At the last minute, I decided to host a Christmas Eve wingfest and I had some very pretty ladies show up.  There were three in particular that made the evening … er, chaotic, but everyone survived.  Below are pictures of Ava and Anna sitting with several of us at a nearby restaurant before the wingfest.  They were sitting on a bench and waving at the vehicles on the street.Then during the actual wingfest, I caught the two sisters at various places in my apartment looking guilty of something or another.And the third pretty girl is Kwynn who I often have the pleasure of visiting with.  She the little one in the middle.  You’ve seen her before squealing at the  irritating mechanical furry animals in the previous post.Additionally, there were two other couples, one who were the parents of the two previous ornery girls and a little one that is new to Brazil.And some of the food prep :I always enjoy hosting these and have several other people who I need to invite.

And before I leave you again, I wanted to show you a gift a “friend” gave me for Christmas.  She said it reminded her of me.  Seriously, I never saw myself as a John Wayne type of guy.

I see many strange things that can be bought on the Internet these days, and recently purchased several of these furry devices that repeat anything you say, and jump like fools when doing so.  Here is what they look like at rest:

I asked one of them its name and got this:

Then I sat both of them together for an intelligent conversation:

I gave one to the beautiful daughter of a friend of mine and she sent me videos of her reaction to this crazy furry thing.

Another interesting story:  When I first came to Sao Paulo, a neighbor who also works at the Consulate took me to the nearby store and showed me how to get food.  She said, at the check out they will always ask you two questions, (something about a tax receipt) and your answer will always be No.  Sounded simple.

But occasionally, I noticed they would ask me three questions, and I would always give them the safest answer of No, especially if you don’t know the question.

As I started learning more and more phases, I realized one day, that sometimes when I went to the checkout the first question would be boa tarde?

… and it hit me.  boa tarde simply means, Good Afternoon.  Which explains why they gave me a funny look when I resolutely stated, No.

An old friend of mine once told me, Life is pretty damn tragic if we don’t learn to laugh at ourselves.

I tend to laugh at myself quite often.