It's late October. It's 22 degrees.

Where are we again?

To celebrate the incredibly warm weather today, we headed out for a bit of a walk on the Ottawa River Pathway. While a lot of the leaves have already fallen, the sights are still pretty spectacular - I have to admit, the autumn colours are one of the things that I missed most about not being in Canada these last three years.


I was a little jealous of these guys 'cause I thought that maybe they were gathering together so that they could head to Brazil for the winter, but it turns out that they only head to the south of the States. I'm not so jealous anymore!

Gato Felix Canadensis

I didn't take any pictures at the Caipis & The Commons Party last Tuesday, so instead, here is a picture of Felix helping us unpack. It's an even switch, I'd say!

45 Bottles of Cachaça on the Wall

45 bottles of cachaça.
Take some down.
Pass 'em around.
42 bottles of cachaça on the wall.

Well, we've had our first caipirinha party since my air shipment - loaded down with my massive cachaça haul - arrived a month ago. I have to admit, it was a little nerdy. Being capital city dwellers, we tend to get excited/antsy about things like the Speech from the Throne. Essentially the Speech from the Throne is the speech with which the Government opens new sessions of parliament. It outlines the administration's priorities for the coming year and gets voted on.... If the vote fails, the government falls. You can see where this is going right? Needless to say, this year's speech promised to be much more dramatic than usual and we thought that the only to get through would be a few rounds of strong, but oh-so-smooth, caipirinhas. Hence the birth of the First Annual Caipis & The Commons Party.

I am happy to report though that in true mixing business with pleasure fashion, the Caipis & The Commons Party was a roaring success. I admit that I had been somewhat doubtful as it did sound rather nerdy indeed. But low and behold - turns out it was exactly what this little 'ol town needed! We are now on the look out for the next caipi-drinking excuse!

Et tu, Ottawa?

There are a lot of things that I miss about Brazil; the music, the food, friends, the work, charming colonial architecture, the beaches and other natural paradises, eighties music blaring outside my house at 6am on Sunday mornings. Okay, maybe not that last one! But seriously, while there is much to miss about Brazil, there are other things that I do not miss; chronic violence, lack of personal security, bitter poverty, chronic violence, extreme income disparities and chronic violence. Did I mention the chronic violence?

One of the silver linings of returning to Canada (there were a few!) was that I would no longer have to be constantly looking over my shoulder, going through red lights as soon as the sun sets and calling my friends to let them know that I got home okay. Yes, clutching my bag would be a thing of the past! Keeping my cards & cash separate but a blurring memory. How fitting then, that as I was slowly waking up - a mere ONE DAY after arriving - and listening to the local news on the radio, I learned that not only had someone in Ottawa been stabbed but that it was less than a hundred metres from my new place! Stabbings are pretty rare news in Ottawa and always get reported with a certain level of shock and amazement. Perhaps the timing and location of this last one was to help ease my transition??

It's not TB

As I suspected, I neither have, nor have been exposed to, TB. Good to know, I guess.

On the other hand, I did find out some rather surprising news as I round up the battery of post-return tests that I have been subject to. In turns out that after living in the land of beef and the land of sugar for three years, during which time I consumed more red meat and sugar than in my whole life combined, I discovered that I am borderline iron and blood sugar deficient! How is this possible? Either I could have actually been eating more meat and more cake while in Brazil or else my body is in shock to being back in Canada and not eating so much meat and sugar....

Who would have thunk?

TB or not TB?

Okay, yes, I've been back from Honduras for over a week now.

And yes, I need to get my caipirissima - life back in Canada blogging habits under control. I agree that they are woefully woeful.

Skimming over several weeks of news, I have to say that my current activity consists of waiting to see if I have been exposed to tuberculosis in the past three years. I don't imagine that I have, but I do have to say that at one point my allergies (at least I think they were allergies) were causing me a certain amount of lung problems and I joked that it was time to finally get my tb checked out. I guess we shouldn't really joke about these sorts of things....

In any case, I got the mantoux test done yesterday and am resisting the urge to self-diagnose! There is a purple spot on my arm where the injection was made, but so far it seems smaller than the need-to-worry size indicated in the depository of all human knowledge (a.k.a. The Internet). On Friday, I will know for sure.