There is this building on my street where they are doing some renovations. When we make big structure changes like that, usually a kind of big trash or bucket is put in front of the place.

Last week, coming back from the market (where else, right?) I saw one of these “buckets” or wherever name it's called, full of garden soil, with plants, and with a lot (seriously, a lot) that I couldn’t get because it was too soaked from the rain.

But there was this little plant, with no more than 30 cm, loose in the middle of the mess. And she was so beautiful, with green leaves that have red details… And her I was able to catch.

Now she is here with me. On my work table, a place with lots of light to make my new Pheebs happy - she was supposed to stay outside, but her vase is too small and the only place where she could stay receives the strongest sun of the day.

So she is inside. And seems happy with that.

Anne Rios

amodafala@gmail.com

São Paulo won’t be nice with its residents for the next few days (but we can’t really complain... it’s not like if we were being nice to the city cutting down trees and polluting the environment).

Until Wednesday, according to the weather app, São Paulo is not going to see a drop of rain falling down from the sky. The air now is completely dry, my nose just started bleeding again, and a person can’t breathe without having the head exploding with pain. 

Drinking a lot of water surely can (and will) help you to go through this period if you are a visitor and are not used to the dry air (but can anyone get used to such a condition?). For me, let’s just say that I am always struggling between body hydration and going to the bathroom all night to pee.

Anne Rios

amodafala@gmail.com

I bought three books today, from the Barsoom series, but I only bought the first three because the series is huge and I don’t intend to read the others. But what is this “Barsoom series” about, you might wonder.

Well, you know that silly Disney movie, John Carter? For some reason I can’t remember, I once watched the ending and got pissed off by it - like, c'mon, I wanted to see the real end and not just imagine it by myself (and the actor who plays John is so cute... that I wanted the character to have a happy ending with his girl).

The series has 10 books (I guess), and only the first one was translated into portuguese, something that really influenced me in choosing to buy all three in English. And now I’m going for it you know, to practice my English, that is not getting any better - I am so tired of embarrassing myself in public...

Anne Rios

amodafala@gmail.com

Last year I was reading an excellent biography of the first Brazilian empress, Leopoldina. A book full of details of the life of a woman that I so much admire - and I dare to say that, if Brazil today exists as a country, is due to her having convinced D. Pedro of the importance of declaring our independence, in 1822. But I had to stop at the part when she arrived in Rio de Janeiro.

Everything we are as Brazilians we owe to this woman, and it’s heartbreaking to learn how sad and lonely her life here was… I do want to get into more specific details about her life and about Brazil as a monarch later, but there is not enough space in today’s post.

And once more I’m going to talk about how I didn’t learn anything I’m about to tell you at school. Something that makes me wonder if our professors are not prepared to teach the youth about Brazil’s history, if they don’t want to.

Anne Rios

amodafala@gmail.com

Here in São Paulo it becomes easier every day to find places where you can buy your food in bulk. But I don’t know if I’m saying that right… you know when you go to a store and buy, like, 100g of beans or any short of different foods? This is the kind of place I’m talking about.

Anyway, until a couple of years ago, if I wanted to buy food that way, the only place in São Paulo where I knew they were available was the region around Mercadão (Mercado Municipal São Paulo), popularly known as “zona cerealista” (cereal zone). Now this kind of store is spreading like weed, which is amazing, because it means low prices - and those who live in Brazil know how expensive everything is for Brazilians.

The best part about having these stores everywhere is that now if I want to buy sweet powder to make Scooby’s Snack, for example, I can buy only a little and the rest won’t spoil - buying it at the supermarket is not a good option because there the sweet powder is only sold in packs of 500g, and I only need a tablespoon for the cookies (I think), and I am not the type of person who likes to buy something I don’t need.

Anne Rios

amodafala@gmail.com

There were so many ants in my Pheebs… It scared me a bit. For those who are new to this blog, Pheebs are my plants (all of them), I call them this way after Phoebe Buffay, the best character of all time. She and I are both so similar.

I changed the vase of my peperomia today, changed the earth on the vase, but as soon as I did it I learned on YouTube that I should also have used some plant substrate to make the earth more “lighter”, so the root can breath easily, but I can’t go to buy it now... God, I hate Sundays, they are such useless days (so tomorrow it is).

This adventure (if we can call it that way) certainly is stressful to the plant, but don’t we all need to make sacrifices once?

Breaks my heart to know that my Pheebs was in this mess because of me. It took me 8 months to change her earth, and if I had searched properly how to make the process, she wouldn’t have to go through it twice. Shame on me.

Anne Rios

amodafala@gmail.com

Last week was not an easy time to live in São Paulo.

Once more the city was hot like hell with no clouds in the sky to bring a little rain and refresh the weather. It was difficult to live, to speak, to eat, to sleep - I gave up on this last one a long time ago and now I just sleep on the floor (something that was great to my back, actually).

A horrible situation, indeed, but yet very attractive to those who live in countries where people spend most of the year inside of heavy coats (I heard that the cold weather will knock down London this week).

Now things have (finally!) returned to a “normal” state where you no longer need to cry for not being able to buy an air conditioner - and who lives in Brazil knows how expensive one of those bad boys can be.

Anne Rios

amodafala@gmail.com

There is a new favourite topic for conversation in Brazil, and I’m talking about Big Brother (does this still happen in your country?), here kindly called by “BBB”, a “nickname” that comes from Big Brother Brasil.

One would think that climate changes or the pandemic are important subjects to be discussed, but not Brazilians. Every January 1st gets, for the last 21 years, the country immerse inside the reality show bubble as a form to escape from the “real world problems”. And no one seems to be able to avoid the BBB in their conversation.

But at least this year something really interesting came up of this reality show: how fragile men become. The doubt is if now society will wake up and start raising their boys to be a man that stands in front of his wife and family in a time of danger, and not the other way around like is happening nowadays.

Anne Rios

amodafala@gmail.com