Crash, Bang!

Irish coffee with chocolate

That was it, crash – bang!

5:30am, and the neighbour’s cat had knocked one of my heavy ceramic dinner plates to meet its demise off the prep-table to shatter the edge on the slate floor.

This is NOT a good way to wake up, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the day. It takes more than coffee to repair the damage.

A strong Irish coffee with chocolate could have gone part way to repairing the damage, but I was so furious that I couldn’t make it.

Quote -

My Monday moaning could well be about the fact that I didn’t get to moan on Monday.

I am suffering a terrible affliction at the moment, it’s called work. Not just work, but it’s worse than split ends, it’s split days. Split days do not bode well with my post load.

It’s now Tuesday late p.m.

That was my opener on Eco-Crap a half hour ago, it applies here too, to explain my absence yesterday, and on other days when I don’t get here.

Looked so good, just fell into the shopping cart

A trip for therapy helped me after class, yes, I went to the supermarket; the one that has a whole aisle of drinky-poos.

I got three bottles of wine, a bottle of Cointreau, and a bottle that looks like a Champagne bottle but with Stout Porter in it. I have absolutely no idea what Stout Porter is, except that I like stout.

I bought some food too, but I won’t bore you with those mundane details.

Except the cheese, got some stinky fancy cheeses.

Oh, I got two new knives as well. A carving knife and a bread knife, they are matching and looked so nice, that they fell into the shopping cart too.

Talk about impulse buying, but that is the best part of the therapy.

Should I mention that I bought some dirt? Maybe not, you may think I am silly. Yes, I bought some potting mix, okay?

That’s a rhetorical question, there’s no need to answer.

By the time I got home, put my treasures away, ate the puff pastry cheesy thingies and read the news, it was time for a nap; so here I am late on a Tuesday catching up.

I am not a ‘blogger’, I have discovered. Bloggers are common, I am…

wait for it…

*raises nose 30° to the horizontal*

I am an “artisanel publisher”, there, doesn’t that sound nifty, even a little snobbish? Not part of the hoi polloi anymore; I am separate from the masses.

Thunder pot

My discovery of the day; chamber piece.

I always thought a chamber piece was a potty, or as some would call it a ‘thunder pot’.

Apparently not.

It’s do do with music in a restricted place…

that takes all the fun out of it.

That means that chamber music isn’t what you’re listening to when you do your business.

Just before I rush off into the wild blue…

Another quote, not mine -

“I have never had a prouder moment as a mother. This is by far your most ridiculous post.” – Dawn’s mother commenting on Fit to Teach

Later.

I have a cunning plan

But before we go in to that, I need a coffee refill.

BRB

Back with the aforementioned coffee. Now where was I? Ah yes, the cunning plan. It’s a plan so cunning…

Do you remember, or know of Blackadder?

Sir Edmund Blackadder is perfect British humour. I loved the series as it tracked the Blackadders through history.

Here’s a clip about a cunning plan.

Now that you understand a cunning plan. I’ll tell you mine.

Brazeiro, Campo Grande, Rio de Janeiro

I am going to escape the drudgery of staying at home on a Sunday and blogging. I am going out for lunch. As today is my last day of my ‘beef’ week, I am going out for a rodizio BBQ at Brazeiro, my favourite restaurant at the end of the known world situated on Esquena da pecado (Sin Corner).

It is the perfect ‘dead cow’ experience, although it also serves dead pig, dead chicken and dead sauasages.

Lunch will include a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, or tankards of beer; I haven’t decided yet. I am expecting a fellow teacher colleague, friend to be in attendance as well, although she hasn’t confirmed yet.

Lixo – Baby photo

Most of you know that I have a big ginger tomcat named Lixo (Rubbish) named so because of the circumstances in which I found him. The young lady, of Friday’s acquaintance, in formed me on hearing the tale that I should have named him Reciclagem (Recycle) because he was Lixo, but I recycled him to pet status, but Reciclagem doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as Lixo, so he stays my little ‘rubbish’.

The photo is of when he was a little rubbish, he’s a big boy now. Quite a respectable Tomcat, and heavy.

Must away, desmellify, and make myself presentable.

Later.

 

Blowing off Steam

Old boiler

There are times when I feel like an old boiler, sitting here at the keyboard slowly rusting.

I don’t get out and about much, and the feeling of being a hermit flashes across my mind; not often but it has flashed and while it doesn’t induce feelings of despondency, nor lead to depression (can’t understand depression, but then I drink coffee) it does make me think.

I do get out of the house, sometimes I have to force myself, even if it is just to the botequim (local bar) next door. I don’t go there to drown my sorrows, that’s for fools, I go for the fresh air, for a gaze over the park, or a chat.

Like yesterday, I poked my nose out the gate and there at the bar was a good friend whom I hadn’t seen for months. Grace had had a cancer operation on the throat, and even though I pass her house everyday on the way to work, I had only seen her once. So it was a pleasant surprise to see her at the botequim again; our chatting started basically where we had left of months ago, except over fresher beer.

Fire in the Hole!

Grace and her friend left, and I began to chat with another pair sitting at the table at the other end of the veranda. One of whom I had seen before, the other, never. The younger woman was quite chatty, much younger than my foggy years, quite comely in fact, making nothing more of the thought as we talked. The younger woman was in fact a little older than my initial estimate, early/mid twenties; she was actually 31, which made her exactly half my age.

Maybe twenty minutes passed and the older woman had to go and they made to leave. It was about then when I became confused. I stood to get another beer, and some how the woman was in my arms as we said good bye… her saying she’d be back in ten minutes.

I sat nursing my beer, trying to make sense of things, and within a Brazilian woman’s 10 minutes, she was back.

Fire in the boiler

Nice.

But I have been single for five years, I haven’t been paquerando (hunting) for some time, and I was out of my depth.

Maybe there’s fire in the old boiler yet?

Now I sit here still trying to make sense of the afternoon.

Any way, that’s why you didn’t get a post yesterday, affairs of the boiler (I’m too old to have a heart).

Moving right along.

Neymar 1 – Japan – 0

Today is the kick off for the Confederation’s Cup, yes football. Brazil vs Japan in Brasilia, the capital. TV is full of it, hype, interviews, opinions from the street, coverage of the demonstration over the cost of the event. Palpites (estimates of the result) between 3-3 and 0-0, one even guessed Neymar 1 – Japan 0. Neymar is probably Brazil’s No.1 up and coming star, just having been signed on for Barcelona.

So it’s big business. Games starts at 4pm, that’s a couple of hours away.

The hype all happens again tomorrow, Italy vs Mexico here in the revamped Maracanã.

I have had lunch, a heavy beef curry on rice. Now I suppose I should get out of my pyjamas and go along to the bar to see what’s happening.

Later.

I thought about it…

I lacked half the ingredients

Yes, I thought about bacon and eggs for breakfast, but I lacked half the ingredients, eggs. So that idea went by the board.

So I had coffee, blogged and a nap.

Hamburgers for lunch, cheese bacon and mushroom, yum yum.

Brazilian restaurants are racing against time. Next week the Confederations Cup begins, then in 2014 FIFA World Cup. This means that there are going to be a lot of visitors who have no notion of Portuguese; and waiters who have similar ideas about English, em passe. Some restaurants are getting their menus translated, some have recruited English teachers, and some have had their fare loaded onto tablets with translation facilities and images of the food.

This is picanha, alcatra, contra-file, etc

One restaurant has the novel idea of stuffed animals.

The customer doesn’t know, the waiter can’t explain, he simply shows a stuffed cow for beef.

They even have a stuffed Kermit, because carne da rã (frog portions) is popular here and many restaurants serve it.

Cooler today, I haven’t tried to turn the sun off… there is no sun, somebody beat me to it.

The Americans have finally found a civilised use for drones instead of bombing the shit out of Pakistan and such places…

Technology should be used for peaceful purposes.

Later.

 

The Best of Intentions

…were overtaken by beer o’clock  yesterday, then I decided it was time for pizza, by the time I got home all I wanted was alka-seltzer. Blogging wouldn’t cut it.

I was just returning from the bathroom and tried to turn off the kitchen light… at 9:30am, then I realised I was trying to switch off the sun…

It’s a beautiful sunny day here in Rio, wish you were here, bring beer.

I read a blog post yesterday by a young teen author bemoaning the fact that adult books (NO! Not Penthouse!) didn’t have pictures. Adult books don’t need pictures, they have words. The authors of adult books know how to use words to make pictures. Judging by the standard of English on the net, adult books will soon need pictures… *sigh* Young people just don’t get it.

I took a neat photo of a spider on Sunday, it didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked, but I’ll share it with you.

Colourful ‘bicho‘ in the park

He’s (or she) the black and yellow out-of-focus thingy just right of centre clinging to his little web in the bush.

For photos like that, I yearn to have my faithful old Nikon M, put the 35-70 zoom on and take a guaranteed serious photo. My old truck Nikon was stolen in a careless moment on a bus trip in Peru. The fateful trip had a stop in Chincha, after which the town was destroyed by an earthquake, the same one that got Pisco, where I was heading.

So far the day has been fabulous, I’ve even been moved to do half the dishes, I wonder if I’ll be moved again?

I started blogging at 4am, went back to bed at 6 and up again about 8, so the day has been productive, I have only one more blog to post on. I began this morning with my fridge habits, now doesn’t that sound exciting?

Today is hump day, over the hump and it’s downhill all the way to Friday.

Then of course it’s the weekend.

So far I have planned a leisurely lunch at Brazeiro with a fellowess teacher. It’s a ‘beef week’ for me, next week is beefless. So I’m making hay while the sunshines.

Saturday, I have planned nothing, and fully expect to achieve that.

Should I need help, I’ll let you know.

Need more whistles

I have been thinking about these whistleblowers. You know, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, the American government has labelled them as traitors, but traitors betray the country, not the government, and I don’t see how these guys have betrayed the country, they should be lauded as heroes for showing the people of America what their government is doing so secretly, and so often against the wishes of the people, not to mention against the people.

Everything I read tells me that America could do with more whistles.

Manning and Snowden should be put on pedestals, not in the dock. They should be awarded the “People’s” Medal of Honor, because Congress certainly won’t give them theirs.

CBF (Brazilian Football Body)and FIFA are getting the stick over the World Cup in 2014. Football (soccer) is a game for everybody, not just the elites. There are millions of Brazilians who love football and want to attend World Cup matches, but can’t afford it.  There are also additional charges that corruption is rife in the CBF.

This should be a ‘Happy Happy Joy Joy’ time for Brazil, but the HHJJ has been taken out of the equation.

I see Argentina is wielding a big stick to combat football violence. They have banned away fans from attending games. Pity the rest of the world didn’t take similar steps; something positive. Brazil needs to do this, I believe it has the worst figures for deaths as a result of football violence in the world.

Once again, I leave you with a world that is not the happy place it should be.

Later.

Pegasus

When I was younger, that was many moons ago, I had many adventures.

Today I was brought face to face with one of them.

An ignoble end to a noble bird

That was the caption: “The remains of the Pegasus in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica”

The plane shown is a C-121, in fact it was this plane.

In her better days.

I had flown in this plane.

As a kid, I was fascinated by planes. We lived within biking distance from the airport and that was where Kenny and I spent a lot of time on weekends watching planes, sometimes getting up to mischief, sometimes not as 12 year olds would do.

On one of these excursions we met the pilot of this plane, a Lieutenant Commander of the USN AirDevRon 6 which supplied the base in Antarctica. Through this meeting Phil Griffiths became a visitor to our home and my parents invited him several times to dinner.

After Phil went back Stateside, we eventually lost contact and I never knew what happened to him or his plane Pegasus, nor its sister, Phoenix.

This was a part of the adventure that lead me to school air cadets, and on to the air force, an association that lasted 21 years.

A nostalgic trip today.

Later.

Dull Day

It’s too light to have the light on, and it’s too dark to see the keyboard properly at 9:30am.

Who knows, I could be sticking my fingers in something icky; maybe I should wash the keyboard…

Apparently, I have just found out, there are keyboards you can wash; weird.

I have read that some people have crumbs in their keyboards. I make it a point, generally, not to eat at the keyboard. I do, however, drink my coffee at the keyboard, lots of it. There are times that something has tickled my fancy to the point that I guffaw, chortle, titter and that has happened with a mouthful of coffee, so both the keyboard and the screen suffer.

I wonder if I could put the screen in the dishwasher…

Don’t panic! I don’t have one. I wouldn’t have one, I consider that they are one of the most useless time wasters in the house, after coffee makers and microwaves. The world has too many gadgets, we are wasting the world’s resources because we are lazy. If you have these types of gadgets in your house, then you are one of the culprits for the woes of the planet.

I want everyone who reads this post to ‘Like’ this. I want to see if likes really make that much of a difference.

Even if you don’t like it.

I don’t see why you shouldn’t it’s got beer in it.

I am actually trying to combat my big drop in readership, visits, etc since February.

.

I found this cool idea to stop people eating your sandwiches at work.

It’s soooo, simple and repulsive, almost guaranteed.

See mouldy sandwiches, I’m sure they work a treat.

Fish for lunch, I’m not sure at the moment how I will cook it, maybe fried, maybe poached, or I may just bake it off in the oven. Do mushrooms go with fish? That’s something I have never done, and I have the mushies… I’ll have o work on that.

The sun is out, time to go and play outside….

Later.

Lethargy & Stuff

Yes, lethargy and stuff. It’s been a mixed up week. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday blogging was only superficial at best.

Thursday and Friday were the worst.

I had an offer to teach mornings again, and my financial situation dictates that I accept. It’s only two hours, 8 – 10, but it means getting up early and although I am a morning person I don’t do compulsory waking well anymore. So it takes a bit to get me firing on all cylinders.

Coffee to be made, blogs to check, comments to reply, links to follow, etc. You’re bloggers, you know how it is.

Then there’s making myself presentable, that means looking like a teacher before 10am, not an easy task.

That’s not the end of it. I have to catch the bus, remember where to get off, walk into the factory…. Oh depresso! To top it all off, I’m expected to teach!

I get home about 10:45, and I’m stuffed, I just want to sleep again. Blogging, don’t even think about it.

I have the next week off mornings, my student has a prearranged trip away, and I have class with him only on Friday, so the ‘normal’ drive will kick in, providing I can get over Monday, that’s usually a rough one.

So, absences like the last couple of days, maybe become necessary. I certainly hope they will not be days in succession like this week. Got to keep a stiff upper lip, that’s my British forebears coming out. Cant’ go whimpering to Mum, sadly she’s not with me anymore.

Apart from my rant, there’s not a lot going on. My Mean Green Leaf Eating Machine is still out of sight. Lixo has got the snots with me, last night I went to throw out a couple of slices of ham that had been in the fridge a few days too long, he wanted it, he got it, and he ate it. This morning cat biscuits just didn’t cut it, he wanted ham. I should buy a big pig and out it in the yard; “You wanted ham… that’s ham!” and see what he makes of that.

After blogging today, I got all blogs posted, I sat in the praça after lunch, and the BOA Antarctica van turned up at the botequim and started blasting preamble music. Just damned peachy! That means at least four hours of deafening music aimed at my house, reason to evacuate. I went home and had a nap, on waking, it was delightful silence, the van had gone. Someone is smiling upon me.

*Looks at clock*

Must be beer o’clock.

Later.

Change

Civet Shit Coffee

Not only the prerogative of Obama.

My socks get holes, I change them.

My underpants lose their elastic, I change them.

My coffee gets too damned expensive, I change it.

I am not talking about fancy civet shit coffee, that costs oodles; I am talking about a good Brazilian coffee.

R$6/500gms

I have always preferred Pilão, but over the last four years that has slowly increased in price and arrived at R$8/500gms (US$4/1lb+ or -). That may not be expensive from your perspective, but it is here. One supermarket has it at R$10. I have taken to lesser brands, Caanan and Bom Dia, but now they too have reached the nearly R$8 mark. I wait in hope for specials on all these brands, in the meantime, I am trying Sul de Minas, which is R$6 at the normal price.

It was recommended to me, but after two days, I find it is weaker than the others; requireing 6 heaped spoons as opposed to 5, which in turn means instead of 8 servings from a packet, I get 6.8… So is it cheaper?

Life is so fraught with problems.

21 years old with 4 years big time football already

Brazil has lost an up and coming footballer to the professionalism of European soccer. Neymar has been signed up with Barcelona.

Last team Santos whose performance will suffer without him.

So Santos is Neymarless.

Neymar, abilities recognised and documented as a kid

Rained most of the day, Lixo arrives to eat, sleep, then off he goes meowing for his latest flame.

Between rains, I wandered to the gate to see what was happening in the world. I watched a pigeon having an opportune drink from a puddle in the street.

It struck me how similar pigeons are to humans.

Here was this girl having a quiet drink at the pigeon bar while a healthy young male was determined to have his wicked way with her.

Isn’t that just like a human; pestering a girl alone at the bar.

While I was searching for a pigeon piccy, I found the nicest pigeon photo I have ever seen.

Impressive

I am not a pigeon fancier, but I took a fancy to that photo, impressive.

That’s it, making like the pigeons and flocking off…

Later.

How to Avoid Mondays

Every home, office and factory should have one.

Once Monday is deactivated the coffee machine starts automatically.

OMG, I need one of these.

We’re back to inclement weather. The sun has gone, but we did have a fine weekend.

The new Maracanã football stadium saw it’s first official game yesterday. Brazil vs England 2-2.

Still, a draw is better than getting your nose rubbed first time up in a multimillion dollar refurbish, and that looked like a definite possibility until very late in the second half.

I slept through the first half; an afternoon nap. I woke to 0-0 half time, so I missed little.

Lunch yesterday, hamburgers and wine, dinner yesterday, hamburgers and beer. I didn’t feel like doing anything extravagant, but at least I didn’t repeat the lunchtime wine, that’s what made me sleepy and miss the first half.

This is my ‘beefless‘ week, so lunch today, ham and mushroom quiche. *Looks at clock* Time I made the pastry. No wine today, I have classes.

Still no sign of my Mean Green Leaf Eating Machine, however, I still have hopes to see him as a moth. How long do they remain as a chrysalis? I must google that.

Rolinha roxa

I swept the yard yesterday, including the remains of some of Lixo’s hunting activities, two birds and a mouse. No sooner did I turn my back and there were feathers everywhere!

He’d caught another rolinha. They’re the main ones he catches, the other birds are too smart.

They’re a sort of dovey kind of bird.

Back to sweeping the yard again. Lixo sat and watched, quite disgusted that I would treat his trophy like that. On to the compost heap and buried, quite undignified.

Must off and make pastry.

Later.