Before and After

Juan Carlos' and Julio's ceiling BEFORE:

And, now, Juan Carlos' and Julio's ceiling AFTER two weeks of annoying men in my house working for 5 to 8 hour days:


Drum Roll,Please...








Ta-Da:

What's sadly missing is a "during" photo that would have shown the ceiling in near perfect condition. Remember how I mentioned that it seemed wrong that they were starting fixing the walls first, before tackling the source of the problem? Well, they worked and worked, removed the old paint and plaster,re-plastered, lovingly sanded it down to smooth perfection and were just about ready to paint the thing and call it done when it all came tumbling down AGAIN.

When Guapo stayed home from work to basically say, "I told you so," their reply was, "Well, we didn't know about that problem"



???

Someday I'll laugh about this right? Just probably not today (at least not without some sort of mood altering drug)...

Deep Breath...Deep Breath

Just a little post to enumerate the reasons why this day has been totally annoying.

1) I spent 3 hours this morning searching a number of stores for the one type of nasty long-life milk that my family will actually drink, with no success. This is not an uncommon type of milk, it's just that apparently NO ONE has it right now.

2) The company that's going to fix the leakage problems finally gave the estimate and was going to stop by Thursday to see what materials they needed so they could start Thursday. They didn't show up Wednesday. Of course they didn't call or anything to let us know they weren't coming or anything. They finally stopped by Thursday afternoon. But did they start today? No!They couldn't possibly start a job of Friday, that would be crazy! Oh, and now they are estimating 45 days instead of 15.

Who's surprised?

3) We're having Julio's birthday party tonight and my maid's two boys showed up this afternoon unannounced and uninvited. When I asked why the didn't have school she told me "oh, they're sick."

Do I need to elaborate, or can you feel my anger seething through cyberspace?

Trying to look on the bright side:

1) Pedro's been accident free for days.

2) I crushed a 12 year old boy at tennis today.

Why I Fear for the Olympics

Remember my post about the ceiling in Julio's and Juan Carlos' room?

That was 2 weeks ago today. Would you like to see what it looks like now?

The main problem area is larger, a lot of the drywall has fallen off; the red arrows are pointing to areas that are now bubbling up (down?) and dripping water.

What has been done to fix this problem?

Ab-so-lute-ly NOTHING.

Let's review timeline of events, shall we?

Three weeks ago:

The problem starts.

Many calls were put in to the owner of the apartment, as she, under Brazilian law, is to have a say in who fixes her property.

She doesn't answer her phone. Her husband doesn't answer his.

Two weeks ago:

Guapo has someone at his office find a reputable company to come out and take a look at the problem. They come out the day of my last post about it, and tell us they will send someone the next day to take the measurements to do the estimate.

Guapo finally gets a hold of the apartment owner. She is irritated with us that we have "waited" so long to call her, implying that it is now our fault that this is such a big problem. She insists on sending out her guy to check things out. But of course, he can't come until the next week.

He finally comes and says the same thing the first guy said, basically that the whole apartment is falling apart and it needs to be redone. It's raining the day he comes and he says he has to wait until it's been dry a few days to see if it drips when it hasn't been raining, even though I already explained to him that it had been dripping for 2 weeks rain or shine. I mean, who am I to know about such technical issues as dripping water? He tells me he'll come Monday if it is dry over the weekend. It was dry.

He NEVER came back.

1 week ago:

The landlady and her husband are once again unavailable.

The estimate guy from the "reputable" company finally shows up. He promises the estimate the next day. Although Guapo's secretary has called every day since then, they still don't have an estimate for us.

Today:

No Landlady. She knows we have a serious problem and she won't answer her phone or call us.

No Estimate.

Noth-ing.

We are now in the process of looking for another "reputable" company, but we will just be starting over from square 1 (or -1).

The rent is being withheld from the landlady. She'll eventually call as we pay a lot every month.

My blood pressure is now up from writing this. I have to go find my happy place now. All I can do is laugh, right? I can't believe I was ever worried about having workers in the house.

Don't Grocery Shop While Hungry, Don't Blog While Grouchy

We had a great weekend. When you live somewhere in the circle of this photo:

It's nice to get away where there's a little bit of space around you.

I was so worried about the house being creepy, but it was fine. Old, but at least not haunted. The only problems were: 1) several of the mattresses were non-existent, there was only a box spring where their should have been a complete bed. Interesting. And very hard. We took a couple of the free single mattresses and put them on our bed. Problem solved.

The second was a lack of hot water. We had (barely) lukewarm water, but that's not really good enough for my showering needs. I came home greasy-headed and in much need of a shower (see below).

Besides that, we had a great time-the kids ran around and got to be "normal" kids instead of apartment dwellers. Margarita's best friend's family joined us for a couple of nights so we had 7 kids total-2 girls and 5 rambunctious boys.

The grounds were huge.

We had our own soccer field:



Here's the fishing pond where the boys caught lots of little fish using homemade fishing poles and worms they dug up themselves (ewwww):



we had lots of trails to explore:



and even a place to have a fire outside where we roasted hot dogs:


(what is it with boys and fire?)

And, since we were up in the mountains it was much cooler. We were able to have a fire in the house each night. One night we even roasted smuggled-in marshmallows. Mine was per-fect:



Pedro's new thing is praying before he puts anything in his mouth-even if it's a second serving of something we've already blessed. So, before he ate his marshmallow:

He had to say a prayer:

Too cute!

So, why am I grouchy? I'm just having one of those month long phases days where I just want to go home. Wednesday night before we left, the water stopped working on the second floor of our apartment (where our bedroom is and three of our bathrooms) after the building had cleaned out their water tanks. So, we left Thursday and the building manager told us he would have it fixed by the time we got back on Sunday.

I returned ready for a hot shower yesterday afternoon and it was still broken. No matter how many times I reminded the kids NOT to use the toilets, it seems they all had impaired memories and very active bowels. Grrrr. Someone came today to fix it and it turns out we needed a new water pump. So, $200 later, we've got a new, installed pump. I'm entering the shower (finally), when I realize that although there is now water, there's no HOT WATER. I get my towel on and call him back; it finally it gets fixed right, but ugh! Why is everything so hard here sometimes?

Besides that:

1) I'm almost out of my smuggled-in Tide detergent (I don't know why but having American-scented clothes really cheers me up)

2) I'm almost out of Pedro's contraband huggies

3) I'm completely out of my stash of American candy

4) Pedro is 1/3 angel, 2/3 tyrant right now (ok, so being in the States probably won't alleviate this problem, but he is playing a large part in my grouchiness)

I want to go home and eat cheese and chocolate chips without worrying about how much longer until they run out. I want to drink cold, fresh milk from the container and water from the tap! I want good ice-cream that doesn't cost a small fortune. I want one-stop shopping instead of going to 6 different stores to get what I need.

I want Target. Now.

The good news is that my brother- and sister-in-law are coming on Saturday and they've agreed to be my mules (suckas!). So, at least I'll get a few things to hang me over for the next 53 days (no, I'm not counting or anything) until I go home.

Thanks for letting me vent. (Don't get me wrong-Brazil's a great place. I'm just missing the conveniences of home. I'll be better tomorrow. Or at the latest, Saturday, when my stuff gets here.)

The Perfect Ending to My Crappy Week

Excuse my French, but last week was the worst in recent memory.


I am not naive as to the how things work (or don't work) in Latin America. I am a veteran with almost 8 years under my belt of trying to suppress the American in me when it comes to punctuality and efficiency. I do pretty well most of the time about being patient, but last week was like nothing I've ever experienced before.


Last I posted was on Wednesday when I had 5 problems to solve. Let's see how that went:

1) Hot water heater: I mentioned that the guy came at a time when the heater WAS working (it turns itself off at random times, especially when I want to wash dishes). He first quizzed me to see if I really knew how to turn on the hot water and then gave me this little note just to drive home the point that I am the stupid, clueless gringo:




That says "heater functioning perfectly". Alrighty then.


I was ticked and said, "um, no, actually it is not functioning perfectly" and he said, "well, you have to call me when it's not working." I said, "That's always on a Sunday" and he, very nicely gave me his cell phone number and said I could call him ANYTIME, even at midnight and he would come fix it.


Sure.


So, it stopped working Friday night. I didn't think I should call him on a Friday night EVEN THOUGH he said I could call him even at midnight. When it still wasn't working Saturday around noon, I had Gaupo call him and tell him it wasn't working.


His reply?


"Sorry, you'll have to call the office on Monday"


LAME.


The good news (???) is that it is still not working, so I am hoping tomorrow it will continue to be dead and that guy will come and see it really is broken and it's not just that I don't know how to turn on the faucet.


2) Modem/Router: The guy came back Thursday and determined there was no problem with anything. (Eerily close to what the hot water technician told me...). It does seem to be working for longer spurts now, so it's not my biggest complaint right now.


3) Washing Machine: Ugh. This story is just too long and boring to blog about, but when the guy showed up Thursday (I was thinking he was going to do the repair because that's what they told me), he was just there to give us an estimate (which is exactly what the other guy did the day before). He was now telling us it wasn't under warranty, and that they would have to order the part blah, blah, blah.


I was visibly irritated at this point, and he did what he could to find the part and do the repair that day. He stayed around my house until 7:00 pm waiting for the part to show up. He puts it in, turns it on...and...


Nothing. The new part is defective. Of course it is. He tells me he'll be back the next day (Friday) at 11:00 with another part.


No show.


No call.


Nothing resolved.


4) Water Filtration System: The plumber after not showing up for 4 days finally comes and installs a new system. Good news right?


He also somehow turns off the water pump (which unlike the water faucet, I actually don't know how to turn on and off), so shortly after he leaves we have no water. We call, wait and wait and wait and finally his boss comes and insists that his worker didn't mess with the pump and I explained to him that it was working when he got here and not working when he left. He eventually believed me and fixed the problem.


5) Phone, In-house phone: still not working, the guy never came back to fix the damage he did to the land line.


So, if this wasn't all enough, Friday, my car also died when we were out and about. It needed the battery replaced. No big deal, but in light of all the other problems it was quite annoying.


And then the GRAND FINALE.


Vanessa, our pregnant maid, had a doctor's appointment on Friday morning. So she shows up that afternoon around 3:00, somewhat flustered. She's jabbering on about how her baby might be born THAT NIGHT, or the NEXT DAY. Why Vanessa, are you having contractions? No. Are you dilated? No. She didn't sleep the night before and she's really uncomfortable. A lot of pressure on her hips. Um, yeah, that's called being 6 1/2 months pregnant with your 4th kid.


Now, in a normal pregnancy in Brazil, a woman would work until they reach 36 weeks at which time the woman goes on maternity leave and the State pays her salary for the following 4 months (4 1/2 if she's breast-feeding). Giving her 4 weeks of leave before the birth.


She is only 30 weeks along. So, I ask her if she's going to start her maternity leave now since the birth is so eminent.


Um, no, actually the doctor gave her a note for (surprise, surprise) 15 days rest (anything up to 15 days, the employer pays, over 15 days, the State pays) and then (supposedly) she'll start her leave.


Don't you think, if a doctor really believed that a woman who is only 30 weeks along was going to deliver within hours, they would admit her to the hospital?


She just totally got 2 extra weeks of maternity leave. Paid for by me. And if I don't pay her because I think she's full of crap, she can sue us. And she'll win.


So, she's gone. I wish I could say that will be the end of the story, but we are financially tied to her for the next 5 months (we have to continue paying her taxes throughout her leave) and then when we go to fire her when she's done with her leave, we will have to pay her another month's salary. Makes my blood boil.


This week has got to be better.


Right?


I promise I'll post something happy this week.


That is, as long as I have Internet access.

Everything's Broken

A quick post before my Internet cuts off again. A quick review of things that are not working in my house:

1)Hot water heater: the repair man has come twice now and and insists that the hot water heater is in "excellent condition". I would agree except for the fact that it takes one day off every week...

2) modem/router/???: something that makes me lose my connection to the Internet every 30 seconds. A tech guy from Guapo's company has come twice now in the past few days. When he left today, he told me everything was fine. It was, for an hour...

3) Washing machine: not working. This one is scheduled to get fixed tomorrow (but I'm not holding my breath)

4) Water filtration system: needs replaced. The plumber is now a no show for 4 days in a row. Time to find a new plumber...

5) In house phone (you know, that thing that the guards from downstairs use to call us in case we have visitors, or there's an emergency or something): after about 12 hours of working on it (I had to kick the guy out last night at 9 pm), it is still not working. Even better, he also messed up our land line that we got fixed last week...

Very, very sick of problems.

(Sorry for the typos, no time to check, I've to to publish before I lose my connection...again )

Honeymoon's Over

No one's perfect. Very true. This is an important thing to remember when you are contemplating getting rid of a bad maid and trading her in for "the perfect maid". I have learned over and over that if you fire one maid, the next one you get may be worse (see posts from Mexico City!).

In our case here in Brazil that would be pretty hard.

But, after bragging about my bread-making, super fast and efficient maid, I have found her flaw.

She has now worked here 8 days. Two of those days (that's 25%) she has brought her two boys. She tells me they are 11 and 13 but they look a lot more like 6 and 8.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love kids. I have 4 of them myself. But, when I am paying someone to come and work in my home I don't want to have 2 extra boys running around kicking a soccer ball inside the house and needing to be entertained. When my kids go to school, I enjoy the peace and quite of just having Pedro at home.

Does this make me a bad person?

And today, when she showed up she told me she brought them because one of them has a really bad ear infection. Awesome. I know ear infections aren't contagious, but symptoms that oftentimes accompany ear infections can pass germs.

Brazilian schools start in 10 days. I'm going to let it go until then because:

1) I don't like confrontation.
2) She is a really good maid (other than bringing her kids)
3) She's a single mom
4) I don't have any other maid options at the moment.

In the meanwhile, I'll just be up here, hiding in my bedroom with a bag of m&m's, counting the hours until everyone goes home (which is just about the time that my 3 big kids get home from school).

Agggghhhhh!

Maid Tenure

I have been avoiding my blog. I have been in the worst mood ever and I just didn't want to involve all 5 of you that read my blog.

But, just as I must remember how hard a toddler is, at some point in the future, when I am living in the States sans domestic help, I need to remember what a pain in the rear it was sometimes to have the so-called "help".

So, I will share with you what has been driving me NUTS the last week (just ask poor Ballerina Girl, I'm sure she's sick of hearing about my maid troubles). And if you are sick of my maid tales, just come back next week and I'll have moved on (or so I hope).

About 6 or 7 months ago I found a note my maid had written and left out in a place that I would find it. It had the names of her 3 children and then a girl's name and a boy's name, options, if you will, for an unborn 4th child. I freaked out for a moment and then asked her if she was pregnant and she told me, "Nooooooo!" like I was crazy or something. She told me "someday" she wanted another child, but not in the near future.

We should have fired her that day.

Fast forward to our trip to the States and her bulging stomach that I attributed to all of the fast food burgers that always had to include bacon. Then we arrive back in Brazil and lo and behold-she's pregnant.

So, what's the big deal?

The big deal is that Brazil has got some pretty serious laws about pregnant maids. Like you can't fire them. Well, that's a nice law isn't it? I mean, how rude would it be to fire your pregnant maid? Well, if your maid wants to show up 4 hours late every day and sit around and eat bonbons and watch a novela instead of working you can't really do anything about it. Or if she doesn't show up at all- you can't fire her. And she knows it.

Then, they get a 4 month paid maternity leave, 5 months if they are nursing, during which time you of course, can't fire them, even if you've hired someone else that you like better. You can't fire them, in fact, until 2 months after their maternity leave.

I'm not being completely honest. You can fire a pregnant maid. But, if you do, you must pay them their salary for the remainder of their pregnancy and their 4-or-5 month maternity leave (I'm guessing most decide to nurse, what do you think?). And with the dollar where it's at, and the Real where it's at we are not talking about pocket change here.

If you don't completely comply with this law you will most likely be sued by your maid who will most likely win.

So back to my maid. As far as she knows, we are leaving the end of July 2009. Is it just a huge coincidence that her due date is 4 1/2 months before then? I hope it is, but I am really starting to wonder. Basically she will be able to goof around the next 7 months, then take off 5 months months, and then collect unemployment for the following 6 months if we do happen to leave the country. Doesn't sound so bad, does it?

In the past 3 weeks since my normally responsible maid told me she's pregnant she's showed up late 4 times, taken 4 days off for "appointments", three days for doctor recommended "rest", and when she has been here she mopes around like I am the wicked witch of the west for making her work at all.

Monday she came to work totally downtrodden and sick. She had a headache and was nauseated and *gasp* she almost threw up the day before! After watching her production for about an hour I told her she could go home. She decided that with symptoms like hers, she needed to go to the hospital. The doctor gave her a note that said she needs 3 days of rest.

And.Nothing.Trumps.The.Doctor.Note.

So basically anytime she wants a few days off, she just has to head to her doctor and complain a little and she'll get a note. And I have to pay her even though she is not here. And there's nothing I can do about it.

When she called to tell me about her note (at 9:00 that night, leaving me no time to make arrangements for the next day), I said, "so then you'll be here on Saturday, right?"

Pause..., "Well, I guess...if you really need me to come." like I am totally putting her out.

AGGGGGGGGGGHHHH.

When I'm back in the States complaining about housework, please remind me of this.

8 Shots and a Pap Smear Later...

...and I am exhausted!!!

One of the benefits of Guapo's having an overseas position is that he gets 30 days of vacation. When we were deciding if this was the course we wanted to take, 30 days sounded like a loooong time. We pictured 30 days on some Caribbean beach, relaxing under a palm tree, drinking a limonada, while the kids splashed in the waves and made sand castles.

Not quite.

Most of the years we have come home to the States for the entire 30 days, because we want to but also because we feel guilty for living so far from our families.

Ok, so that's ok, 30 relaxing days in the States, right?

Welllll, not really, because Guapo and I both have families that we want to spend time with and they don't live on the same street. Or town, or state, or even same country at times. There were those 3 years Guapo's parents were living in Gautemala, so throw in a couple of side-trips to Gaut. We have tried hard to divide the 30 days as fairly as possible between the two families. This could mean visiting anywhere from 2 to 4 states and 1 to 2 countries during any one trip. As we have added kids along the way, the trips within the 30 day relaxing vacation have become harder and harder.

Then there's the shopping.

It is my job to buy for our family all the things that we will need throughout the next year. Don't get me wrong, I love shopping as much as the next guy, but day in and day out it gets to be a little bit much. It's a frantic kind of shopping, not the fun, relaxed shopping you may be imagining. Picture running through Target clearing the shelves into your cart, then taking all of the crap home, removing any and all packaging so as to take up less room in your suitcase, then packing and re-packing 12 large suitcases or duffle bags in just the right configuration so as not to go over the 70 pound allotment.

Several days into the shopping frenzy, I start to forget what I have bought and what I still need. Near the end of the trip, I'll wake up nightly in a sweat, suddenly remembering I have somehow forgotten to buy something that I simply cannot live without, thus necessitating yet another trip to Target. I have, on several occasions, gotten a rash that was due to spending so much money in so little time. By the end, I halfway expect my credit card to burst in to flames as I swipe it through the little machine.

I know, there are much worse problems in life to have, but it does cut into the tranquility said "vacation".

Then there's taking care of our house in the mountains that we foolishly rented to college boys last year. I cringe when I think about what poor Moses the Moose witnessed over the last 9 months. Or maybe he was the instigator, I'm not sure. When we found him he was wearing mardi gras beads and a pair of tightie whitites (ewwwww.)


It started with 3 guys and were pretty sure there were a lot more than that living there.

It appears that someone was even living in the garage. As you can see from the photo above, they had moved out a bed, bedding, a sofa, and several lamps to the garage. It was 39 degrees two nights ago when I was up there, I don't know how anyone slept out there, but apparently they did.

They left us with what Betsy, the nice professional cleaning lady who charged us almost $700.00 (out of their security deposit, of course), called "quite possibly the filthiest house I have ever stepped foot into". In addition to the filth and muck of who knows how many people living there for 9 months, they also left us some lovely reading material and some really choice posters.

*sigh*

I digress.

Next there are the appointments.

Even though we have found good doctors in most of the places we have lived, I like to maintain a relationship with a doctor and dentist in the States.

6 people X ~2 appointments = 12 visits

Again, eroding the serenity of the trip.

And to make a short story long, that was how I spent my day today, the kids and I all had appointments with the doctor. Poor Juan Carlos (5 yrs) had to get 4 shots, Pedro (15 months) had to get 3, and Julio (7 yrs) had to get one. It used to not bother me so much, I knew it was for their own good. I was a lot tougher as a younger mom. Today I cried. :(

And on top of all the shots, I had to get the dreaded woman check-up. You'd think after 4 kids I wouldn't loathe it so, but I do.

The very good news is that no one needs another vaccination until Pedro goes to kindergarten!!! And since he's still nursing (sorry if that grosses you out, but wouldn't you want to be able to nurse on a 12 hour flight???), that doesn't seem even in the realm of possibility.

Well, I better get to bed. I've got to hit the stores first thing in the morning to buy some new furniture for our house. :)

(Sorry to vent. We are having a blast, and I know what a blessed life I lead, I just sometimes long for the serenity of that Caribbean beach!)

My Kids Are Pigs-OR-No More Leftovers

When I used to make things like spaghetti or tacos, or really anything for that matter, we always had leftovers.

I like leftovers. I don't mind eating them at all.

And now, I find myself leftover-less. Our kids are suddenly eating more than they used to. Tonight Julio had two stuffed-to-the-brim tacos and then asked me for a snack 30 seconds after dinner was over.

Not good with the rising cost of food. I know it's getting worse in the States, but I have to say whatever you are paying for food, I bet I am paying more.

Today in the grocery store I saw a little thing of maple syrup for $21.00 USD. Luckily a friend of mine in Venezuela taught me how to make homemade maple syrup. But, I did buy a can of refried beans for our tacos tonight that set us back $4.50 USD. That, my friends, is a travesty after having lived in Mexico. A normal sized pack of hard taco shells costs around $15.00 USD (we use these soft shell things that they call "wraps" but they are pretty much flour tortillas).

Canned veggies cost anywhere from $3.00-$5.00. So, we eat fresh. Which is great and all, I rather eat fresh, but that means I have to go the store more frequently which means I see other things I need and then I end up spending more money.

Don't even get me started on cereal. I've pretty much quit buying it all together because 1) they have no good cereal here, and 2) it costs $5.50 for a teeny-weeny box that my kids down in one sitting.

Oh well, what can you do?

Speaking of food, check out this very cool blog: Full Bellies, Happy Kids. It is full of yummy recipes and great pictures. I have tried several things and everything has worked!

Lest You Think Having a Maid is All Fun and Games

This is a Muchacha Moment vent.

Yes, that's Pedro with a little cast on his little baby arm. My first child to have a cast.

Where to begin?

In the beginning of March my maid was hit by a car and broke her leg. The first doctor she saw told her it wasn't broken and therefore didn't treat it properly. She took the allowed two weeks off and we paid her. She returned to work mid-March and was obviously not better. So, she went to a private doctor (we paid) and he told her it was, in fact, broken and that she needed another 35 days to recover. The first two weeks of an authorized sick-leave the employer pays the salary, after that the Brazilian government pays (we are required by law to pay a tax every month on her behalf so that she can use this benefit if needs be). So, we stopped paying and supposedly the Brazilian equivalent of Uncle Sam (Tio Samuel?) picked up the slack.

We had Vanessa send her mom, Jane, to help me out on the days I needed it and were paying her each day. Her mom is a nice lady who normally takes care of my maid's three kids when she is here working. She actually cleans a lot better than my maid so I was ok with the arrangement.
Tuesday I left her with Pedro so I could go help in the Margarita's, Julio's and Juan Pedro's classes at school and go to their parent-teacher conferences (assuaging my guilt here: I was NOT getting a pedicure or out to lunch with friends!). When I got home Pedro was very fussy, so I grabbed him up and took him to my room to nurse him. He just kept looking at me with this so-sad look and grabbing his arm. I tried to move it and he yelped. So I go back downstairs and ask Jane what the heck happened to his arm.

She was shocked.

In very rapid Portuguese she said something like, "What? Nothing! He's been perfectly fine all day! Happy! Maybe he slept on it funny!"

Hmmmmmmm. Maybe.

I'm not the kind of mom who freaks out easily. So I gave it some time. He wouldn't use his arm and when he would walk and fall on it he would cry. I decided to wait until the morning to call the doctor. We put him to bed for the night; I was still fuming that something had happened and Jane wasn't talking. Then Guapo says, casually, "Maybe she's not lying. Maybe he has like bone cancer or something."

Thank you Guapo. So helpful. I spent the whole night mulling that pleasent thought over in my head. So by the next morning, when he still wasn't using his arm, I started freaking out. Unfortunately, I had fix brunch for 15 people because April is my turn to host the bookclub meetings here at my house and it just happened to be that day. Luckily I had Guapo's mom here to help me get everything done and take care of Pedro. I'm sure I was a great hostess since I was emanating something like, "did you eat? did you pick your books? Good-now GET OUT!!!"

Finally we got to the hospital and got the x-ray done.

It showed nothing. No tumors, no breaks, no nothing.

What the doctor thinks happened was that the maid pulled on his arm and it dislocated his elbow but that it went back in by itself, or why we were moving it around (it's called "nursemaid's elbow" and I guess it's fairly common in kids under 4 yrs of age). They casted it just so he wouldn't irritated it or fall on it the next few days.

I took him home and Jane was still at the house. When she saw him she was all surprised again and like, "oh, poor baby, what happened?" And I was like, "YOU TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED LADY!!!" (ok, so it probably wasn't that forceful since I'm not good at confrontation, but it was more forceful than my normal mild-mannered self). After some back and forth she said, "Well, maybe I was walking him and holding on to one of his hands and maybe he twisted and fell. But (still maintaining that she was never aware of any problem), he never cried."

No "sorry I broke your kid and made you spend $250 going to the hospital" Grrrrrr.

So, the lady can't be left with the baby. Not because something happened while she was with him, I understand that things happen with little kids, but because I don't trust her to tell me the truth. :(

Then she shows up to day (just to clean) and hands me a catalog of bedding products (I'm talking complete crap here-200 thread count twin bed sets that cost, I'm not kidding, $400 USD) and says that Vanessa never signed up for her benefits so she has no money and would I mind buying some bedding and showing the book to all my friends so they too will buy stuff?

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Dreaming of a maid free life...

Out of Town

We're going out of town in one hour (supposedly, Guapo still isn't home from work). It think it would be so nice to take trips as a man; just show up at the last second and everything that a family of six could possibly want or need for a weekend away is magically ready to go.

But, that's a post for another day (no time-I've got to get busy around here-the stuff isn't packing itself).

I don't even know where we're going. We had this guy over from Guapo's work about 6 weeks ago and he mentioned his family's house up in the mountains-it sounded so fun at the time, and now that it's upon me I'm not as enthused. First of all, I've only met this guy and his his fiancée (who only speaks Portuguese) that one time. Second of all-we have 4 kids. They're great kids and all, but they are kids none the less. And thirdly, traveling with a baby is just not high on my list of super fun things to do. Pedro's gear is going to take up half the car.

We are going to take our four kids to some house that's not kid proof to stay with people I barely know. Sounds like a good time?

Oh well.

I INTRUPT THIS WHINEY POST TO LET YOU KNOW PEDRO JUST TOOK HIS FIRST STEPS!!!!!

Awwwww, my little baby.

We'll be back Saturday night.

Tchau.

I Was Trying to Put the Past Behind Me

...until someone sent me this picture this morning.

At least I look gracious even though I was was thinking, "*&^$$^&*!@#@!#"

Ok, now I'll really stop trying to think of my Stove Top and cookie mixes.

Bah-Humbug

I am in a book club here in Big City Brazil. It's not your garden variety read a book and talk about it type. It's more of a traveling library, full of the latest popular titles. We meet twice a month to eat and check out new books. I love it because I can check out several books, and there's no pressure to finish if I don't like them, or if I just don't have time before the next meeting.

Today was our Christmas party potluck-luncheon. Gaupo's been out of town since Saturday, so my goal for the week is to stay sane long enough for him to walk through the door- then I can hole myself up in my room for a few hours to recover. Anyway, I decided to buy a salad to take to the luncheon instead of making one-one less thing to worry about, right?

So, this morning on the way to the party Sergio drops me off at a nearby restaurant/cafe that sells food to go. This is a place that I've heard good things about since we've lived there, but I'd never gone. So, I went in and took my favorite smallish pewter bowl with me so they could just put the salad in the bowl for me so it looked like I had prepared it. I picked out what the sales girl said was their best salad-some kind of potato salad. She asked if I wanted her to garnish it for me with lettuce leaves. Sure? Why not?

She brought out the lovely potato salad and gave it to the check-out girl. She rang up the price.

Do you want to know how much I paid for that potato salad today?

Just take a guess.

. . .a little higher

. . . higher

Try $60.35 USD

That's right.

For.Potato.Salad.

I didn't even have enough cash on me. I had to go out to my car, quite lightheaded and nauseated by that point, and get a credit card to pay for potato salad. I totally would have high-tailed it out of there had the salad not been in my favorite pewter bowl.

Oh how I wish this were the only sad story I had to report today, but there's more.

I had to take a white elephant gift that was supposed to be valued at $25.00. I grudgingly broke in to my gift stash and chose a very nice talevara plate that I had bought in Mexico. We played the game where you draw numbers and pick in order, the person's whose turn it is can either chose a new present, or steal one that has already been opened. I drew #9. Not bad out of 15.

(Still stewing over the salad, I was considering sticking the remainder of it under the tree with a bow on it.)

#6, a Indian/Trinidadian woman chose my present. She was delighted with the plate, making me feel like it was worth its sacrifice.

When my turn came around I ended up with the best present there (ok. so I may have taken it from someone else, but we are just going to ignore this little part of the story and focus on my pain and my suffering, not the woman's that I took it from). I had in my possession a bag full of GOLD.

Namely:

• One can of Hershey's syrup
• 3 duncan hines cookie mixes
• 1 Betty Crocker carrot cake
• 1 Betty Crocker cream cheese frosting
• 1 box of Stove Top stuffing
• 1 can of Spaghettios
• 1 box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese

For those of you who live in the States, maybe you can't understand my excitement-but I haven't seen any of these products since we were home 5 months ago. You can't get ANY of that stuff here. And everyone (even the woman I stole it from) was all, "that's great, she's got 4 kids, they'll have a great time with that stuff"

I clung to that bag like my life depended on it. I still had to wait out 6 people. I made it safely through #10, #11, #12, #13, #14. Then we came to #15. I assessed the situation: an older Brazilian lady with no children at home and who hadn't shown any interest in my gift as it was being ohhhhhed-and-ahhhhhhhed over by the Americans.

I relaxed my death grip on the bag. I was in the clear.

But then, out of nowhere, #15 strolled over and took the talevara plate from the Indian/Trinidadian woman!

And then she proceeded to come and take my precious!

She's Indian for pete's sake. Have you tried Indian food? REAL Indian food? It's so spicy it makes me cry to even smell it. There's no way she and her one daughter can appreciate the American-ness of mac and cheese or spaghettios. Or stuffing??? I'm sorry but it's just not possible.

My head was still spinning so fast from what had just happened I couldn't think rationally. I could have stolen one of the other acceptable gifts, but instead, I grabbed the last package. It looked like this:



Unicef??? Hello Gabs! Do you know why it was the LAST PRESENT to be chosen??? A Unicef bag says, "It's the thought that counts! You're helping kids and that's what's really important!"

So, after sacrificing $60.00 on the stupid salad and one of my talavera plates I came home with this lovely set of napkins and place mats that smells funny:



Am I being a brat? Maybe.

They are so going to be re-gifted. And soon.

October Showers Bring November Flowers

Changing leaves.

Crisp Air.

Halloween.

Wassail.*

First Snow.

Sweaters.

Hot Cocoa.

Football Season.


Not for me.

I grew up with seasons. I spent the first 26 years of my life with seasons. I heart seasons.

But, alas, for the last 8 falls I have been living in places that are nicknamed "The City of Eternal Spring", or even worse, places like Small Town Mexico where I could count the number of times I could comfortably wear pants in 2 1/2 years on one hand.

And now we are here in Brazil. South of the Equator. Opposite seasons from the States. So, let's see, this year I've had:

• One (eternal) spring in Mexico
• One summer in the States
• One Brazilian winter that felt suspiciously like summer in the States

And now I'm smack dab in the middle of spring again headed for a beastly summer just in time for Christmas!!!

What's worse, I've had to "spring forward" with daylight savings twice this year. Once in April and again a couple of weeks ago. I am not a good "springer." I'm a much better "fall-backer".

Sorry, I hate to have a whiny blog, it's just that I'm reading all of these posts about wonderful fall-ish things and I am a little sad.

So have some cocoa or wassail* for me and enjoy the changing leaves. :)

*I actually hate wassail. But I miss the idea of Wassail. And how it smells.