Merry Christmas 2008

Here is our Family Christmas Picture for Christmas 2008. We couldn't get the cats to behave for the picture (they take after me) so we left them out. It's sweltering holiday weather here, except for the sudden unexpected showers that soaked my dry clothes that were hanging on the line this morning.

Here is the aloe plant we chose for our tree this year, mostly since it was the only foliage not completely devoured by the 4,572 species of ants that make our house their home.

We are celebrating one year of marriage on December 29, and we have had a great year, for which we are very thankful. We wish all our friends and family a great Christmas and a fantastic 2009!

Enticing product names

A few weeks back I was talking to myself about how sometimes it would be nice to have another English-speaker to talk to. I love my husband and his family and all my other Brazilian comrades, but there are times when it would be nice to have someone around to make little jokes about daily life with.

Take, for instance, the evening when I was faced with a terrible dilemma: which on-sale item should I buy -- Vigor Potty or Batmilk? The image in my head of the bat-dairy farmer hunched over, painstakingly pinch-pumping the teats of thousands of little flying rodents, was very appealing to me. However, I couldn't entirely disregard the enticing enigma of the Vigor Potty either. Did I even want to know the meaning of it?

The choice was simply too delightful. I bought them both, and took them home to my husband, who has always been big on solidarity. After I translated the joke for him, he chortled dutifully.

White legs with Horse and Child

Here is a picture of Lucas and me getting to know the horsey.

When I saw this picture, what I noticed first was not the memorable moment of taking a one-and-a-half year old for a lurchy horse ride. I noticed that after 5-and-a-half years in sunny Brazil, my legs have nothing to show for it.

Lucas's sister Bia has told me a few times that I need to go to the beach so I can "get more black". I have to keep explaining to her that I could stay out on the beach all day, but I wouldn't get more black, just red or maybe even purple and blistery.

Stuck in the middle

The 6th birthday party of my 2nd-cousin-in-law(?) was a very emotional moment. Henrique (right) blew as hard as he could to extinguish the candle, and Isaías (left) couldn't resist helping him.


Their cousin Ana was overcome with warm birthday sentiments and rushed over to give Henrique a tight birthday hug. For a few moments, she didn't realize that a smaller someone was being inadvertently smothered in the gesture.


"Hey, guys! ...Guys! ...Hey, this hug is nice and all but I am trying to breathe here...!"

Meme

The Dry Wash has tagged me in a meme which I am quite certain has made its way now all around my blogging family.

Unfortunately for my readers, all my books tend to have to do with violence. I have nothing cheerful to offer thee.

This is from page 123 of Covering Violence: A guide to ethical reporting about victims and trauma, by William Cote and Roger Simpson:

The loudest cries of rage and hurt come when pictures and sounds collide with viewers' and listeners' sensibilities. Visual and audio media make an instant impression on the eye and ear, in contrast to the newspaper reader's more deliberate choice to read or keep reading printed text word for word. By the time we decide we do not want to see the image or hear the details, it is too late; the real or the mental picture is in our brain for better or for worse.

Renovations

If I had realized how little effort it would take to get my family to visit, I would have made these renovations the very first day. Field and Garden Dream will appreciate (I hope) the new paint job and Slowlane will be comforted by the new water faucets I have installed (hopefully she will not find it disturbing that I have water coming out of the electric pole...)

For my most recent blog visitor, "V", I am happy to report that we have no hallways so there is no need to turn sideways. We do have a narrow winding staircase that no one more rotund than Eduardo can pass through. But since the bathroom is downstairs, there is no need to go upstairs anyway. And if you really really must, you can just scale the electric pole/water pipe, jump over the roof, and go through the doorway-with-no-door on the other side (Watch out that the other faucet doesn't catch you in the crotch though! Owie!).

My New House

Slowlane has been complaining about not having anything to look at, so I have decided to display my new house here for her. Perhaps she will not only be less bored, but she will decide to come visit because she will see that it is such a fantastic place even if it only has running water once every four days. That's what I'm hoping, anyway.


First, I will show you the backyard. Here I am in front of our papaya tree, holding a blender full of acerolas that we picked of our acerola tree that is not in the picture. In the picture you can see our half-finished cistern that the owner of our house is making so that someday we will have water everyday instead of once every four days.



Here's the front of our house. It is peach-colored like most of the houses I have rented, which is ironic because I don't like peach colored houses. If we buy the house someday, I will paint it green. The car in the picture is borrowed, it doesn't belong to us. It only hangs out with me when it is in the mood to get a flat tire.

We like our house a lot. Come visit!