Calling all little kiddies, come out to play...

There was a guy out in the park today wheeling around on a supersize riding mower, putting the finishing touches on a general springtime sprucing up that has the whole place looking very spiffy. Benches painted, bushes pruned back, trees mulched, no trash in sight and nary a chicken bone to be seen on the ground. As I went puffing around the jogging track, I marveled at the unusual tidiness of the place. They even planted the big planters around the front of the main building. Lovely, opulent plantings with trailing stuff hanging down and tall shrubby plants plants spiking out of the middle with flashpoint pink flowers spouting off. Hmm, I'm thinking to myself, that plant looks awfully familiar. Might that be oleander? What, the nursery was plum out of deadly nightshade? ("Oleander is one of the most poisonous plants and contains numerous toxic compounds, many of which can be deadly to people, especially young children.")

Well, that will teach those little kiddies to mess with the plantings this year.

How to buy a used car in Brazil, final act

As the agreed upon date to resell piece of crap car to mafioso used car sales dude arrives on the horizon, begin sleeping less and less soundly. The night before, no sleep for you.

Go across the street to Shell station car wash to see about getting a once over, because probably a clean car is going to make all the difference here. Shell station guys say it takes them about an hour to wash each car, and you're not the first in line. Or even the second. It's a no-go.

Head off to meet Brazilian friend who is walking us through this, and is in fact the legit owner of the car. Make off for mafioso used car dealer.

To everyone's delight and astonishment, mafioso used-car dude exchanges car for a box of cash. Mysteriously enough, he's got 5 grand in US dollars of assorted denominations. Add some Brazilian currency on top of that, and we're good to go.

Go straight to bank to have US dollars examined to ensure that they aren't counterfeit. They seem to be the real thing. Score!

Pack suitcases, stuff bras and underpants with 5 thousand dollars, and head for the airport!

say what? part 2

A round-up of assorted businesses with English titles that I've come across while knocking around Sao Paulo.

Stop Dog: This is a diner that specializes in hot dogs.

Planet's Dog: Here you can get your dog washed and blow-dried, and buy assorted pet supplies.

Expand Store: Nope, not a mini-mart. This would be your high-end boutique wine store.

Up Food! cafe: My best guess: "haute cuisine", translated literally to English?

Shoulder: A women's clothing boutique. Undoubtedly off-the-shoulder cuts are on display.

Banana Off-Price: Shoe store, what else?

Practical Life: Surprisingly, not the name of a store, but of a fancy condominium building.

Blow VIP: Apparently another clothing store. But I didn't really inspect too carefully...

say what?

Learning a foreign language takes one through the inevitable hills and valleys. On top of the hills, you're grooving, throwing out colorful turns of phrases and even the occasional hand gesture. In the valleys, your eyes cross as you grope for the correct conjugation of "to be" in the present tense and your eyes scan the horizon for the end of the sentence. But no matter how snappy your 8 pm dialogue is, when your tongue is loosened by that first glass of wine and your wits still relatively sharp, by about 12:30 AM, a few more glasses of wine, a cachaça or two, some draft beer, and you're drowning in a sea of Portuguese, barely hanging onto the current topic ("soccer"; "movies") much less the vocabularly, and you are barely able to sit up straight in your chair. And your Brazilian buddies are just getting started.

I'd been, I felt, spending more time on top of those hills lately, and was managing to understand probably a good 75% of what our Brazilian nanny/housekeeper spat out at me these days. So much so that I felt I could easily explain why after midnight it became hard to understand the language any more, and why by 3 AM we were pretty much destroyed.

"But you speak it so well!"

"Ah, thanks, thanks, but we get so exhausted that we start to forget things and just can't keep up after about midnight or so."

Meaningful pause.

"Now, what language is it that you guys speak, anyway?"

Puzzled silence.

"You mean, with each other? English?"

"No, no, here in Brazil."

"Um, Portuguese?"