Sweet Dreams (are made of this)

Everybody's looking for something. Even catfishers and prison guards.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

The first text arrived while I was waiting for Mexican food at an expat meetup in a hip little Caldas da Rainha art bar.

“How long will it take for a cake to be delivered to xxxx (address redacted) Beverly Hills, 90210?”

At first blush, I wondered what the hell my younger daughter was ordering now. A recent college grad, she is moving from the palatial group house she shared in Playa del Rey to a more modest apartment in Culver City.

“Fency lady from der höchste Fenster.” In what was perhaps indicative of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cat-fighting of that era, my dowdy immigrant great-grandmother used this phrase to disparage my mother’s hoity-toity tastes (which my elegant other immigrant great-grandmother appreciated and shared). Apparently it refers to the aristocratic women in the Old Country who would peer out from the high windows of their abodes to order their goods, which were then delivered via rope and pulley.

Despite their different stations in life, both my great-grandmothers ended up in the same place. My younger daughter has inherited the genes from the fency lady side of the family.

It took a few ? and ??? to establish that the texter had the wrong number (provided by someone named Linda) and the cake was for an employee’s birthday celebration the next day. An assistant was being dispatched to the cake shop to sort things out. I said I hoped they enjoyed their cake. That should have been the end of it.

“You are a kind person,” said the texter.

“Not only did you not get angry or insult me because I sent the wrong message, but you patiently explained the mistake to me. You have a good temper.”

Here I should explain that though the wine was flowing, the food was not, because the hip little art bar was overwhelmed by the 40 dinner patrons. I was just happy to be there. In addition to the friends we made at our table, a parade of other patrons came by to introduce themselves. A singer from New Jersey. An ebullient wings aficionado from Texas with a benevolent husband.

I went over the to DJ, who was sitting dourly in silence thinking he had to wait until the food arrived to provide mood music. We chatted about Salvador Sobral. Soon, soft ambient music began to play. It went very well with the easy-to-drink wine.

Somewhere along the way I mentioned to the texter (who I imaged was a beleaguered female administrative assistant afraid of catching hell for screwing up the cake order) that I was in Portugal. Turns out, the texter had been here in 2018.

J was telling our table mates about the great day he’d had wingfoiling, with a south wind blowing. Every day there have been different foilers and kiteboarders on the water — a family from Switzerland, an American couple on a two-month bike trip, an Israeli, a couple of engineers from Germany. The teachers are French, Brazilian, Czech, and American. It’s a convivial scene and when the wind is down, there’s a chance to get acquainted before going out on another exhilarating ride.

That day, J was on the water with a Portuguese kiteboarder who revealed that he is a prison guard in a nearby city. J asked if the prisons here are rough. He thinks that the guard said they are not, because the prisons mainly contains pedophiles and rapists. But things can get lost in translation. Anyway, according to the prison guard, all the inmates say they are innocent.

The wind picked up and off they went.

I learned that the texter enjoyed visiting Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon and Pena Palace in Sintra.

“I heard the beaches near Caldas da Rainha are beautiful. How do you feel?”

“Very happy and ready to move here,” I responded.

“Maybe I will choose to move to Bali or Greece in the future, which are also two very beautiful places.“

That text was accompanied by a photo from Paros Island.

The beautiful beach at Foz do Arelho

Still no food, but we were thoroughly enjoying the wine and our table mates, though I was feeling a little addled bouncing from one conversation to the other. I was relieved when my fish tacos arrived.

As dinner wrapped up and we’d made arrangements to have dinner with our new friends the following week, the texter also wanted to take things to the next level.

“It seems that you like traveling very much, too. I think you must have been to many countries and beautiful spots.”

“Yes, I love seeing the world and meeting people,” I said.

I tried to close the conversation by bringing it back to the cake.

“Maybe we will have the chance to travel together in the future,” said the texter.

After that, I said it was late and I needed to say goodbye. He told me his name was Jack and sent me his picture.

The next day, when selecting pictures for an Instagram post from our trip to Coimbra, a renowned center of learning since 1290, I discovered that Jack hadn’t just sent one picture, but a series of photos of himself posing at various travel sites around the world, which were now downloaded onto my phone.

“Is that all,” asked my friend D, who had been with me that night. “No dick pix,” I reassured her.

On Sunday, we hung out with the regular beach volleyball crowd, an interesting mix of ages, nationalities, and skill levels. The week before, I’d touched a volleyball for the first time since middle school PE, 50 years ago. I wanted to refresh my skills before joining a serious game, so I paired up with a Ukrainian couple, to get some lessons from a really nice 17-year-old boy and his mom, volleyball regulars.

Afterwards, we sat on a blanket and chatted with the other spectators, while a spirited volleyball game was underway. The Ukrainians had recently moved to the area after spending a year in a remote inland Portuguese town. I didn’t ask them how they got there, if they were war refugees, about their visa status, or their future plans.

Others on the blanket told stories of the humiliation they and their friends had been subjected to when attempting to obtain visas, even though they had stable employment and lives. We talked about language and how it can be a gateway of understanding and the differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese. I fantasized about creating a new language that was an amalgamation of all the best slang words from every language.

Here we were, a seemingly disparate group of people together on a Sunday, united by our love of sports and sunshine, appreciating getting to know one another with nothing standing in our way.

“Borders are an artificial construct,” I mused, even though I had spent several years of my life defending them, with my power to grant or deny visas. I am sure that some applicants felt humiliated when I refused to let them in.

Jack from Beverly Hills promised he’d let me know how things turned out with the cake but I never heard from him again. I don’t know if he was hungry for a real connection or if this could have devolved into me being flattered and persuaded to send him money.

I guess I can always text him and find out.