Tidbits

WWUSD (What Would the U.S. Do?): Every week, one of our apartment building's residents (who are mostly all really old), posts a "Thought of the Week" in the elevator. It is a quote, very much like the ones graduating seniors carefully choose for the yearbook by someone famous like Shakespeare or Mother Teresa. They are always handwritten in perfect cursive on special flower paper and leave you feeling deep and introspective. Until recently. The "Thought of the Week" was replaced by a one-page (typed, single-spaced) open letter to all the building's dog owners, at least one of which did not clean up his dog's pee in the aforementioned elevator on several occasions. (Geoff thought the offender was the half-Chihuahua, half-something-else dog on 5. I'm guessing it was the Pomeranian on 11; he wears a necktie but doesn't really seem that dignified to me.) Either way, the letter writer (who lives on 12) had had enough. By mid-week, one of the building's residents cornered Geoff in the parking garage. Standing the shadows, speaking in a hushed voice (at least in my mind), our neighbor told Geoff he had already spoken with another resident and they wanted to know if Geoff would be willing to have a private conversation about this situation and how it would be resolved in the United States. (I'm guessing he didn't want the advice: "In the United States, we clean up pee.") Geoff agreed to a confidential meeting. We are still waiting for the secret knock on the back door, but meanwhile the "Thought of the Week" has returned and our building has a new designated dog area.   

The Accent, Still: We have been living in Brazil for nearly two and half years now and our Portuguese is pretty good. It occurred to me though that no one has commented on our accents. As soon as we begin speaking, it's very obvious that we are native English speakers, but no one finds this delightful, much like we do when the British or Australians speak English. Our accent has been described as "strong," "very strong" and "German-sounding," but never charming. Not even once. In fact, it can prompt a rather strong reaction from the native speaker. This is:

1.     the loud talker, who assumes if he speaks louder, you will understand better.

2.     the slow talker

3.     the emphatic gesturer

4.     a combination of the slow talker, emphatic gesturer, which is so ridiculous it's very difficult to pay attention to what he or she is saying

5.     the down-talker, who confuses your accent with your intelligence level

6.     the face-scruncher, who understands your attempt at speaking in their native tongue, but apparently finds it so painful they must scrunch their face to make sense of it all.


Happiness: