A little bit of everybody.
Well, we got Hannah back in one piece from her tournament. In classic middle school style, she moved right on past any of the actual struggles with a quick shoulder shrug and is focusing on the good parts, which is just fine with us for now. We have four months before we have to deal with this again, so we’ll just be happy that she’s happy.
The tournament was called Little 8 and it was eight international schools from around Brazil meeting at a dedicated sports facility outside Sao Paolo for three days of basketball. I don’t really know how to describe the facility except as some sort of kid sports heaven. It is out in the middle of nowhere on its own beautiful property with a lake, horses, kayaks, and soccer fields, basketball and volleyball courts, and as we found out, masseuses that the kids can go to for their aches and pains in between their three off the chart meals each day. It was kind of like an all inclusive sports resort designed for middle and high school kids. Yeah, not exactly roughing it.
The basketball itself was challenging for Hannah and her team. They were only able to field a team of seven, two of whom were recruited just for this tournament, so there was not a lot of depth. They definitely gelled as a team, played hard, and had some great moments, which was encouraging, but had to settle for eight place. Hannah played all but six minutes of the five games and came back limping and sore. She also almost forgot to mention that she won a Sportsmanship Award for the tournament. At the end of each game, the teams presented a mini-award to a player from the other team that they thought showed the most overall “good stuff” and Hannah won that award three times and so was given the award for the team at the end. She was acting pretty ho hum about it with us, but it did happen to end up on her bedside table, which is prime real estate, so we were glad that she was as proud of it as we were.
Lila ran her first 5K here in Brazil with her school running club and it was called the Insane Race. Insane mainly because it was around a mall, through a parking garage, and involved at least 10 different inflatable obstacles, with water, and bubbles, and 100 people starting a new wave every 10 minutes. So, Insane was a good description for it, but she loved every step.
Lila also got to spend Halloween at the American Embassy with a friend, which is a big deal. You have to be invited to attend, and the embassy staff go all out. Every office creates their own miniature station for trick or treating, with decorated hallways and some legitimately scary spots. She came back sugared, spooked, and happy.
Sara continues to work her butt off at school. Her teaching partner is amazing, but is also driven, so I wouldn’t say they complement each other as much as fuel each other. There are glimpses of things slowly getting easier, but it is teaching, so we know where that’s headed.
I continue to provide endless entertainment for the kind people of Brasilia with my Portuguese. I am improving, which may not actually be helping me. I can now plan and speak a pretty decent sentence or two, but then there comes that sticky moment when the person responds, and then everything goes to hell. I went to buy a beard trimmer, because apparently I have a beard in my ear that needs attending, and realized after buying it that it was missing some parts. So, I busted out my Dick and Jane vocabulary, spiced things up with a little Google Translate, and bravely forged back into the store to say, “excuse me fine people, I just purchased this razor and it is missing some parts.” And knowing that the next question would be whether or not I had my receipt, I proudly busted it out and handed it over. At which point, I get the sad head shake and finger wag, which is the universal signal for “sorry, you don’t have the correct document.” My joy at being understood quickly faded as I started to wonder what I was going to do? Not knowing the words for, “what do you mean this isn’t the right receipt” and not yet wanting to appear frustrated, I simply said, “what is it then?” Now let me explain that you only have about 72 hours to return anything in Brazil to the store that sold it to you. After that, you deal with the manufacturer, which is even more fun than in the US. I was there less than 4 hours after buying it, so I was confident I was correct. So keeping calm, I turn to look at the clerk and ask him what the paper in my hand is if it is not my receipt? In return, I get a big smile, a look of pity, and an extremely good view of the back of the receipt, where it clearly says, Dunkin’ Donuts. I can only imagine how many laughs the story of the American who tried to return something with a Dunkin’ Donuts receipt will provide, but I that’s fine. I long ago surrendered any dignity I have around my Portuguese, and at least I was able to produce the correct receipt and leave with the right item.
Unfortunately, any small ember of accomplishment that may have started to ignite from surviving the mall was quickly snuffed out when I attempted to use my new beard trimmer. No, it wasn’t broken. In fact, it was working exactly as designed, maybe better than expected. Once I knew the trimmer was working, I decided to take it out for a test drive and tackle those ear beards. Job done. And like with any new toy, I wanted to keep playing with it and so I looked around to see what else I could trim up.
The following is an excerpt from my brain:
Well, the barber always cleans up the stray long hairs on the eyebrows, let’s do that. That looks like the tallest guard, let’s start with that and see if we catch anything. Ok, snapped on and fired up. Wow, that really cuts easily. Hmm, that’s not the noise my trimmer at home makes when it knicks off a couple of long hairs. That’s much more like the noise the barber’s razor makes when it’s cutting off a whole bunch of hair. Interesting, I’ve never seen that much hair in the sink. Those are kind of long. Oh sh#t, are those all from my eyebrow?
Turns out that the height of the guards might have been misread by a certain currently buzzcut eyebrow someone in our house. Apparently, the heights of the plastic pieces don’t correspond with the cutting height, so instead of the 1/2 of an inch tall eyebrow shaping, I got the 1mm tall golf green mowing eyebrow. Yeah, that’s no good, and now I have to buzz the other one so they match.
That’s all for now. I’ve got to go find a Sharpie and see if I can not make things any worse.
Love to everyone, pictures below,
Adam
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