O Meu Diário de Coimbra

Mrs. Lucifer and salty water wine

At my Indian kebab place last Monday night, sitting on a lopsided yellow table on broken cobblestones, I overheard a woman, walking with a man — they were arm-in arm — say, “I know not all Germans are fun, that’s not my point.”

I didn’t expect to hear anything funnier the rest of the week.

But I did see something.

Outside my bank, on Wednesday, a woman was wearing a t-shirt that read, O teu pai é o meu cardio (“Your dad is my cardio”). Wanted to get a picture, but didn’t know the proper way to ask a Portuguese woman — I am still a guest in this land after all — “Would you arch your back and push your tits out as far as you can so I can get a photo of the words on your shirt? I have this blog, you see, and it would be just a perfect photo for it.”

Incidentally, there were fireworks at the Indian restaurant, not literally, but the owners, the husband and wife, were yelling at each other. The husband left in huff; the wife yelled after him. She’s a pro, though, because even as she was screaming, she was making my Dürüm Kebab — and the kebab, as it turned out, was better than ever. Maybe that’s the secret to being successful in the kitchen.

Cook angry.

When I went inside to return my tray, the husband had returned and was sitting inside with their son, drinking Cokes, while the wife cooked. Husband and wife seemed fine. They clearly know how to argue and move on.

Still, I thought of that joke about old Jews, partners in the garment center, and how after years of arguing, one was so fed up with the other, he decided to fling himself out the window of their 11th-story warehouse. While falling, he passes the sixth floor window and sees his partner hunched over a table with bolts of fabric. His last words to his partner as he plummets to his death: “Schmuck, cut more velvet.”