Monday, September 26, 2011

how do you say 'pet' in portuguese?


One of the fun things about living here in Brazil is that it feels more like an extended vacation than real life, because we're here for such a short time. Everything is temporary - we have little actual furniture - we use boxes for bedside tables, but for four months it feels fun and freeing. Our car is a rental, so no real worries when we go a little too fast over one of those many speedbumps.

In a similar vein, we are now enjoying some new additions to the family without the responsibility of, say, actually keeping a parakeet for twenty years. It's pretty ideal - the kids' school keeps a variety of animals....dogs, turtles, rabbits, fish, etc as part of the Montessori curriculum. The school was happy to commit to keeping our pets when we leave Brazil, giving us the opportunity to enjoy them while we're here. I guess I'll find out soon enough just how ideal Anthony find the whole arrangement (ahem).

But we are enjoying them - hamsters and parakeets - and they all get along! Carina's got to have one in her hands at all times; if it were up to her, "Fluffy" would no doubt sleep with her...uh, except it's nocturnal. John loves his animals and takes great care of them, though his is a more scientific approach. He likes to sit outside the bird cage and watch them for a long time while taking notes in his journal about the ways in which they are similar to dinosaurs.

Carina is convinced that the animals like singing, so she'll hold them and make up long, ballad-like songs about who-knows-what. The parakeets are very tame, and one in particular (Zebra - named by Carina) will hop onto my hand when I reach in the cage. They are living outside on the protected part of the porch. My grandpa had a parakeet, Sparkie, when I was young and maybe cause of this, I feel a surprising affinity toward the birds.












We leave their c
age open in the back yard, and they seem to like hopping around and, in particular,perching on the spokes of Anthony's bike tire














The kids have strict instructions not to handle the animals when I'm not around. Nonetheless, as you may have guessed, the temptation proved too great. The other morning they woke up before me and I came downstairs to find this scene in the laundry room:


The picture kind of explains itself, right? Yes, John's hamster, Lemon-Lime (don't ask) was under the washing machine but (don't worry, mom....it's under control) John had a plan. The best part of the 'plan' is that he had Carina hiding on the other side of the machine with
the net!




Still, I do like seeing them with their animals. This shot kind of reminded me a bit of my birthday present to myself....shown below.

3 comments:

  1. Two parakeets and a hamster! My going 4,000 miles away into the Amazon rainforest does not give the family free rain to gorge on pet purchases. :-)

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  2. um, guess I wasn't clear-that's two parakeets and two hamsters. You know, because otherwise it wouldn't be fair, right?

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