It's been a long time since my last post in March.
Even though a) I know I've lost all five of my loyal readers in the last 6 months, and b) you've seen everything I've been doing on Facebook anyway and haven't missed one iota of my life, I still feel like I want to write.
The Olympics and Paralympics were a great big blur of life that I cannot even begin to comprehend. It was such a great time to live in this amazing city. There was a pulse, a hum of activity and energy, a positivity here, and I loved every second of it. (Blogger doesn't like "positivity and I'm getting that wavy red line underneath it. Isn't that real word? If it's not, it should be.)
And then about 40 minutes after the Paralympics closed, we moved house. Literally. Almost 40 minutes after the Paralympics closed.
We knew this move was going to happen, but a year from now, 6 months from now, after the Olympics seems like a long time away. Until it's not.
So the Paralympics ended on Sunday night late, and we started the move on Monday and slept in the new house on Tuesday. Almost 40 minutes exactly.
The new house is great in many, many ways. It's the biggest house I've ever lived in and is lovely and open and airy. It's surrounded by green and has an orchid garden inside the house. (an orchid garden. Inside the house.) The landlord left his furniture which looks like it belongs in the most comfortable yet sophisticated beach house on a white sandy beach in Florida somewhere. There is not much to dislike about this house.
But just to get it all out in the open, I'll name a couple things that I dislike.
1. All that green means that we have some animals around these parts. I routinely see monkeys in the front yard trees. And that's okay if the monkeys stay in those trees. My big fear is that the monkeys will somehow jump through the open windows, which we leave open a good bit. (Because there are wide overhangs on the roof, the rain that has fallen nearly every.single.blessed.day since we moved in doesn't blow inside). I do not want monkeys in the house.
2. We had a rogue hummingbird in the house on Friday. I had a friend over for coffee and thought I saw a shadow pass behind her in another room. And then the shadow came back. There's a young caretaker couple who live on the property, so I immediately called the husband and asked him to "caretake" of this hummingbird. He captured it only after the poor bird bonked itself on one of the big glass windows.
3. We also had a possum in the house, so I'm becoming very conscientious about wild animal intrusion. Mac was at a sleepover on Saturday, and Jimmy and I went out for dinner for friends. We returned home around 11pm, and Jimmy went to the kitchen to get us water for our bedside tables. I heard him say, "uh-oh" in a loud voice after which he told me there was a possum in the pantry. I'm sorry, what? The pantry is like a huge closet off on the side of the kitchen and the possum was hanging out. He must not have been there too long because he hadn't gotten into anything yet. I went to get one of the two guards who are always at our house and said they needed to come on inside and help us wrangle up a possum. (Just kidding. I don't know all those words in Portuguese. It was more my screaming in Portuguese that "we have a wild animal in the kitchen" and then gesticulating what I think are the universal charades motions for possum.) They got a cardboard box and headed upstairs while I got Leo and headed way upstairs. By now, the possum was behind the water filter machine, playing dead. That was probably sort of cute. Thankfully it was also helpful because Jimmy could push the possum-playing possum from behind the water machine and into the box that the guard was holding. The possum really liked that game because he stayed still while they closed the box and took him outside.
So then began my worry about how this stupid animal got into the house. As I mentioned, we leave windows (and doors) open, but on Saturday night, everything was closed up tight. How did this animal get in? The problem is that we don't have a back door on this house. I know it's weird - and it's the one thing we said we'd change if this house were ours. The back steps go down into an area where the guards hang out and where this caretaker couple lives. There's also a laundry room and a storage room and the area leads directly out into the garage. The laundry room is basically open to the elements and we think the possum came in there, climbed over this little babygate thing that's we close at the bottom of the stairs to keep Leo outside when nobody is home, and moseyed on up to the kitchen to make himself at home.
All I can tell you is that if that possum or any of his friends come back when I'm home by myself, I will likely just close the door, walk away, and pretend I never saw it. I cannot face a wild, feral animal in my house.
3. There is no back door. See item 2 above. This is weird and I don't like it.
4. Our new neighborhood is nice and is probably where Jimmy would choose to live if he could choose any neighborhood in Rio. HOWEVER, the only places I can walk to here are the grocery store, a fancy pet store (that is soon going to open a coffee shop where you can sit and drink coffee with your pup, a bakery and a gas station. Oh, and the beach is a much easier and closer walk than at our last house. And it's a much prettier beach than our last beach. Actually scratch this negative. The grocery store and the beach are my favorite places on earth, so I'm all good on this one. (But I do miss walking down the hill to my pilates class, restaurants and shops. Now I have to drive the car everywhere and I've already scratched the car. It's amazing the damage that doesn't get done to a car when it just sits in the garage all day.)
5. I think the house has a mildew issue because my very sensitive nose can smell that stuffy mildewy, moldy smell all the time here. You know what I'm talking about, right? Jimmy and Mac don't seem to mind it or even smell it, so I'm hoping once this interminable rain ends, I can really air things out and get the smell to go away.
With all that really negative-sounding complaining, the living is quite good and fairly easy here. We still have our regular housekeeper and our chef so between them and this other live-in couple, we rarely lift a finger to do anything. So I think I'll just pipe down and put my sorries in a sack, as Jimmy likes to say, and enjoy this nice spot for the 3-8 months we'll be living here.
Hope that all is well in your corner of the world.
Susan x
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