Caine's Arcade

Note: This is a non-Brasilian post. The closet thing to Brazilian in this post is the word bazillion. Carry on if you wish.....

Sometimes I get frustrated with social media - seems like it sucks away the time. Is is better to keep in touch with lots of people a little, or a few people in more depth? But then I happen upon stuff like this, and it seems that social media is the best thing since sliced bread. (Incidentally, I've seen debates on whether or not sliced bread is really that great.) Seems to me that putting a smile on a kid like Caine is worth about a bazillion dollars.




Caine inspired a few make-it-yourself games in the office this morning. There was a pseudo-plinko, a loopty-loop game where the ball would come into the shoebox, bank off the back of a domino holder and knock down Lego "pins", a skate-board ramp/jump/see-if-you-can-land-it-in-the-hole, and a few others.


And thanks to Gloria for sharing the video on her blog.

New things to taste...

This is one of my new favorite fruits. It is an atemoya.


Per Wikipedia, it's a cross between a sugar apple (Annona squamosa) and a cherimoya (Annona cherimola). It is also known as a pineapple sugar apple. And Cubans know this fruit as an anón. It has a creamy texture, is very sweet, and reminds me a little of a lychee. It's delicious. I just bought some more at the feira this morning, and hope these are as good as the last few that I bought.


Next up, Halls. We have these in North America of course, but Brasilians seem to have a love affair with them. There are so many different kinds, and they're located right next to the gum and candy at the checkout aisle. I haven't seen too many people partaking this summer, but as the weather starts to cool now that it's fall, I suspect consumption will increase.


This was a new flavor that looked interesting. Maracujá (passion fruit) with a chocolatey center - and CREAMY, as you can see. The boys and I each tried one, half assuming with all these flavors that it wouldn't taste like a cough drop at all, but rather just a candy. Nope - it's just an interestingly-flavored cough drop. And since we didn't have a cough and don't particularly like the flavor of cough drops we spit them out. But good to know I have a large variety to choose from when I DO have a cough.

Here was an item I had been eyeing for a while in stores, and finally took the plunge. I'm not sure why it says NOVO as I'm pretty sure these have been around for a while.


It's kind of a cross between marshmallows and gelatin.


Sam likes marshmallows; Andy not so much. Here were the reactions.

The first bite.

Thinking.


He was giving me the so-so hand motion here, which I believe is the same sign for the equivalent Portuguese expression, mais o menos.

This wasn't as much of a reaction as us noticing that a moth had just flown in from the veranda. Maybe there were two, as it seems we're looking at different spots on the ceiling. There were many moths appearances that week.

None of us cared much for the new sweet. But it looks like Andy liked his dinner.

Santos FC celebrates 100 years!!

Parabéns Santos FC for your 100 years of existence!



(For non-soccer people, FC stands for Futebol Clube - this perplexed me for years as to why several of the pro soccer teams in the US and around the world had FC in their names.)

There was a countdown clock on the beach that started a couple months ago, which finally hit 00:00:00 around 2pm yesterday, I think. There were fogos (fireworks) Saturday at midnight, and festivities yesterday by the clock for the countdown.

Here's a trailer of a film celebrating 100 years.




I'm sure there have been MANY other activities helping to commemorate the anniversary of which I'm not even aware. One that was brought to my attention was this mural that has been in-process for the past two weeks on exterior walls of the club's practice field. The artist is Paulo Consentino, and here is a link to the Santos FC website that talks about the project.


They used stencils that has been prepared ahead of time in his studio.



My friend and her sister participated in helping to put the mural up, and we stopped on by Friday to see how things were going. We met Mr. Consentino briefly, as everyone was working fast and furiously to try and complete the mural. But he was very courteous, and even let Sam and his friend Helena (whose mom and aunt were the ones who participated) do a little spray painting themselves.




Happy Birthday Santos FC, and very nice job Paulo Consentino and crew!!