I…can’t turn my back on a pun. We spent about 22 hours in Lisbon. Topographically, it’s my favorite kind of city: full of hills and near water. Cobblestones, red-tiled roofs, ancient trees. Here are some pictures (click through for more/commentary).
Posts By: Claire
In My Head
Every time it rains I get Garbage’s “I’m Only Happy When it Rains” stuck in my head–not a bad thing–but usually with my friend Mikey-Mike’s (I think it was Mikey-Mike, but if not, it was Lincoln) alternate plumber-jingle lyrics, “We’re only happy when it drains,” to which I add “We’re only happy when you’re constipated” (don’t think about that too long…it doesn’t actually make sense as a business model; it just rhymes with “I’m only happy when it’s complicated”). It’s… Read more »
The Dept. of Sanitation
Sanitation SVU. That’s the web series I should star in. At one point last week I had live typhoid vaccine in my fridge and other people’s garbage downstairs inside my door. These are perversely related in the sense that when I touched the anonymous garbage bags (don’t judge; I regret my actions and I undertook them only because I’ve been primed–by trash citations/random assorted trash bags appearing in front of our apartment on days that are decidedly NOT trash day–to… Read more »
Rabies from a Camel
I’m probably just looking for excuses, but I feel like I’m having a hard time writing because I’m spending too much time worrying about getting rabies from a camel. (Don’t worry. I promise I’m taking this concern with the appropriate level of humor. Or trying to, anyway). Hear me out, though! The thing about this particular fear is: if I were to be bitten by a dog in Morocco, common sense would dictate that I get rabies shots. Even if it’s… Read more »
Ramblings
Things that always sound good that I later regret: Tripod headstand Almond croissants Hence I spent the other day with both a headache and a stomachache. If I had done regular headstand and had a plain croissant, everything would have been fine. But tripods and almonds are a higher level of difficulty. Speaking about croissants, more than once I’ve gotten the last croissant at my coffee place because I was walking so fast that I overtook the people who then… Read more »
Topstove
After several weeks of microwaving and ordering too much grubhub, I have a new stove. The man who delivered the stove was just–one of those people that you would rate five stars if he was on Yelp. He had a near magical level of resourcefulness, though maybe I’m just easily impressed. First the stove wouldn’t fit through the door, so he took it out of the box. Then he determined that, as one person, he would not be able to… Read more »
TV watching
In addition to my Family Feud habit (I’m trying to get my DVR source to record Jeopardy, which I used to play against my dad when I was in high school, both of us sitting on our couch with calculators and arguing about when it was legal to start speaking the answer), I’ve been watching: Westworld Crazy Ex-Girlfriend *These are two shows that have zero in common, except for the extremely important quality of knowing exactly what they’re doing and… Read more »
Immuno
I’m the seven dwarves of mild sickness today: sneezy, sniffly, sleepy, hazy, dopey, snotty, and…okay, even with redundancy (I guess I could get really redundant and add snuffly or snoozy) I can’t come up with seven truly legitimate offerings. Should have gone with “The four horsemen of mild illness.” I don’t think I’ve ever had the flu. This year and last year I got the flu shot, but I don’t think I’ve ever had it regardless, even as a child…. Read more »
Appliance
Our stove had a gas leak and has to be replaced. Many things in our apartment seem to be going, whether they’re taking their cues from the atmosphere of the times and deciding enough’s enough or if they were just, you know, all purchased around the same year and are running out of, um…GAS. Our landlord texted me the phone number for a plumber, which initially baffled me. Wisdom from Dad: “Plumbers also do gas.” This fascinates me. It would… Read more »
Travel Insurance
I’ve read many bizarre things over the past few weeks–it’s hard not to–but this explanation (a loose term) of what’s included and excluded in trip insurance might be the weirdest. Some choice bits: “Losses Not Covered We will not pay for loss arising from: defective materials or craftsmanship; or normal wear and tear, gradual deterioration, inherent vice; or rodents, animals, insects or vermin; or mysterious disappearance; or electrical current, including electric arcing that damages or destroys electrical devices or appliances.”… Read more »
