Ever since Mr. Coronavirus waved his disease-ridden middle finger at the entire world, I’ve had to make up for the loss of exercise from our community pool (which might look like a large pond of green Jello by now if they haven’t been chlorinating it) by taking more walks than I ever have.
According to the Health app on my iPhone, I walked an average of 3.1 miles (about 5 kilometers) a day in October, which is just short of 100 miles (about 16,093,400 millimeters). See, the metric system is so awesome because it makes it so easy to convert measurements. Look Ma, I walked over 160 million micrometers last month!
Anyway, as a result of all that walking, Carolyn tells me I could probably hammer a nail with my butt. So I tried it. Unfortunately, I had the nail turned the wrong way. (It is quite difficult to see back there!)
One of the two benefits of that misguided attempt includes the expression of the emergency room doctor. After he asked why I was there, I told him it was because I had been nailed in the butt.
The other is that I can revel in even more priceless expressions when I tell people that I now have two butt holes.
Sometimes you’ve gotta sacrifice your body for your art.
So what does A Stone Age Circus in Portugal mean, you might ask, as you carefully steer the topic away from my bottom?
Cue the projector!
Just up the road from our home they’re building a new house. Their first order of business was of course to clear the land, which mostly means digging up tons of rocks. (interestingly, 2 “tons” equals 1.81437 “tonnes.” Go figure.)When I saw all of the huge rocks they dredged up, I gained additional appreciation as to why I find it so hard to grow new plants in our soil. It’s hard to grow stuff when there’s likely a boulder just a couple of inches (50,800 micrometers) down!It looks like they’re adding a pool, which also serves to provide them with an ever-increasing supply of boulders…… which they cleverly use to build quite a massively thick wall. The Portuguese are very good at making do with the materials at hand, and there’s no better example than this Great Wall of Sesimbra!
Okay, now cue the circus music: Da da daddla da da dah dah dah!
Later on during my walk I noticed this long rope stretched across a chasm. I was puzzled by it. Were they starting a bridge? Were they roping off some accident? Did too many planes fly that low? Did someone lose a roll of toilet paper in the wind?So I walked closer to investigate, and lo and behold, it turned out it was either some daredevil escapade or this is where they practice for the circus. A lone man had inched his way along the rope, and was now dangling over a drop to certain death.Here he is dangling upside down, after trying to walk it, getting about two wobbly steps in, and then plunging downward only to be saved by his safety straps. Boy howdy, what some people do for fun!You have to admit, they picked a pretty area; I never tire of the scenery as I take my walks. I just didn’t know I’d be treated to a circus preview while doing it!
I posted a couple of videos of the guy crossing the chasm here on Facebook.
Follow up Q &A:
Q: Did you really try and drive a nail with your butt?
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