were on, including the crucial "online" indicator, so I was presumably connected to the internet-- but I just couldn't go anywhere. Sort of like pulling onto the interstate in your brand new Audi, but (unbeknownst to you) the transmission has fallen out and you can't figure out why you aren't going anywhere because the engine is still running. I much prefer when all the modem lights are out and you can't ping a thing.

Good grief, that was a terrible analogy up there. Simply dreadful.

So, anyway, it's just as well I couldn't post yesterday because I would have done nothing but whine. It was one of those days when I was feeling particularly homesick for Italy. To wit: I wanted to do lunch.

And not just a sandwich in the food court in Caiscais Villa, either. I'm talking a proper meal, where you take your time, and gossip a lot, and wash the whole thing down with a decent bottle of wine or three. Possibly with dessert, preferably shared so it has no calories. I cannot recall any coffee morning type meetings in Italy that did not end in a lunch of some type. Not all lunches turned into happy hours, but that bit is strictly optional. Besides, I had stuff to do.

And as it turned out, lunch wasn't one of them. Not one single person was up for lunch. (Excluding the one who was stopping by MacDonalds if I wanted to come with. Sorry, lady-- Mickey D's is not Lunch. It's barely food.) What is wrong with these women? They just don't get it. "Why would I want to go out for lunch when we've just had coffee?" It's not like they're all still starving themselves in penance for too many mince pies and festive holiday drinks. Some of them don't appear to have missed a meal in years, so they must be eating lunch somewhere. Just not with me, apparently.

I used to love lunching with the ladies.

And missing that got me to missing the food itself. I want a truly yummy lunch at a more than reasonable price. And I really miss my friends. I miss Maggie and Angie and Martha and all of my wonderful friends-- and not just because they would have gone out to lunch with me.

All right, so I'm whining today. I didn't promise I wouldn't.

But yesterday, it would have been worse.

So, no lunch. That really threw my schedule off, because it meant I went to the grocery store straight from the coffee, which meant that I couldn't pick up my boots from the cobbler when I finished shopping because he was still closed for lunch, and I wasn't about to let my frozen peas thaw and my arms fall off while waiting for him.

I pouted about that while I waited for the bus. I just stood there in the howling wind, picturing the cobbler and all his shoe repairing buddies sitting around a table swathed in a snowy white cloth, a jug of the house red in the center, laughing as they tucked into steaming platters of buccatini. Only the one round of wine though, as they have to go back to work later. The bus came, thankfully, before they got to the espresso.

And no, I have no idea how my cobbler ended up in Italy, either.

I did manage to do a good thing yesterday: I fixed our shower.

The problem with our shower was that it had no water pressure. Specifically, it had no hot water pressure-- the cold worked just fine. So every morning, we had to blearily perform the delicate task of adding just enough cold water to the pathetic trickle of hot to get some sort of volume out of the damn thing without freezing our asses off. It wasn't easy, I promise you. Even if you did it right, you ended up huddled under a thin and pathetic stream of barely warm water. And since it's so damn cold in this place, you also had to keep moving because there wasn't enough water to run over everything at once and whatever body part happened to be outside of the running water would ice over after a very short time.

Well, maybe not actual ice, but it sure felt like it.

Thing is, I don't think it started out being that bad. On the other hand, you can tolerate a cooler shower when the air around you is warm, so who knows.

I told the porteiro slash maintenance guy about the problem a few weeks ago, and again last week, and he said he would look into it. Or possibly not. He had a bunch of other people to talk to that day, and he spoke very fast and possibly idioms I haven't learned yet, and I couldn't simply just wait and come back another time because Elvis had thrown a major tantrum about it that morning. Major. It's not like it's my fault when I can't find the guy, and I do have other things to do than hang around in the lobby for God knows how long until he shows up.

Anyway, Elvis had another fit about it yesterday morning, and I suggested he call the rental agency. Isn't that what those folks are for? I thought that was one of the reasons we couldn't go with another agent and find a place ourselves, even though it probably would have been cheaper. Elvis said he would, but I was sick of that bloody shower too, so I decided to take a look.

And I fixed it! First, I took a look at the main taps to the bathroom and by the water heater. I had done that before, of course, when we first noticed the problem. This time, I turned them all the way off and then back on, and by doing that I noticed that the hot water tap was a lot harder to turn than the cold. A little elbow grease, and I got that sucker turned past where it was before. For good measure, I went out into the hall, figured out which main water pipe was ours (the cupboard was not locked, so no breaking and entering was involved), and turned the spigot a quarter turn.

I don't know which bit did it (or even if I turned the hall tap the right way), but this morning we had plentiful, bounteous, glorious hot showers. I even shaved my legs-- something I haven't done much lately because it's far to easy to nick goosebumps with the razor, and it's hard to be careful when you're shivering.

Elvis Now that was an invigorating shower.

DilettanteGood!

Elvis There are three types of shower, you know: invigorating, depressing, and intimidating.

Dilettante Oooh, profound.

Elvis Now, the shower we used to have, that was depressing.

Dilettante Agreed.

Elvis And the shower in Milan, where we banged our elbows up against the walls, and there was no hot water in November, and when there was hot water it ran out after five minutes so you had to move fast-- that was intimidating. It was fucking scary, man.

Dilettante Hell yeah.

Elvis But now that, that shower was invigorating. And the hot water didn't run out either.

Dilettante Did you leave some for me?

Elvis (shrug)

Amazingly, he did.

Portugal may not have central heating, but they sure know how to build a water heater.