Few Photos

 

Flamingos near our beach

Beach at Lagos, a town an hour from us. Super crowded and tiny

The three of us on our next album cover

The scene at 5 pm chez Wehlen

Uncertain Bananas

Phone accidentally took a photo of knee exposed to chaos. I am calling this shot "Wrinkly knee upon Portuguese stone"

My notes for the blog this week included the following: (My physicist editor's comments are in red.)

Dark Matter vs Dark energy

How I love the water

Prison Portuguese

Be grateful for eclipses 

Tanks tops not for everyone

San Lorenzo barbecue

Why the moon looks half full

The only moon that can be seen in daylight

*The full moon is the only moon phase technically that cannot be seen in daylight, although if you live at extreme latitudes you can see the full moon during the day too...I'm not sure what my mother's not is referring to, and upon asking, I found out neither is she

Dinner Pecundo Mundo 

Rally Driving 

Entropy

Don’t be tired.  

So there you go. 

Entering the last week here before we head to the hills. We will mooch/fly with the Wehlies on a private flight to Switzerland; then after a few days, drive to Lech. 

F and Thomas were explaining to me how after the singularity- the one thing that started everything - the thing before the big bang, the one thing-  after that, things have been moving toward entropy. I thought entropy was decay, but it is chaos, disorder, uncertainty. So a rotting banana is more uncertain than a green one. Poor little uncertain banana- I feel its pain. I do not appreciate the entropy either. 

*Not sure that you can define entropy as uncertainty....also not sure that a rotten banana is uncertain (death seems pretty certain to me).

Entropy was going on before the pandemic, but I just see it now-all the confused fruit and disorganized wrinkly knees. My California style self help meditations give emergency instructions: stay small. See the ants do their work. Listen to the owl hoot. Watch Simone Biles if I can ever figure out what time it is there. 

Also very helpful is to stare down the cold North Atlantic and jump in. Thomas cannot figure out why here and only here I am the first one in such cold water and the last one out. I don’t know either, but it is like a person slapping you in the face when you need it. A wave is coming; stop thinking and dive under 

The other day I was marveling at how after 25 years, I cannot say a damn thing beside cake and thank you in Portuguese. It must be some kind of warp in the space time continuum that a person can stay unscathed by language for this long. Then it occurred to me that all we needed to do was go to a Portuguese jail for 6 months and we would be perfect. Thomas said fine but my crime would have to be worse than his because blondes always get off easy. 

We live near the church of San Lorenzo as well as the San Lorenzo golf club. Fun fact- San Lorenzo was barbecued for tax evasion …so pictures of him are always of him dragging a barbecue around. Of course this is sort of funny- and that is a reminder that we can really laugh about anything if enough time goes by. (they barbecued him!! Hahahaha!) 

I must remember to tell this to my poor green bananas-decay will seem hilarious in a few hundred years.

The thing about entropy is that we would be nothing without it. Without chaos, nothing would ever have changed from the singularity. And while change is not really my jam, without it, there would be no us: no Bode Miller, no cold beers, no kittens, no snowflakes, no south Atlantic Ocean. The same thing that gives us wrinkly knees gives us Mahlers Symphony no 5 in C sharp minor. 

*In physical terms the universe would not be able to convert thermodynamic energy into work without an increase in entropy and we'd live in a sad, static, albeit orderly, universe.

 A lot of people in Europe wear tank tops when they shouldn’t. That was a note in my “blog notes” and so I am putting it in. 

We had a substitute tennis teacher the other day- a 20 year old who really wants us to be all that we can be. I always find enthusiasm like this funny. He even gives instructions to us when we are not playing with him. When he yelled across his court to mine to move my feet more I said: “This is my ME time!! “ Anyway like all people who don’t speak perfect English, he has some expressions that are strangely zen. He likes to yell “Don’t be tired!” Which I just love- not dont be lazy, or don’t be hesitant; Don’t Be Tired. I yell it between shots now because it is so hot and I am in fact tired. And you know what? It works; because here is the other thing about entropy: we can create less disorder right in front of us through energy- we can clean up our rooms or build a house. It sort of means pushing the chaos onto someone else’s door step but that is for another lecture. 

For now, that banana needs to do knee bends and so do I. 

*I don't think bananas can do knee bends but am happy to be fact checked on that

Lastly a word on eclipses. F reminded me that if the moon were a different size or a different distance from us we wouldn’t get such cool eclipses. Everything sort of banged into the right size. 

*The moon and sun just happen to take up the same solid angle (3D angle look it up if you want an image) in the sky, so we get eclipses where the moon just barely covers the sun. As the moon is slowly spiraling outward, this will no longer be the case in a few hundred million years and we will get less interesting, less frequent eclipses. Similarly, a few hundred million years ago the moon had a larger angular size than the sun, so eclipses were more frequent.

So there you have it-the update from the speck of the universe called Portugal. I promise to fill everyone in on dark matter vs dark energy on the next one. In the meantime: spread some chaos around; or don't. But whatever you do: 

don't be tired.

Chico weighing in for later official comparison

One of several death marches through the desert

New fav cafe next to new fav sushi

F on his evening stroll through the hood

Força Portugal!

An alert blog reader has informed me that there has not been a blog since January. Since it is now July, I will try finally to write something down. First stop after crazy town Miami was Comporta- a chic bohemian beach town about an hour south of Lisbon with very attractive architecture: contemporary takes on straw huts, and houses filled with African art. It has none of the Mc Mansion vibe of Quinta do Lago where I am now. 

In Comporta there are lovely dunes with beach restaurants, and fewer golf courses or tennis centers. Last time we were there (see previous blog with green pool), I remarked that the visitors were chic French people or middle aged Lisboners who seemed to be in love after many years of marriage. 

We rented a nice house last year with the idea of quarantining here before seeing the Wehlens; they did not take a refund, so we went this year (ACB had business in Geneva so the whole gang came along). The house overlooks these large rice fields- a 10 minute bike ride to the beach. Our basic routine was no routine, eight people all of whom woke at different times, ate different breakfasts, exercised at different hours, and had widely different opinions on drip vs espresso. F and Hanna seemed partial to a quiet relaxing breakfast a deux in town charged on my card, while Kate and Charlie played things more by ear. I don't have much to say on Comporta other than it is stylish and wonderful and you should all visit. 

Everything was made more poignant of course by this horrible pandemic, and we all noticed little things more acutely: Margaret said after she heard us laughing as we played Around The World ping pong, that she thought every mile of the 6,000 miles traveled was worth it. I began noticing how little birds hop instead of walk, and that seemed to me as good a reason as any to get up in the morning. 

 I had plans to really hit the vacation ground running post vaccine; but the truth is it really won't be a hot vaxed summer for any of us. There are too many people dead to forget, and so many who can't get the shots, or worse, think it will interfere with the reception on their tin foil hats. In addition, it seems that staying inside for 18 months has aged most of us quite a bit and I am not sure the strength is coming back. So here chez Wehlen we are moving very slowly- as we hope liberal applications of sun and movement will coax us back to the way we were. 

 Thomas and I have a tendency to try to get people back up on their horses, to "force people to their happiness" as the Germans say. Many of our people do not appreciate this; but we are not deterred. Four out of five of us now go to the physical therapist twice a week. (C is the only abstainer); Thomas makes protein smoothies for his mother and makes her do her homework from the physio. In the evening we have "concerts" in the car to keep the synapses firing-last night was Paul Simon (whom they loved), followed by Eminem. They say they don't understand what Eminem is saying, but "he seems serious about it". Every evening we say to each other that we should leave them alone and let them live their day without our coaching; and every day we forget. 

 As usual we play tennis and go to the gym (hence the need for physical therapy) and I have added lap swims in an attempt to get better at swimming. Thomas agreed to look at my stroke and just couldn't resist walking back and forth along the pool like the coach he is. As happens every year, I worry that we are supposed to be in Portugal but see mostly tennis courts. All this constant activity is very un-Comporta where the ethos is more geared toward long lunches and fewer knee bends. 

 The two big changes we see around here are there are noticeably more rolls royces and padel tennis is now the thing the hip elderly are playing. The cars are difficult to explain- there was always the occasional Lamborghini driven by a soccer player, but now there is one after the other of these ridiculous Rolls Royces- they seem so out of place by the beach. I guess enough people came down here during Covid and the cars (and dogs!) came too. The padel tennis is not the same sport that one plays on the roof of the QM2; that is paddle, and this is padel. This kind is played in mostly Latin countries and the ball can be played off of the glass wall. It looks ridiculous, but the players are mucho serous about it- and have headbands and fancy rackets cases like a professional tennis player lugs around Wimbledon only these are tiny. We are both very tempted to try it and happy scoffing at them from the sidelines. 

We are hoping to put a few pounds on F after his last hellish semester in which he took four classes (the average number people take is three) while doing his research project. Margaret was quite astonished at the sight and set about getting calories into him even if it meant taking food out of her own children's mouths. Below is what we will refer to as the "before" photo. I shall post an after if any progress is made. 

Is any one else suffering from existential dread this summer? (Asking for a friend). Uncle T seemed sure this would be like the summer of 67 in the Haight Ashbury- all joy and babes from out of town. 

I feel more like the ground hog who is not sure he wants to come out. Outside is so bright- the earth is either burning or flooding, and everyone seems so fragile. Were human bones always this breakable? 

I want to be like those suburbanites in the 50s who were happy mowing their lawns; not a thought given to heat waves or cancer. But because this blog aims above all else to raise the level of its readers sleep quality; it will henceforth add a section: "Tidbits of Astrophysics that are so mind bending, one cannot help but think it is all going to be ok." (TFATASMOCHBTIIAGTBO; aka: TFATOK). 

Stay tuned loyalists...In the meantime. just concentrate on the very smallest things- not the backhand but the angle of the wrist while hitting it; not the flower, but the cute bug walking on it; not the bird, but its song.  

TFATOK!

emotional landing in Lisbon - first time in Europe in so long

Living room I could move in right now

This is sort of a spring time in Dachau look for Chico...."astrophysicist chic" 

Cuzzys

Path along rice fields 

This is your average middle aged man's attire at the beach in Comporta. Scarf is mandatroy

Our new fav lunch place in Quinta- in a huge outdoor nursery

Getting ready to face Miami international

Kids bar by the pool

Hip Comporta beach restaurant