{maique}

A lot less work, a lot more fun. It was that kind of a week. Not a bad one.

• 🩰 Second ballet class for the little one, I made it this time around. She is SO happy to be there, it was the first time we heard “You two can go, I’ll stay here”. Ever!

• ⭐️ M.b meetup in Lisbon, with Mr David. By now It’s a regular thing, I consider him a local already. In fact, when I think about it, I see David more often than some people who live here, next to me, all year.

• 🎨 We visited Joana Vasconcelos exhibition at the MAAT museum this week. The show is there until March, but this is one of those things where we just have to go, and not postpone. We know ourselves. Anyway, we got the car, picked the little one from school, and drove there. It’s a ten minute drive, but as we got there it felt like we were entering a parallel universe. The weather went from sunny and warm, to foggy and chilly in a second. Odd. We went it (the show has pieces on both buildings) and had fun, as one does on her shows. I like her work, and it is perfect for kids too, we found out. tinyMovieStar wanted to touch everything! I’d seen one of the pieces already, many years ago, in Macao. It felt a lot grander there, in the MGM lobby, with a gigantic aquarium, and much taller room. Still loved the show. We all did.

• 🥰 Fun with tinyMovieStar is now a constant thing, as she’s turning into quite the companion. Chatty and smart, cute and funny, she’s a super company when walking about. movieStar had a hairdresser appointment this week, we all walked there, and then the both of us kept busy walking around, touristing, while she had stuff done to her hair. We went shopping, visited the tourist spots in the area, walked by the brewery owned by one of our friends, people watched, and went back to pick up movieStar. We were having so much fun, she was done by the time we got there!

• 👨🏻‍🏫 On Friday I drove to Setubal, for a photography class. An old friend is teaching a course there, and asked me to join him, for a special appearance. I did, of course. Packed a bunch of photos on a USB drive, and showed those, along with a few stories about the old days. Every time I do these I can’t help but to feel privileged. I did have an incredibly rich professional life, and it’s kind of sad that no one is now able to do what we did. We were very very lucky back then. I try not to bring their dreams down too much but, for kids just getting started into, specifically, photojournalism in this country, things don’t look very bright.

• 🍛 The weekend was a bit different, as we didn’t meet my parents. Mom had eye surgery (everything is fine), she couldn’t host the usual lunch. On the other hand we had cousins visiting from the UK at my in-laws, who were joined by a few more who live around here. Fun times for everyone. Over eating, again, but the food is SO yummy, I can’t help it.

• 🚚 I moved (am moving) sticker spotter around. It’s is now part of the maique.eu conglomerate! Muahahahahahah (evil laugh!)

• 📺 New week, a few more episodes of Patriot. Still finding it entertaining. We watched the four episodes of Beckham. Really nice, came out of it liking the guy a lot. Started watching Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul. Mostly because I enjoy these documentaries, but also because I LOVED my Juul, back when I smoked. This is what I was smoking when tinyMovieStar was born, and I’ll always remember that. (It’s been over five months since I last smoked, by the way. Still going!)

• 🤓 You probably know already that I love Drafts, that I spend a lot of time on Drafts. And still only use a few of the hundreds of features the app provides. This week I booted Mint on the laptop again, and was struggling to find a good way to have stuff I write there available on iOS/macOS. I was already considering Standard Notes (why the hell is this one so incredibly expensive? Don’t get it), Joplin, or other solutions. Even a simple draft on Fastmail… Then it hit me! Drafts Mail Drop! It’s perfect. A draft on FastMail, and I just send it. It’s available immediately, on iOS, and whenever I get back to macOS. Awesome.