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Greetings all,
I hope this finds you in good health. More importantly, I hope you are managing to maintain your mental health, given the state of the country in which I was born and used to proudly call my own. To say that I'm ashamed is most definitely an understatement.
I turned 75 in October, a number that I'm still trying to wrap my head around. Never, in all my 75 years did I ever expect to see concentration camps in the U.S. Never, in my 75 years, did I imagine that a president would turn our White House into a gold encrusted, tasteless display, that makes me think of a whore house with a pool patio outside. Never in my 75 years, did I envision that the East Wing ballroom of the White House, where Princess Diana once danced with John Travolta, would be torn down to build an even bigger, gaudy, gold ballroom for a fool. Never, in all my 75 years, did I envision seeing masked agents of the government abducting people, including children, off the streets of America, zip tying their hands, and detaining them indefinitely, often in undisclosed locations. They aren't rounding up illegals; they are indiscriminately rounding up people based upon their appearance. The goal is a white America. Sadly, no one in this government seems to have learned the history of the country and of the American Indians (among others) who were here first. The stupidity, arrogance, callousness, lack of empathy, and lack of shame of this administration is beyond comprehension. Has anyone reading this had to tell their child/children to carry their passport with them at all times, in case they are abducted? I have. Let that sink in. This is Nazi America. Wake up.
On a different note, we attended the No Kings protest here in Porto on October 18th. Most in attendance, approximately 300, were Americans, however, there were other foreign immigrants there as well. It was a beautiful day for a protest, and we met many new people at the event.
October brought us more visits from old friends. A childhood friend, Judy Fidalgo Nelson (yes, she's Portuguese) and her husband Don visited Porto and we enjoyed a lovely lunch with them. This was their first visit to Portugal, but certainly not their last. Their trip began in the Azores, where Judy wanted to get a sense of where her ancestors came from.
Next up was Saman and Lee, who we first met when we all lived at Trilogy in Brentwood, California. We enjoyed drinks and dinner with them one evening, along with Saman's friend of 40 years, Joanie, and her husband John. Joanie and John also happen to live in Porto. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that Joanie was in the same language study group with Nick last year. They already knew one another. This really is a small world.
The following day, my birthday, Nick planned and organized a great party at the Quevedo Wine Bar down near the river, where we celebrated with 20+ friends, including two from California, Ed and Rhonda. My friend Karen, from language class (in the red leather dress pictured below) also has an October birthday, so we celebrated together (though she's still a child at 59 🥳). Following the party, our neighbors from downstairs, Daniel and Diana, took us to dinner. It was a truly memorable birthday.
The following day, four friends from Dallas were in town to visit and sightsee. Three of them are in my bookclub, two since it began almost 26 years ago. I had a great time showing them around town, and we were lucky that the weather was nice. Of course, we took another Douro Valley wine tour as well (our 6th, but who's counting)! One evening, Nick made homemade pasta for them, and as the girls and I were heading back to our place for dinner, they wanted to stop and buy some wine to bring along. We got some amazingly good red wine for the outrageous price of 1.99 euros a bottle. Welcome to Portugal!
I can't forget to mention our unbelievably inept immigration department here in Portugal. Currently it has 133,000 lawsuits pending against it for failure to process applications and renewals in a timely fashion, with approximately 500 new cases being brought against them everyday now. And those 133,000 lawsuits were all filed in June and July of this year. This is truly the most inefficient, unorganized department ever. When we first moved here, the department was known as SEF, and there were many complaints about it, but at least they allowed people to renew their residency cards online. When SEF was replaced with the "new and improved" immigration department called AIMA, it went from bad to worst. Instead of letting people renew online, they decided they needed to have face-to-face interviews with everyone renewing but ... they didn't have enough staff so .... they hired more people but, they didn't provide any uniform training for them. It's basically just the luck of the draw as to who processes your paperwork and whether they know their right hand from their left hand ... seriously. What makes this even more frustrating is that people who have residency cards that have expired in the last few months now get to renew online and some of them are already receiving their new cards. We happen to be caught in the hellscape of those whose cards expired at the beginning of this year and were required to have the face-to-face meetings ... they can't figure out how to get us processed. We've now been told that we have yet another "extension" this time until
April 15, 2026, which effectively keeps us from traveling anywhere else in the EU because Portugal doesn't advise any other EU countries of the absolute mess they have created. In our case, that could potentially mean that we will have been living here with expired residency for 14 months before we ever get our new residence cards. This is what we call a "shit show."
I've mentioned our far-right party here called CHEGA before. Municipal elections were held across Portugal in October and, if our resident cards hadn't already expired, we would have been able to vote. We are not eligible to vote in the Presidential election to be held in January, as that is reserved for citizens only. But, CHEGA'S goal was to win 30 municipalities in the October election. Thankfully, they only won three, and those are all in southern Portugal, near Lisbon and in Albufeira in the Algarve. So they've been knocked off their pedestal a bit for now. Still, CHEGA had already become the second largest party in Portugal in the past two years and Andre Ventura, the leader, hates immigrants and was able to push through the new immigration law that finally passed at the end of October, which means that our opportunity to apply for citizenship has changed from 5 years to 10 years. Some of our friends were about to become eligible to apply and now they must wait an additional five years. And, Andre Ventura is running for President in January. Hopefully, Portugal will not succumb to this madman who recently said that this country needs three Salazars (the former dictator) to clean up the corruption in government. Seriously, that's what he said.
As I have said in the past, I make no apologies for my political commentary. You certainly can request that I remove you from my distribution list or, just toss this in your trash. But I will not stay silent.
Stay well.
Adeus, abraços e beijos,
MaryLou
1 comment:
ML was resplendant at her birthday celebration.
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