When it rains, it pours..

I found a job, and that is wonderful. I am greatful, I really am. But for the rest of it, I kinda feel like this:


See, at this point in the series, Martin Sheen, the president has just lost his personal secretary. He is about to disclose to the nation he has MS and is unsure if the public or the dumocRATS will accept him. He is having a crisis of faith and conscience.

Things here right now are rough too. But hey, that's life sometimes. Thumbs up to those who know the latin without having to google it.

Goodbye Garanhuns...

After close to 5 years, I must bid farewell to Garanhuns. I mentioned it earlier, but my wife has gotten pretty sick. Leukemia and cancer of the uterus. She went ahead with the kids to the city where her sister lives where the hospitals are better equipped and in fact one of them specializes in Leukemia. This is all bittersweet for me. I've only lived in3 places and Garanhuns by far was my favorite. But things change, nothing is permanent, and it's not like I really have a choice in this one. No one knows what will happen as far has my wife goes. New place, need to make new contacts, look for a job, start over, and hope for the best. I don't know how often I will be able to post in the beginning, but I will try to do my best. So long Garanhuns and thanks for the memories,

Why I haven't posted in a while..

A lot has happened, and is going on. My (common law) wife has been diagnosed with leukemia and uterine cancer. Double whammy. Earlier this year she moved to another city where her sisters live and the hospitals are better equipped to treat her. In the middle of December I am moving down to be with her.

So how am I dealing with all this?

I remember this:



And if you fancy the original:



ENJOY!! :)

History Repeats Itself, Family Edition Olympic Special

I used to be a big fan of the Olympics. Of course this was when the Cold War was in full swing. To be honest, I miss having nations to "root" against. I used to laugh my ass off whenever an Eastern Bloc "amateur" failed miserably. Anyways, Erito "Junior", Adriana's oldest, studies during the day, so he spends the afternoons now watching some of the coverage. His favorite sport so far is Figure Skating, cause he just loves to laugh like I did whenever someone takes a spill. He just sits and waits regardless of the nation they represent, hoping for a stumble. It doesn't matter the sport anymore, he just wants to see someone fall or get smacked. He's a big 3 stooges fan. His mom started to get cheesed off, but I said "Hey, I did the same thing.." It has been fun watching him enjoy the Olympics, and he wants to know why they don't show it more often. I explained the 4 years thing, but now he is getting ready for the Summer Olympics. What amused me was how he sat there doing the same exact thing when I was his age. Good to know I was not alone.

My First Full Day: Size DOES Matter

Well, today was my first full day in Miami. My body was still set to Garanhuns time, and i could not sleep past 3AM (Miami time). Did quite a bit today. First, I noticed The Herald has shrunk in size. I mean A LOT!! It is freakin' tiny. Nowhere near the size when I left!! We visited my grandma, which wa snice, and she will celebrate her 90th birthday next week. My sister and niece will visit, which is GREAT. I also went to Burger King. The large is HUGE. I mean Super Size was not that big when I left!! I hadn't had "fast food" in close to four years and that thing laid in my stomach like a ton of bricks. All in all, nice for the first day back. More to come...

I'm Going Home

After close to 4 years in Brazil (I arrived this last time on Jan. 30, 2006) I am going home for a short visit. Funny that, even though my life is here (Garanhuns) now, I still consider my mom's place, and the States home. Anyways, to celebrate, I present my favorite part the Woodstock documentary. Ten Years After doing I'm Going Home..

LottoFever in Brazil

When I was a kid, there was this TV program my sister and I enjoyed, called Lottery. It was about this mythical national lottery. Two guys, one from the lottery and another from the IRS would travel around the country, informing the winners and the taxman would then take his cut. This show provided one of the great family memories. it was Christmastime. This one particular show dealt with a cameraman at a local news station. The anchor woman was a real nasty piece of work who belittled all her coworkers, but was loved by the audience who only got to see her perky personality. The important thing here is, the camera man won the lottery. To get back at the anchor woman, he flipped the camera on during one of her tirades, and it gets transmitted on air, for everyone to see what she really is like. My sister and I must have really enjoyed this for some reason, because we started cheering and saying "oooh, burn, burn burn.." For reasons we never really understood then, and I doubt we ever will, this led my father to believe the Christmas tree was on fire, and he ran out of the bathroom in a panic. Anyways, lotto fever has hit Brazil. They are giving away a mega jackpot for the end of the year. The prize is R$120,000,000. And someone HAS to win. If no one picks all 6 numbers, they will distribute it to those who picked 5 of the 6 numbers. If no one has 5 numbers, they will distribute it among tose who picked 4, etc.. Now I really don't play MegaSena. I prefer the two soccer lotteries. One is called Loteca, where they give you 14 games, and you have to pick one team or the other, or a tie. If you pick 14 you get the grand prize, 13 also wins, but not near as much. LotoGol has only 5 games, but here you pick the muber of goals each team will score, 0, 1, 2, 3, or more than 3 (3+). Here you win with 5, 4, or 3 correct scores. The kids saw all the media hype with this end of year drawing and asked to buy one ticket. Everyone picked one number, except for Eric, who could not decide who his favorite player is, Ronaldo (#9) or Kaka, (#10), so we threw both of his in. You never know when lady luck knocks on your door...

History repeats itself, family edition

The very first apartment I lived in when I was a kid was on the second floor. We had this large glass window from which you could see the cars driving into and out of the apartment parking lot. Everyday, as my dad would drive off to work, he would stop and wave back at my mom and I. I must have been no more than 3 or 4 at the time. One day, for whatever reason, my dad was in a rush and he drove off without waving. I remember crying and crying and left the living room. My mom, trying to minimize the situation, shouted "Danny, he came back he came back, run, run.." Of course, he hadn't driven back she was trying to make me feel better, but I remember feeling worse because I "missed" him a second time. Anyways, we have a bus stop right in front of our house. Now I usually walk everywhere but Adriana tires easy so she usually takes the bus. As she gets on, Eric always shouts out the front door (we have these little 'windows' on them, where the door is closed but there is an opening that allows you to see the street), "mãinha, mãinha" (mommie, mommie) and she waves back. Mãinha, by the way, is used mostly in the Northeast of Brazil, most everyone else just uses "Mãe", or 'mom'. Today for whatever reason she didn't turn back and Eric started to cry, thinking she didn't hear him, or whatever, but all I could think of was when I went through the same thing way back when. I almost thought of pulling the same "she came back" on him, but I remembered it made me feel worse that I had missed him so I just let it go. He forgot the whole thing in about 15 minutes, but it just made me remember that earlier incident.

Lost in Translation

There used to be a running joke in Star Trek TNG where they would quote Shakespeare and the Klingons would reply "it's just not the same from the original Klingon", implying that his workds were orginally in their language. I kinda related to it after I moved to Brasil and read Hemingway or other English authors in Portuguese. I never really thought about it when I read Dostoyevsky or other authors whose original language was not English. (BTW, you have never really read Dostoyevsky till you read it in Portuguese). Marti is pretty good in Portuguese too. Anyways, the other day I was in the DVD rental place and saw the first season of The Muppet Show. I grabbed it in a instant and rushed home. Now, at first, I watched it alone in English. Then, when the kids got home I ranted and raved about what a great show it was, how I watched it as a kid, blablabla, yadayadayada. So I switched the audio to Portuguese for them to watch. It just wasn't the same. I mean, Jim Henson is Kermit, Ms. Piggy is Frank Oz, as sure as the Sun rises in the East. My favorites, Waldorf and Statler, the two old guys who used to complain about everything, their wisecracks didn't have the same effect. The kids, they enjoyed it though. Eric and Ericka laughed the whole way through. Adriana just kept looking at us, shaking her head saying I was more a kids then they are.

Updates, Updates, Updates

Well, I want to start off by saying sorry I did not update for a while. After the season ended a lot of things came up and I truly did not have the time. I thought the season ending would mean a lighter load, and nothing could be further from the truth. Let me recap the situation with the team. It won its final game and we got the result we needed in the other game, and Sete stayed in the first division. It went down to the wire, but the balls bounced our way. We are already working towards next season, and hopefully we can do better.

On the family side, I had to play a huge "daddy" role today. One of the dogs that lives at the stadium had puppies some time back, and little by little they went missing. One day when I went to take food for her, I found the head of one of the puppies. I don't know what was worse, the fact that I found the head, or the fact that I did not find the rest of the body. Their pen is separated by fences from the rest of the stadium, but I thought maybe the guard dogs, real mean pitbulls, found a way in and got to them. I took the remaining puppy home for the night to clean her up and keep her out of the cold (winter is starting here, more on that later). The next day I took her mom up to one of the press boxes where I know the other dogs could not get to them and put the puppy with her. The kids enjoyed taking care of the puppy for the night, and they took turns staying up and holding her so she would not be cold. Today, when I went to take food for them I found the puppy in bad shape. It seems it was their mom who was the guilty one. The puppy had some bite marks, but she wasn't bleeding or anything and was whimpering. I carried her back home but I knew she would not last long. I thought maybe we could make the last few moments a bit calmer. The kids laid her in a basket and wrapped her up. They started to pull some fleas off her. In about half an hour she just gave out. The kids of course were sad, but I explained about the circle of life and The Lion King and how nothing lasts for ever, but the important thing was we helped the puppy when she needed us. After some crying and a talk about doggie heaven they felt better.

In regards to Garanhuns, winter is starting to creep in. People joke that Miami has two seasons, Summer A and Summer B. Well, Garanhuns has two seasons, Summer and Winter. No in-between changes at all. One day the sun is blazing close to 95 F, the next it is raining, the wind is blowing and you can kiss the sun goodbye. I happed to love winter here. The rain is usually a fine mist, sometimes heavier, and constant. The wind blows hard, and since the city is tucked into 7 hills, it can be pretty hard at times. During the day the temperature is in the mid 50s and at night it is in the 40s. Never freezing but it can feel very cold at times. Some days it rains for 24 hours. You have 3 or 4 days of light rain and then all of a sudden you have a whole day which is beautiful, only to have the rain start up again once the sun sets. A curious thing is most of the people who have lived here all their lives never seem to get used to it, they all bundle up looking like something out of Nanook from the North.

Finally, "Peperone" Pizza.

If there is one story my father told me about his adjusting to life in the States after leaving Cuba sticks out in my mind, it's the "Pepperoni Pizza" story. My father told me how he loved it, but he did not know what it was called. He would go and ask for a slice, but he never got what he wanted. He would try to describe it, but he would get ham. He tried translating it (I guess he thought it was 'salsicha', but he would get sausage. One day the person at the counter walked away with a slice and he said "That. That is what I want". At the time, I never thought I would live in another country, and go through a similar experience. Obviously, my adaptation is "not the same" as his. For one, I "wanted" to move to Brazil, and was not forced to leave because of a revolution. I was already fluent in Portuguese, enough to go around the country being able to communicate most requests. Still, there were words I did not know, mostly names of specific foods. I repeated a lot of meals because it was all I knew how to say. Early on when my accent was thick, I got a lot of orders wrong. With time things got better and today it is pretty rare when I encounter a similar situation.

On to the pepperoni pizza. First, you need to understand that Brazilian pizza is very different from pizza in the States. The dough is thicker, more so than deep dish style. It is loaded, I mean loaded with toppings. The very first time I had a pizza here I grabbed it with my hands and it was so thick and full of toppings that it fell apart. They usually do not use tomato sauce. It is common to see people put ketchup and mayonnaise. The toppings are VERY different. These are a few pizzas on the menu:

"Americana"
Tomato sauce, tuna, 'palmito' (palm heart), peas, onions, mozzarella
Note that they specifically mention it has tomato sauce, and despite the fact that they say this is an "American" pizza, the only toppings I have seen on a pizza in the States from that list is the sauce, cheese, and onions.

"Mangiatore"
Strombolli type, stuffed with ricotta, escarola, mozzarella, garlic, anchovies, parmesean, and oregano

"Carne Seca"
Tomato sauce, dried beef (kinda like beef jerky), mozzarella and oregano

They even have dessert and sweet pizzas:
"Romeu e Juieta"
Mozzarella cheese and Guava (no sauce)

"Pizza Doce"
Bananas, sugar, and cinnamon

"Chocofesta I and II"
Chocolate and your choice of strawberries or coconut.

Despite all this choice of toppings, I could not get pepperoni pizza. Not because I did not know how to say it, it just was not a common topping in this region. The closest thing is "calabresa" which is like salami. I would try and describe it, but most people had no idea what I was talking about. The pizza was good, but it really wasn't what I wanted. I swear I thought about my father every time I went to have pizza and could not get pepperoni.

Not too long ago one of my favorite bars closed and a pizzaria opened up in its place. Saturday night I went with Adriana to try it out, and much to my delight I read:

"Peperone "
Molho de tomate (Tomato sauce) mussarela, peperone e oregano

I was so friggin happy. I could not believe it. The waiter even asked me if I wanted it with tomato sauce (OF-FRIGGIN-COURSE). Much like my father must have been that day, I was so happy to finally be able to eat what I wanted in the first place.

All this being said, anyone comes down to Garanhuns and we can go down to "Pizzaria Due Fratelli" for some really interesting pies!!

Family Addition!!

Sorry Ma, it is not THE addition you were waiting for, but it is an addition nonetheless!! Presenting, PINGA!! See, the doggie is Pingo, so his "sister" will be called Pinga. Now, the word does not mean here the same thing it means to Cubans, so I get a kick out of it. Hey, it's just me being me.