What Do Drive-by Shootings and Government Shutdowns Have in Common?

Nothing.


This current government shutdown has probably left a lot of folks trapped in homes all across the nation, timidly drawing back one tiny corner of the drapes as they fearfully await the riots and chaos (that will in no doubt ensue). With no PBS to watch or National Parks beckoning, many will be lost as to how to productively spend their days. **

I will fight the urge to say, "I told you so".

I told everyone not to let their blogs die. 

I cried out against Face-lessbook's "declaration of nothing" status style: "Worst day ever", "My kid did it again!" "Well THAT was disappointing" (which leaves most of us wondering what the heck the poster is even going on about) and Tweeter's fly-in-and-out conversation style: "Wolf at the door", "Some cookie guy just ran by", "doing the congo behind some dude playing a flute #inatrance #wherearewegoinganyway? "

You lot are lucky I stuck around and didn't succumb to the blog-killing, story-teller silencing social networks. Stories and/or photos = Tax-FREE entertainment.

You're welcome.

What's not free is gasoline. Although our island is very small, we somehow manage to go through quite a bit on our little weekend jaunts, and since starting and stopping eats more gas, I take a lot of photos on the run (I am not above sticking my slightly expensive and very heavy camera out the window and shooting blindly).

Today, I present for your government shutdown entertainment, 

free of charge, 

Terceira Island, drive-by style:

The well-trained husband took the roundabout nice and slow for this one. One must say "Moooo!" when passing a vaca.

These ladies were awesome for being so conveniently placed!

Coming up on a Holy Ghost house. Must photograph every one- doesn't matter if the photo isn't any good.

 This Holy Ghost house was on the route of a "pilgrimage".   

"Festa da Nossa Senhora dos Milagres" is held in September.  People walk miles along the coastal road towards the village of Serreta to participate in the festivities centering around ‘Our Lady of the Miracles’.

We were lucky that one of our friendly commisario workers had told us it would be on, so we didn't have to wonder why there was a mass exodus occurring (especially since everyone was walking back toward the way we had just come).
There's a little too much "zombie viewing" in our house, so it doesn't take too much to get our minds rolling in an unnatural direction.

Ooooooh, ahhhhhhh

Speaking of zombies, am I the only one who is always calculating the best place to hide when the zombie apocalypse happens?

cobbled street of Angra

 Truth is, the theory of any safe place went to pot with World War Z.   

As many times as I pass this church, I will never again get a drive-by where the sun is perfectly placed

I love cobblestone. My tires and suspension don't care for it much, but I like it.
A few years back when Portugal made the horrible decision to join the EU and change it's currency to euros, a lot of money was dumped into the island for "improvements". Some of those improvements were to pave a lot of these beautiful, hand-laid roads.

Why am I never consulted about these kinds of changes?

Cobbled roads of a village

More churches and ugly paved roads

Traffic jam (now you say it, "Mooooo")

Yes, the camera is out the window, facing behind us. I don't care. It's Terceira's tallest church

Another camera-out- the-window-behind-us shot of Sao Mateus

 This shut down could take a while, but that's okay. I've got hundreds more where these came from...



wait, where are you going?



I was just getting ready to tell you about the bullfights!




Até outro dia.

**before anyone whips out their poison pen to berate me for being flippant about something that is SERIOUSLY affecting a lot of good people, please keep in mind that we are military. Also know that even though the POTS so proudly stated that we will get our paychecks this month, there are other ways we feel the cuts, the shutdowns, the whole craptasticness of it all- and have been for a very long time. October 1st didn't mark anything new.

Forever Friends

A sad fact about The Grockle Family (still sticking with the British terminology), is that once we've got our sticky fingers of friendship wrapped around you, there is no escape. Like gum on the bottom of your shoe.

No getting rid of us.

Well there is, but don't expect ME to tell you how it's done.

If you don't believe what I'm saying, ask the poor couple we met just before leaving England- we're planning their next five holidays for them as we speak.

One family who knows this better than most is the Lopes Family. I wouldn't normally include names on this not-so-private blog, but Narciso is a Carpenter of very high quality and has a business here in Terceira- so a little publicity won't hurt.

The white house on the right of the photo was ours

We met Narciso and his beautiful daughter when we lived in this house, 13 years ago.


They knocked on our door and introduced themselves- well, she introduced them both since she was the only one who spoke English.
Through her, Narciso was able to tell us that he had done all the wood in the house we were renting.

Later, we learned that all of the wood in his house was crafted by him-EVERYTHING. Cabinetry, stairs and bannisters, beds, dressers, tables and chairs. Incredible.
He's done church doors around the island and if my old photos weren't so bad, I'd pull those out.... oh what the heck-

Here's a mix of old and new (translation: don't judge me for the poor quality available 13 years ago).

This is his shop. It would be hard to work with this view, wouldn't it?

In his shop he was working on this for a local church.

 

 

We decided that we needed a custom-made bed... with night stands...

and a step (since I wanted it high off the ground)... and while he was at it, a telephone table and some tapestry bars.

We gave him the measurements for American-sized furniture, told him how much clearance we wanted at the bottom and left the design to him...

church door

Now, I worried about my bed for a little bit, because I had seen some of his really intricate work and thought, "Holy cow, it's going to take me hours to dust my bed every week".   

BUT, he surprised me with a simple, elegant design. 

I was SO happy.

 

  

Baby A1 with Senora Lopes and daughter C

Senora Lopes, baby A1 and J1

Before staining...

and after.

 

telephone table. Check out the REALLY old answering machine (it used mini cassettes!)

We were so pleased, that we did something REALLY stupid.  

We told others about him and the orders started rolling in. He wasn't just "ours" anymore...

and let's be honest. A lot of Americans can be real jerks when they're living overseas- the DH has worked with plenty of people who get downright indignant that other cultures don't do the things the way they're accustomed to. So we were concerned that our friends would now suffer from the publicity. 

Neighbors had bedroom furniture made and these friends (seen above) commissioned an extra long dining table and chairs.

The Portuguese people on this island are not large in stature. They are smaller, so worktops are built at a shorter height and doors, gates, walls, fences are all built for an average 5.3 person. These American measurements must have felt like a joke to the poor  man.

After all of these years, we have kept in contact (apparently no bad experiences with other business have spoiled our friendship) and promised that one day we would make it back.

After arriving back on Terceira, I sent a message to A's daughter (who now lives on another island) to say we were going on a tour out where her parents lived and that we'd be looking for her Mom's shop (she does textiles). She phoned her mom and so, A opened up her shop HOURS early, hoping that she might see us...

The poor people we were traveling with were trying to look through her shop when everything came to a complete stop as she spotted the DH and squealed (I then threw myself across the counter, but it wouldn't do- she came out and got a proper hug).

13 years gone like it had never passed.

She hasn't changed a bit

BTW, I did eventually step back and let people look.

Dinner with the Lopes Familia

They've taken an English class since we were here last. "A" can say a few things, but Narciso has only mastered, "Yes, please"- but it's very good and we discovered it can be used in multiple scenarios and always gets a good laugh from all.

Some of Narciso's latest designs:

This is SO lightweight! I think he said this piece won a contest...

Coolest Nativity ever

He's like a big kid. Showing the kids how to spin the top

A and N Lopes, our forever friends

** If you're interested in anything you've seen in this post, email me and I can put you in contact. Custom-made designs don't come cheap and is paid in Euros, but SO worth every euro cent.**

His FB page can be found HERE

Or better yet, have you started considering traveling to Terceira for yourself yet?


Until next time,

Adeus!

Disarming a Dislocation Disorder

Wow,

what is it with (blog) construction workers? This blog went under construction nearly two months ago and there's no further progress than there was then. Can't get good help these days.

Let's not dwell on the "what isn't" and just move on to the "what is" for the sake of your eyes and my carpal tunnel, shall we?

So, the 2nd month anniversario of our residency on Terceira is about to commence and holy smokes, I can't believe how quick the time is passing!

There's always a bit of a 'dislocation disorder' that comes with every move, and unfortunately, this one has been extreme. Boo-hoo-leave-me-alone-I'm-eating-this-pound-sized-bag-of-M&Ms extreme.

I've considered divorce, adopting out my children, running away from home and permanently becoming a non-showering recluse. Anyone who knows me IRL, knows this is a symptom and not characteristic of...well, maybe the desire to run away is normal, but the rest- I kind of like showers and these people I am forever bound to.
Perhaps it was leaving such great friends and fabulous country, perhaps it's the fact that we'll just be recovering from the move when we'll get our next duty station information, I don't know, but it has sucked. The worst part is, I really do love it here, depression? I ain't got time for that.


 It helps to get out and experience the glorious circumstances in which we find ourselves here in the Açores. It's so incredibly beautiful and if you can manage to avoid the base and the people who live closest to it (who are a little jaded and fed up with the "American experience"), your arm might end up quite bruised from pinching yourself so often to make sure it's not just a dream.

We're landing! After a looooong journey, it's so good to see we've finally arrived.

I'm not the only one who has had enough of plane transfers

But then, there's the hot, crowded bus to take us from the plane to the terminal...

Our home until we get a home

The Açores experience high winds in the winter. This should be proof: concrete road signs. This little disaster-seeking bean is anxiously awaiting for the time when we can put him up against a chain link fence and the wind will hold him there.

Add caption

 I'm not thinking, "OMGosh I have cute kids and everyone should see pics of them. I'm showing that our walk to the swimming pool is still in view of the ocean. This is where you say, "oooooh, ahhhh".

One of the great things about being LDS is that we pretty much have a church anywhere we go. When we lived here before (when the goofy teen was only a 1 year old), our branch was Portuguese and American. Now they've divided into two branches- something I find quite sad).

We instantly got stuck in (I wonder if I'll ever drop my British colloquialisms?) and took Little Miss Ky out to our favourite swimming hole in Quatro Ribeiras while her brothers went to a Soccer (futbol!) camp on base.

This is a little trick I've learned over the years: Put a child (or three) in front of your thighs so you don't have to continue editing yourself out of photos. I do need the teens to cover the double chin though...

Incredible, isn't it?

 Horizontal

Vertical

still beautiful 

(anyone ever wonder how my iPhoto library has become so big? 

Now you know why).

That pool you see by the building is a salt-water pool. It comes in handy if you have little guys that you don't want swept out with the tide, or for days like today where the jelly fish are the ones taking advantage of the lava pools.

I'm betting the stairs and handrails of this swimming hole were installed quicker than I've revamped In the Gutter.

Because I have lost your trust with my sporadic posting of late, I will assure you that I have several posts queued up waiting for automatic publishing. My therapy. That, "count your blessings" kind of therapy that seems to always work.

Please check back in when you regain use of your eyes soon for two months worth of sightseeing photos (the equivalent of sitting in our living room and being subjected to our holiday slideshow, only with no popcorn).



Until then,

ADEUS!