Moving Through Space and Time
Wednesday, 22. November 2006, 14:23:25
BLOG FOR THE WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 21, 2006
This weeks’s theme is MOVEMENT.
No one and nothing is ever content where it is, so we’re always moving around. As you’ll read in this week’s blog: Dogs do it. Cockroaches do it. Skydivers do it. 1989 Fords do it. Christmas cards do it. All of us do it. We all move through space and time.
Even Saints did it.
I was reminded of that fact this week by “Our Lady of the Exile”, one of the Brazilian Christmas enclosures you may find when you get a seasonal greeting from us.
Roses, as it turns out, don't always move around so much.
WEDNESDAY, November 15, 2006
Today was a holiday, “Proclamação da Republica”. Bob thinks they have too many holidays here in Brazil, but they don’t even have THANKSGIVING here, so I say they don’t have enough holidays. We celebrated the Proclamation of the Republic by eating veggie burgers that Bob found at a local supermarket.
I worked on the computer in the morning while Bob and Matt walked to Hot Park to rent a video.
Movement:
Today Brian began moving his things out of the house here in Anápolis in order to fill up another house in Terezópolis with furniture.
Bob and I usually go for a walk in the afternoon or evening... where we see all kinds of things.
THURSDAY, November 16, 2006
Today I worked some more on Christmas cards. Shirlee dropped me off at the post office, where I mailed the first batch of cards priority mail. Within 15 business days, certain friends and relatives in the US should begin receiving something that could be mistaken for a Christmas card. I bought more Christmas cards… I splurged and spent 14 cents each for them. As I was crossing Avenida Mato Grosso, someone called out to me, “Kevin!” It was my old friend Miriam. She and her husband and son were getting ready to have some ice cream, so they invited me to join them. I had açai ice cream with crunchy bits that I’m hoping were peanuts. Then I walked off the unexpected calories by going back home on foot.
FRIDAY, November 17, 2006
This morning started out like every other morning. I got up, and I started to put on my pants… But… that’s when a startled cockroach ran out of my pants leg.
Poor thing. You should have seen the startled look on its face! It was so scared it ran and hid in my shoe. I coaxed it out of my shoe, and it ran and hid behind the dresser.
I safely evacuated the poor thing to the designated Cockroach Recreation Area in our front yard.
In ITS blog this week, the cockroach will write,
“This morning started out like every other morning. I was snug in my vertical sleeping bag, when suddenly this size 48 foot kicked me out onto the floor! I was so startled, I ran into what I THOUGHT was a cockroach safe house, only to realize that it was where the size 48 foot lived. Somehow I found myself on the ceramic floor again… and then I must have blacked out, cuz the next thing I remember is being in the grass in the front yard!”
After the cockroach drama, I started going over our condo floor plan and photos of lighting fixtures, trying to come up with a plan for our new home, in anticipation of our BIG MOVE in December.
Bob and I rode downtown with Shirlee in the afternoon. We sold the final batch of used books Shirlee had stored in the garage. Bob and I walked home, by way of the calendar store, the lighting place… the incense and picolé/popsicle place… the place that was out of granola… the bakery… the sticker store… the fruit market… the cash machine at the Shell station where an intoxicated-robot-Santa dances and sings Christmas songs in English…
SATURDAY, November 18, 2006
Moving around. There are many ways to do it. Walking is one way. Driving a car is another. Shirlee offered to let Bob and me use her car today… But there was just one thing. It was at the shop, and we’d have to walk there to pick it up. No problem. We wanted to go downtown anyway to talk to the guy at the lighting store. So, we walked to the shop to get the car… Only the car documents were in a safe, and the owner wasn’t there with the key, so Bob and I made the four-mile walk downtown without the use of the car.
We got to the lighting store just before 12:30 closing time, and got a few things resolved.
We walked back towards home, but stopped to check out the weird monument we hadn’t really noticed before.
The 1952 monument is in honor of ESPERANTO, the international language.
Hey! What a great idea! If we’d all just learn Esperanto, Bob wouldn’t have to learn Portuguese!
On our way home, the car WAS ready with its documents, so we just had to stop at Shell and get some alcohol in the tank. We went to Hot Park to rent a movie. We got home, and Heidi came over to watch Scary Movie 4.
I worked on Christmas cards and FINALLY got around to writing thank-you cards for the going-away gifts I got last JUNE.
SUNDAY, November 19, 2006
Shirlee left at 6:30 this morning to catch a free flight from the Anápolis Air Base on a military transport to São José dos Campos, São Paulo, to see friends.
It must be nice to be well connected with military personnel.
Since Bob, Matt, and I are the only ones home this week, our meals do not materialize quite as magically.
I drove Matt and Bob to China Arabian town for lunch… and then on to Nectar… Our favorite ice cream place. It was really crowded.
They were out of a lot of our favorite flavors, but we got 5 liters of ice cream (for less than five bucks)… guava, açai, pineapple, passion fruit… and chocolate for Matt.
In the evening Bob and I walked around the airport… On weekends we see all sort of experimental aircraft… and today we even saw a propeller driven parachute.
I spent part of the day working on Christmas letters (see below).
There seems to be more activity around the airport on weekends, so it has become a popular destination for our Sunday walks.
MONDAY, November 20, 2006
Shirlee is gone for the week, but Heidi still came over to make sure Bob and Matt and I wouldn’t starve… and she gave Bob his daily Portuguese lesson. Esperanto didn’t pan out.
Bob really does have to learn Portuguese. Heidi busied herself taking care of business for Brian and Shirlee, and went through the list:
1. find home for dogs… 2. sell car… 3. sell house…
Heidi immediately found a new home for César, leaving just Cleo and Wolf in the kennel.
It rained HARD in the Afternoon. When the rain ended, I decided that my weekend driving had prepared me for weekday driving… by myself.
I needed to go to the post office to mail some more Christmas cards, and I needed to pay a few bills.
Also, our CPF forms had arrived in the mail… Info was lacking for our all-important CPF cards… So I took the form in to the post office… What was missing? The woman behind the counter offered her explanation: “Oh, they just wanted you to confirm the zip code.” This was my third trip to the post office to fill out a CPF form, and I was wondering when it would all end.
On my way back home, I found the answer to the question I had been asking myself… “Why had the woman in the white car gone out of her way to try to ram my car?” She had missed me, but not my much. I don’t know the EXACT answer, but viewing the road now from her perspective, I saw that she had had to choose between driving into a pothole that had grown in the storm, or crossing a mud field that had crept across the street. I’m guessing that she had opted for the mud, and had lost traction.
I got home safely, now having MORE Christmas cards to work on.
TUESDAY, November 21, 2006
Weekday driving, Part Two:
I took Heidi and Lexy with me for a drive, picking up Bianca and her friend Sara to take them to school… 30 minutes late. I then took Heidi to the used car district, where Heidi tried to sell her parents’ 1989 Ford Del Rey. She did get an offer and some interest, so we’ll see what happens.
Brian moved more stuff out today to take to his new home in Terezópolis, about 15 miles away.
The house is beginning to sound more and more like an echo chamber.
Wolf got a new home, too. With the help of a big pink blanket, we were able to persuade Wolf to get in the car to go live with Marcelo’s mom and step-dad. That leaves Cleo all by herself in the kennel.
Matt spent the afternoon at Marcelo's tattoo studio, where he got a fake tattoo.
I babysat Lexy while Bob and Heidi took Wolf for his ride.
Just before the 7:30 sunset, Bob and I walked around airport again.
We currently live only about a block from the main entrance to the airport, and it seems that there is always something interesting to see there.
I SHOULD HAVE worked on my Tuesday blog today, but Wednesday Blogs are just as good.
CHRISTMAS LETTERS
You may have already been sent one of the following Christmas letters! Check your mailbox daily in December! There were several versions of our annual letter:
VERSION ONE
Dear Family and Friends,
It’s once again time for our annual Christmas/Chinese-New-Year letter. Not much has changed since last year’s letter, except that Bob and I
quit our jobs
sold our house
gave away all our belongings
moved to Brazil
bought a penthouse condo and
are applying for permanent visas.
Otherwise, things are about the same.
We are always in search of a way to make this Christmas, “The Cheapest Christmas Ever”. This year we may break the record set last year, when we gave away “reusable discards” that had been rejected by the thrift-store. This year we are not sending actual presents… Just cards, with a few economical enclosures. The handicap we have this year is international postage rates. Each 11-gram letter costs one real and 55 centavos… over 70 cents, in US currency! So, because of that major expense, we are economizing on the enclosures.
Each envelope has been lovingly stuffed with an assortment of two-dimensional gifts. Contents vary, but you may find:
•This letter
•Campaign stickers from Lula’s winning campaign.
•Fourteen-cent Christmas “cards”.
•“Our Lady of the Appearing” saint cards and stickers
•Stickers and sticker derivatives depicting the Brazilian flag
•Postcards from São Paulo, Anápolis, and places less glamorous than Anápolis
•New Year’s bookmarks
•Home-made photographs
•And, for this year’s grand-prize winners, there are skinny Portuguese calendars with inspirational thoughts you won’t be able to understand.
So, have a merry “Feliz Natal” and a happy new “Ano Novo”, from all of us here at the Kevin and Bob household.
VERSION TWO: VARIATION OF LIST OF ENCLOSURES
•The 2006 campaign brochures that helped re-elect President Lula.
•Tiny little Christmas “cards”.
•Mediocre Christmas “cards”.
•Brazilian artifacts (mangaba popsicle wrapper, “Kiss People” Kleenex label, etc.)
Version Three
Dear Family and Friends,
It’s once again time for our annual Chinese-New-Year letter. Not much has changed since last year’s letter, except that Bob and I
quit our jobs
sold our house
gave away all our belongings
moved to Brazil
bought a penthouse condo and
are applying for permanent visas.
Otherwise, everything is about the same.
Happy Chinese New Year!
Um, there may be Chinese New Year cards for sale in Anápolis, but we haven’t found them. So, for the first time ever, we’re sending out actual Christmas cards, except technically now they are “cartões de natal.”
HOW TO DECODE YOUR BRAZILIAN CHRISTMAS CARD:
“BOAS FESTAS” means “Good Parties” and is used where we would use “Season’s Greetings” in English.
“Feliz Natal” means “Merry Christmas”.
“PAZ” means PEACE.
“Feliz Ano Novo” means "Happy New Year".
So, have a merry “Feliz Natal” and a happy new “Ano Novo”, from all of us here at the Kevin and Bob household, November, 2006.
This weeks’s theme is MOVEMENT.
No one and nothing is ever content where it is, so we’re always moving around. As you’ll read in this week’s blog: Dogs do it. Cockroaches do it. Skydivers do it. 1989 Fords do it. Christmas cards do it. All of us do it. We all move through space and time.
Even Saints did it.
I was reminded of that fact this week by “Our Lady of the Exile”, one of the Brazilian Christmas enclosures you may find when you get a seasonal greeting from us.
Roses, as it turns out, don't always move around so much.
WEDNESDAY, November 15, 2006
Today was a holiday, “Proclamação da Republica”. Bob thinks they have too many holidays here in Brazil, but they don’t even have THANKSGIVING here, so I say they don’t have enough holidays. We celebrated the Proclamation of the Republic by eating veggie burgers that Bob found at a local supermarket.
I worked on the computer in the morning while Bob and Matt walked to Hot Park to rent a video.
Movement:
Today Brian began moving his things out of the house here in Anápolis in order to fill up another house in Terezópolis with furniture.
Bob and I usually go for a walk in the afternoon or evening... where we see all kinds of things.
THURSDAY, November 16, 2006
Today I worked some more on Christmas cards. Shirlee dropped me off at the post office, where I mailed the first batch of cards priority mail. Within 15 business days, certain friends and relatives in the US should begin receiving something that could be mistaken for a Christmas card. I bought more Christmas cards… I splurged and spent 14 cents each for them. As I was crossing Avenida Mato Grosso, someone called out to me, “Kevin!” It was my old friend Miriam. She and her husband and son were getting ready to have some ice cream, so they invited me to join them. I had açai ice cream with crunchy bits that I’m hoping were peanuts. Then I walked off the unexpected calories by going back home on foot.
FRIDAY, November 17, 2006
This morning started out like every other morning. I got up, and I started to put on my pants… But… that’s when a startled cockroach ran out of my pants leg.
Poor thing. You should have seen the startled look on its face! It was so scared it ran and hid in my shoe. I coaxed it out of my shoe, and it ran and hid behind the dresser.
I safely evacuated the poor thing to the designated Cockroach Recreation Area in our front yard.
In ITS blog this week, the cockroach will write,
“This morning started out like every other morning. I was snug in my vertical sleeping bag, when suddenly this size 48 foot kicked me out onto the floor! I was so startled, I ran into what I THOUGHT was a cockroach safe house, only to realize that it was where the size 48 foot lived. Somehow I found myself on the ceramic floor again… and then I must have blacked out, cuz the next thing I remember is being in the grass in the front yard!”
After the cockroach drama, I started going over our condo floor plan and photos of lighting fixtures, trying to come up with a plan for our new home, in anticipation of our BIG MOVE in December.
Bob and I rode downtown with Shirlee in the afternoon. We sold the final batch of used books Shirlee had stored in the garage. Bob and I walked home, by way of the calendar store, the lighting place… the incense and picolé/popsicle place… the place that was out of granola… the bakery… the sticker store… the fruit market… the cash machine at the Shell station where an intoxicated-robot-Santa dances and sings Christmas songs in English…
SATURDAY, November 18, 2006
Moving around. There are many ways to do it. Walking is one way. Driving a car is another. Shirlee offered to let Bob and me use her car today… But there was just one thing. It was at the shop, and we’d have to walk there to pick it up. No problem. We wanted to go downtown anyway to talk to the guy at the lighting store. So, we walked to the shop to get the car… Only the car documents were in a safe, and the owner wasn’t there with the key, so Bob and I made the four-mile walk downtown without the use of the car.
We got to the lighting store just before 12:30 closing time, and got a few things resolved.
We walked back towards home, but stopped to check out the weird monument we hadn’t really noticed before.
The 1952 monument is in honor of ESPERANTO, the international language.
Hey! What a great idea! If we’d all just learn Esperanto, Bob wouldn’t have to learn Portuguese!
On our way home, the car WAS ready with its documents, so we just had to stop at Shell and get some alcohol in the tank. We went to Hot Park to rent a movie. We got home, and Heidi came over to watch Scary Movie 4.
I worked on Christmas cards and FINALLY got around to writing thank-you cards for the going-away gifts I got last JUNE.
SUNDAY, November 19, 2006
Shirlee left at 6:30 this morning to catch a free flight from the Anápolis Air Base on a military transport to São José dos Campos, São Paulo, to see friends.
It must be nice to be well connected with military personnel.
Since Bob, Matt, and I are the only ones home this week, our meals do not materialize quite as magically.
I drove Matt and Bob to China Arabian town for lunch… and then on to Nectar… Our favorite ice cream place. It was really crowded.
They were out of a lot of our favorite flavors, but we got 5 liters of ice cream (for less than five bucks)… guava, açai, pineapple, passion fruit… and chocolate for Matt.
In the evening Bob and I walked around the airport… On weekends we see all sort of experimental aircraft… and today we even saw a propeller driven parachute.
I spent part of the day working on Christmas letters (see below).
There seems to be more activity around the airport on weekends, so it has become a popular destination for our Sunday walks.
MONDAY, November 20, 2006
Shirlee is gone for the week, but Heidi still came over to make sure Bob and Matt and I wouldn’t starve… and she gave Bob his daily Portuguese lesson. Esperanto didn’t pan out.
Bob really does have to learn Portuguese. Heidi busied herself taking care of business for Brian and Shirlee, and went through the list:
1. find home for dogs… 2. sell car… 3. sell house…
Heidi immediately found a new home for César, leaving just Cleo and Wolf in the kennel.
It rained HARD in the Afternoon. When the rain ended, I decided that my weekend driving had prepared me for weekday driving… by myself.
I needed to go to the post office to mail some more Christmas cards, and I needed to pay a few bills.
Also, our CPF forms had arrived in the mail… Info was lacking for our all-important CPF cards… So I took the form in to the post office… What was missing? The woman behind the counter offered her explanation: “Oh, they just wanted you to confirm the zip code.” This was my third trip to the post office to fill out a CPF form, and I was wondering when it would all end.
On my way back home, I found the answer to the question I had been asking myself… “Why had the woman in the white car gone out of her way to try to ram my car?” She had missed me, but not my much. I don’t know the EXACT answer, but viewing the road now from her perspective, I saw that she had had to choose between driving into a pothole that had grown in the storm, or crossing a mud field that had crept across the street. I’m guessing that she had opted for the mud, and had lost traction.
I got home safely, now having MORE Christmas cards to work on.
TUESDAY, November 21, 2006
Weekday driving, Part Two:
I took Heidi and Lexy with me for a drive, picking up Bianca and her friend Sara to take them to school… 30 minutes late. I then took Heidi to the used car district, where Heidi tried to sell her parents’ 1989 Ford Del Rey. She did get an offer and some interest, so we’ll see what happens.
Brian moved more stuff out today to take to his new home in Terezópolis, about 15 miles away.
The house is beginning to sound more and more like an echo chamber.
Wolf got a new home, too. With the help of a big pink blanket, we were able to persuade Wolf to get in the car to go live with Marcelo’s mom and step-dad. That leaves Cleo all by herself in the kennel.
Matt spent the afternoon at Marcelo's tattoo studio, where he got a fake tattoo.
I babysat Lexy while Bob and Heidi took Wolf for his ride.
Just before the 7:30 sunset, Bob and I walked around airport again.
We currently live only about a block from the main entrance to the airport, and it seems that there is always something interesting to see there.
I SHOULD HAVE worked on my Tuesday blog today, but Wednesday Blogs are just as good.
CHRISTMAS LETTERS
You may have already been sent one of the following Christmas letters! Check your mailbox daily in December! There were several versions of our annual letter:
VERSION ONE
Dear Family and Friends,
It’s once again time for our annual Christmas/Chinese-New-Year letter. Not much has changed since last year’s letter, except that Bob and I
quit our jobs
sold our house
gave away all our belongings
moved to Brazil
bought a penthouse condo and
are applying for permanent visas.
Otherwise, things are about the same.
We are always in search of a way to make this Christmas, “The Cheapest Christmas Ever”. This year we may break the record set last year, when we gave away “reusable discards” that had been rejected by the thrift-store. This year we are not sending actual presents… Just cards, with a few economical enclosures. The handicap we have this year is international postage rates. Each 11-gram letter costs one real and 55 centavos… over 70 cents, in US currency! So, because of that major expense, we are economizing on the enclosures.
Each envelope has been lovingly stuffed with an assortment of two-dimensional gifts. Contents vary, but you may find:
•This letter
•Campaign stickers from Lula’s winning campaign.
•Fourteen-cent Christmas “cards”.
•“Our Lady of the Appearing” saint cards and stickers
•Stickers and sticker derivatives depicting the Brazilian flag
•Postcards from São Paulo, Anápolis, and places less glamorous than Anápolis
•New Year’s bookmarks
•Home-made photographs
•And, for this year’s grand-prize winners, there are skinny Portuguese calendars with inspirational thoughts you won’t be able to understand.
So, have a merry “Feliz Natal” and a happy new “Ano Novo”, from all of us here at the Kevin and Bob household.
VERSION TWO: VARIATION OF LIST OF ENCLOSURES
•The 2006 campaign brochures that helped re-elect President Lula.
•Tiny little Christmas “cards”.
•Mediocre Christmas “cards”.
•Brazilian artifacts (mangaba popsicle wrapper, “Kiss People” Kleenex label, etc.)
Version Three
Dear Family and Friends,
It’s once again time for our annual Chinese-New-Year letter. Not much has changed since last year’s letter, except that Bob and I
quit our jobs
sold our house
gave away all our belongings
moved to Brazil
bought a penthouse condo and
are applying for permanent visas.
Otherwise, everything is about the same.
Happy Chinese New Year!
Um, there may be Chinese New Year cards for sale in Anápolis, but we haven’t found them. So, for the first time ever, we’re sending out actual Christmas cards, except technically now they are “cartões de natal.”
HOW TO DECODE YOUR BRAZILIAN CHRISTMAS CARD:
“BOAS FESTAS” means “Good Parties” and is used where we would use “Season’s Greetings” in English.
“Feliz Natal” means “Merry Christmas”.
“PAZ” means PEACE.
“Feliz Ano Novo” means "Happy New Year".
So, have a merry “Feliz Natal” and a happy new “Ano Novo”, from all of us here at the Kevin and Bob household, November, 2006.
WIDGETIZE
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