Somebody who thinks like me.

Thanks to Alexandre for this cartoon from last Saturday´s paper. It sums up to a freaking tee my attitude toward Brazilian soccer mania.

Mind you, I have nothing at all against soccer or people who like it. In fact, I am beginning to like it myself. Today I was home alone and watched the entire game between Argentina and Greece. My problem is with the people who would rather cheer for the Brazilian national team (and light firecrackers and blow horns in the street etc, etc, etc.) than look around them at the incredible economic inequity that confronts them everywhere.

One of the saddest things I´ve seen here was last Sunday night after Brazil´s victory over Ivory Coast when I was waiting for a bus to go meet a friend for coffee. There was a street person, who had somehow managed to find a green and yellow shirt, and a horn, begging for money to eat. I am convinced that Marx was wrong. Religion isn´t the opiate of the masses; soccer is. Well, religion is too, but I´ve got soccer on my mind.

If yáll see the same picture that I see as I am typing this, you will not be able to read the captions...but since I will need to translate anyway....

Panel 1 (with all of the Brazilian flags, which are omnipresent here during the world cup, by the way) = Victory

Panel 2 (with people sleeping in the street) = a trophy

Panel 3 = Nobody´s life is resolved or improved (this is the shakiest translation...Help, Alexandre!)

Panel 4 = But everybody cheers (or celebrates)

Panel 5 = The rat says "We´re going to win."

The whole thing is so depressing.

Give Me Some Good-old American Euphemisms

About a month ago, Heitor and I acquired an adorable little siamese kitten named Malu. The name, which we like and decided to keep, was bestowed by the previous owner, an elderly woman in our neighborhood who didn´t have the energy required by a kitten and who also feared she couldn´t keep Malu from falling off her apartment´s balcony. For those few of you old enough to remember the allusion, we considered renaming her Ballou (Cat Ballou), but decided she could be Cat Malu just as well.

After an earlier plan to get two kittens fell through, I went to our neighborhood pet store to ask if they might know of anyone with a cat to adopt. By coincidence, the owner said he knew of a woman who had a siamesse kitten she couldn´t keep. If I would wait a few minutes, he would call her and see if she could bring the kitten to the store.

The woman, Dona Fanny, was, understandably, very relucant to just hand her baby off to an american who might decide tomorrow to pack up and return to the US. I told her that I understood perfectly her concerns and said we could wait until she had an opportunity to meet Heitor and, if she wished, visit our place and see what we had to offer, in terms of living space. It wasn´t necessary, I said, that Malu go home with me that day. Still, after a good deal of conversation and some intervention on my behalf by the pet store owner and the veterinarian who has an office above the pet shop, Malu did go home with me. Dona Fanny, accepted my invitation to come and see Malu in our apartment the next day and she was so pleased that she returned later that same day to bring me a cat bed.

I don´t know anything about her provenance before she came to the Dona Fanny, but the veterinarian told me Malu was born in January. So, it is time to have her spayed. The date is set for 1 July.

There is one word that sends chills up my spine, and I suspect those of most other American males. To avoid using that word, Americans have their male pets neutered and female pets spayed. Unfortunately, if there is a euphemism in Brasil I haven´t found it. Pets here, both male and female, are castrated. So Malu is to be "castrado" and I feel like a jerk even though I know it is the right thing to do.