The Feira in Brazil -- How I miss it

While we were in Brazil we learned to love the feira (fay – tuh) that came to our street every Thursday. Early Thursday mornings we would awaken to the various sounds of the feira being set up—trucks parking, the pounding of the stands being put together, and boxes of produce being moved from truck to stand. It was such a delight to buy fresh produce from the stands that lined the street. They also had other venders who sold all kinds of goods from CDs to clothing to trinkets and what-have-you. They also had some kind of machine that pressed the juice out of the sugar cane--that was very popular with the people. They also sold fresh fish, pork products, and beef, but we never bought anything like that.

We bought a little shopping cart that rolled along on two wheels and made it very easy for us. We would load it up with such fresh vegetables as green beans, broccoli, radishes, cauliflower, and fresh fruit, like bananas and pineapple. I think I miss the feira the most of anything that we encountered in Brazil.

The feiras are very popular in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where we lived. During the week they would visit different areas of the city, bringing the fresh produce and goods to the people. Along about 1 or 2 o'clock, or sometimes earlier if a vendor sold all out, they would pack up and leave. The street would be littered with all kinds of detritus from the fruits and vegetables. However, when we came home along about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, it was all cleaned away and you would never know they had even been there.

The stand above was maintained by a couple (their picture is just below) who we grew to love. We didn't speak Portuguese with much fluency, but it was enough to let them know we thought a lot of them. One day I found her in tears and learned that her little dog had died that day. I gave her a hug and let her know that I understood that losing a pet is cause for grief. I have lost pets in my lifetime and I know just how heart-wrenching it can be.

This man was always at the feira, sitting on his little box in which he collected donations. He would sometimes play his harmonica. I always gave him a Brazilian dollar, one real. One day as I was walking to the office one day, when a huge truck started backing up. It was moving toward him and I thought that they could see him and would soon stop. However, the truck kept moving, and since he was blind, he had no idea he was in danger. In that moment of extreme anxiety, I shouted at the top of my lungs: "STOP!" Even though it wasn't in Portuguese, I guess the distress in my voice alerted them and they stopped. I don't think he ever realized he was just about to be squashed.

I Wish I had Written this Letter

My friend sent me a copy of a letter written by a University Professor and sent to the editor of the Wall Street Journal this past week. This letter so eloquently put into words the thoughts that I carry in my heart and mind about abortion. I recently emailed my own thoughts to President Obama about lifting the ban on paying for international abortions and about the danger of signing FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act) into law. Every protective law that now exists will be effectively eliminated and the family will suffer. My words to him were not so exquisitely expressed. I want to publish this letter here so that I can share them with any who might read my blog:

Dear Mr. Pollock:

One of the last orders that George W. Bush signed as President was the January 2009 National Sanctity of Human Life Day Proclamation. His pro-life record includes the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, the ban on partial-birth abortion, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, and the block of Federal funding for overseas “family planning” abortion programs.

One of the first orders that Barack H. Obama has signed as President is a reversal of the ban on taxpayer-funded international abortions. He also plans to expand the power to kill innocent lives via the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). We cannot print enough worthless monopoly money to solve our national and global economic crisis, but we still have plenty of hard cash in the budget for killing babies at home and abroad?

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Dr. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, challenged Mr. Obama to include unborn children in his vision of life, liberty, and justice for all. Maybe he will be strong enough to abolish chattel abortion, just as President Lincoln abolished chattel slavery. If not, someday a great President will end the lucrative business of elective abortion. Someday the record will show who really cared about human rights. The rhetoric will end, and the record will stand.

Someday great reporters will have the stomach to expose the practices and profits of the elective abortion industry and the sale of baby body parts. The taboo on reporting prenatal violence will be lifted by men and women of conscience, who know that the blood of the littlest human beings should not be used to pay for the unprincipled behavior of adults who refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of sexual activity.

Someday the violence of abortion methods will be as abhorrent as any other assault or physical abuse. The paradox of those who oppose the death penalty but promote abortion will end. Pacifists will oppose elective abortion when they realize that more babies have died from abortion in the last 36 years than all of the soldiers and civilians who died from all of the modern military wars combined.

Someday elective abortion, the ultimate example of age discrimination, will be unthinkable. Those who said that women were not legal persons could not prevail. Those who said that slaves were not legal persons had to fail. Someday the tiny human beings who are not yet born will have protection as legal persons. Medical and technological advances will continue to roll back the frontiers of inner space in defining the genesis of human life. Hands that grasp and hearts that beat will be more eloquent than the most self-indulgent right-to-choose, right-to-kill, right-to-privacy speech.

“Little Lamb, who made thee?” asked the poet William Blake in “The Lamb,” his most delicate song of innocence. He mourned the fate of chimney sweeps caught in narrow Victorian infernos. Someday a poet may write a parallel piece:

Little Life, who saved thee?
Dost thou know who saved thee?
Little Life, I’ll tell thee.
They are called by thy name,
For they call themselves humane.

Someday great poets will grieve for the grisly piles of fetal bodies incinerated daily in the land of the free. Someday great writers will grieve for broken lives of unwed undone mothers-not-to-be in the land of the brave.

Who will be the abolitionists? Who will participate in the Underground Railroad? Who will be the new Harriet Tubman? Who will be the new Mother Teresa? Will there be a Horton who discovers the “Who” of unborn personhood in universes of discourse more lovely than we can imagine? Let it be so. Let it be now. Let it be me. When future generations look back on our 3.5 decades of slaughtering innocents, when they recoil at the hypocrisy of our polite exterminations, when they rebuke publicly-funded genocide, when they condemn the press for its cowardly cover-up, when they wonder why nobody said anything, let them find my poor name in a pile of old newspapers, as one who said “To waste the flower of our love and to kill the fruit of our loins is wrong.”

CH

This is my effort to let everyone know that I stand immovable and steadfast in my love for my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. It is my desire to be like my Savior as much as it is in my power to do so.

Gloria

Pennies from Heaven

I must tell my story about pennies and my Mom. This story began a long time ago and over a period of time. Whenever my Mom and I would be together when we were visiting her or she was here with us, we liked to go for long walks. Whenever we’d see a penny, she would stop and pick it up. Now me, I never used to pick up pennies thinking them to be of no consequence.

After she passed away and I would see a penny, I began to pick them up because they reminded me of her and I loved thinking about her and replaying some of my memories of her. I can’t remember how or why I started this little game with myself, but I would playfully announce to anyone that was with me that Mom must be nearby because I had found a penny. I began to pick those pennies up and save them. It soon became a way for me to fill a need for her to be part of my everyday life.

When we went to Brazil, we had left our home in the warmth of summer and arrived to be greeted by Brazil’s winter season. Being a person who is miserable when cold, that first week there was one of great adjustment. I was cold and coming down with a cold, homesick, beginning what was tantamount to a new job working in the mission office and learning all the duties associated with that, couldn’t speak the Portuguese language, getting used to a different money system, and dealing with all sorts of stress. President U (the mission President) had invited us to go to Jacarei to attend a Rodeo with him and his wife. I told about this experience here.

As we wandered around the rodeo grounds, I looked down and sitting there in the dirt was an American penny. I was astounded. Here we were in Brazil, where the money is so far different than ours, and I find a penny; it made me feel that my Mother was really nearby and making sure that I knew it.

There was another amazing time in Brazil that I was at a major low point. We had just experienced having our apartment robbed of our laptop computer and various other goods. It would have been worse but we came home (although it was a little later than our usual time) and they didn’t have time to finish their raid (this is a whole story in and of itself). Shortly after that, we were walking from our apartment to the mission office and found a myriad of American pennies on the sidewalk. We picked them up and again I wondered if it was because my Mom was offering what comfort she could.

Since that time I continue to pick pennies up when I spot them. However, it seems like there are not so many pennies lying around on the ground these days. People are either hanging onto their pennies and/or picking pennies up where they used to pass them by like I used to do. We were shopping last Tuesday and as I walked out of the grocery store and moved toward our car, the thought went through my mind that it had been quite a while since I had found an errant penny lying on the ground. I finished that thought by thinking that perhaps I didn’t need my Mom to be so close any more. I no sooner than finished that thought, when I looked down on the parking lot and there was a bright, shiny penny winking up at me. As I picked the penny up, I marveled. I will leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions, but I hug my conclusions to me in love and gratitude.

Gloria

Christmas Cheer

Partial view of our backyard

Today is Christmas and it’s snowing outside. Here in our community we are really having a White Christmas. It snowed for five or six hours Monday, then it snowed for nearly that same amount of time on Tuesday, and now today we have that same amount being predicted. It makes for a truly winter, wonderland outside.

We followed our tradition of going to my son’s home for Christmas breakfast of orange juice, sourdough hotcakes and waffles, eggs, bacon, and little smokies. We love to gather together with as many of the family that can come to enjoy breakfast together and see what the kids are all excited about. Today was a little sparse mostly because of the weather. We have followed this tradition since their oldest child was a little tike—now she is married and the other four are growing up. It is still fun to be together on Christmas morning.

Down our street -- the wind was blowing and it was snowing but the pix doesn't show that

When we were serving our mission to Brazil, we decided to bring our traditional breakfast to the Elders who were serving in our area—there were about 8 of them. I had taken my sourdough start with me to Brazil by drying it into little chips. I mixed equal parts of milk and flour and added the chips and waited overnight then, voila! we had our sourdough starter with which to make the batter. We bought about 3 dozen eggs, got a ham which we sliced and warmed in the oven, and made the orange juice. Even though it was a hot summer day in Brazil, we had an enjoyable time together and I had no time to feel homesick. We have fond memories of that wonderful day in Brazil.

I pray that your day was as peaceful and full of joy as mine has been.

Gloria

Stupor of Thought--or What?

I have had ideas that I wanted to post, but somehow I just couldn't sit down and do it. And then I realized that the last time I posted was election day. That was the day I cried when it became certain who our new president was going to be.

I think I got stuck because of my fears. I decided that I must have faith, because perfect faith casteth off all fear. So, since the election I have been praying for myself, that I could accept the new president of our country. I have also been praying for him to accept guidance and direction from the Lord to do what is right for our country.

I have also been dismayed about the backlash from California's Proposition 8. I do not understand how "No on Prop 8'ers" could say we are hateful, meaning those who want to have marriage defined as the union of a husband and a wife, when it is they who are behaving in such a hateful manner. Everything is all backwards.

It is all in the name: marriage. The way I see it, the term "marriage" was copywrited long ago by God. If I created a new drink and wanted to call it "coca cola" I'd be hauled into court straight away. If I created a new shoe and decided to call it "nike" the same thing would happen. So, why can't they who want to live in a different style relationship create their own name? I fully understand their desire to have the rights extended to married couples, but they have been granted these rights in many states. I could see them fight to be granted these rights in all states without usurping the name “marriage” and changing the laws which would have far reaching consequences. Some of these consequences we know, but many that we would come face to face with if we are forced to go down that road.

We who are followers of the Lord and His Son, Jesus Christ; we who read the scriptures and desire to pattern our lives after righteous principles; we who are striving to live the commandments; we must all stand together and be united in the cause of righteousness. If we don't stand together, we will fall separately, one by one. No one wants that to happen, except maybe our enemies.

Gloria

A November Memory

On this day, November 4th, some years ago, I potty trained my youngest child, A. I had purchased the book, “Training your child in Less than a Day.” Her second birthday was to be on November 8th, and I selected this day because it would be a day when I had no outside duties or obligations, a day when it was just the two of us here at home (until the other five kiddos came home from school). I read, no I studied the book and wrote down the pertinent steps and information I needed to make it happen.

My goal was to just train her for the daytime, as I felt that would be wonderful to have her out of daytime diapers. I had no expectations of her being able to control her bowel movements and figured that we would work on that as necessary. I found a doll that wet at a local thrift store, so I could demonstrate to her what was expected when she sat on the potty. As it turned out, I could have used a doll she already had, because instead of putting water into the doll, I just held a saturated piece of paper towel, which I surreptitiously squeezed to produce a little puddle in the potty.

I purchased the treats, especially lots of her favorite juices. You see, the idea is to give them plenty of liquid so they have to urinate often. I purchased the large, oversized (more easy to push down and pull up), thick (for absorption) training pants. There was to be no phone calls, no TV, no radio, no reading—just myself and my child interacting all day, especially focused on learning to use the potty.

I started as soon as the older kiddos were out the door to go to school. We started out in the kitchen, as the book suggested. I did the demonstration with the doll to show her what was expected of her. I repeated to her the steps she was expected to learn and so we began.

However, as the day progressed, I realized I had to be flexible and adapt to my child in order to be successful. She roamed about the house, and so I roamed with her. She loved every minute of it. At one point, she went into one of the bedrooms and patted the floor as an invitation for me to sit with her—and I did.

She began to use the potty. In the beginning I would put my hands over her little hands to guide them as she pulled down the oversized training pants. She was so proud to “perform” and even happier still when she began to pull up her pants by herself. She emptied the contents of the potty into the toilet and proudly flushed the toilet. She loved the treats and the drinks that came afterward.

When there were “accidents” we would practice. Oh, she really didn’t like that part. The book suggested that we go to various points in the house and I went through the dialog that consisted of the steps she was learning. I would say, when you need to go potty, you go to the bathroom (and we would be rushing to the bathroom), then you push down your pants, then you sit on your potty, then you pull up your pants (again, with my help), empty the potty, and flush the toilet. Then we would go to another part of the house and go through the “practice session” again. Yes, she bawled her head off while we were doing this, but I ignored that. I was gentle and loving, never talked in a loud or offensive voice to her, just very firm but pleasant. I was with her every step of the way, with my hands on her hands to perform each step so she got the idea. I modified this part too, since the book suggested many more times than I ever actually did. I think the most I ever did was two “practice” sessions for every “accident.”

During this time, I was so tempted to quit. It was the day after the elections that year, and I was curious as to the election results. I missed talking on the phone. I missed being able to listen to the radio. However, I would ask myself if I wanted to change diapers for another year, and that would spur me on. Now this also was in the days when disposable diapers were a new thing, and I could not justify the expense of buying disposables for anything but trips and other limited occasions. I was dealing with washing, drying, and folding diapers, so I was very motivated.

Other than the “practice” sessions, A was just as happy as a lark to have her mother’s focused attention and she loved that I was so happy with her progress. Because, trust me, I was so proud of her and the quick way she was learning. She felt my genuine feelings of love and joy and pride in what she was accomplishing. It was a day of total bonding for the two of us.

After working at this for four hours, with no let up, we were both exhausted and ready for a nap. We both slept deeply that afternoon. After we both awakened, we continued on. By the time the kiddos returned home, she was well on her way to being completely trained. I do mean completely. Other than a few accidents here and there during the next few days, she was capable of going to the bathroom on her own, including emptying the potty and flushing the toilet. From that day forward, she never woke up wet in the morning. She was also trained with her bowel movements as well.

She knew that she had accomplished something monumental and she knew that I knew that her accomplishment was incredible. In addition, we two had developed a strong bond. It was so worth the effort. Oh yes, I wondered if I would be required to provide treats forever. However, that part of it just seemed to take care of itself. In the days following the “big day” she would ask for a treat every once in a while. If she asked, she got it. But the asking dwindled and disappeared altogether within a day or two and that was the end of that.

I have to share this anecdote in connection with this significant event. A little background: A has a cousin, T, whose birthday is three days later than her own. T walked when she was 7 months old. Now I realize that it was just a difference in their developmental progress, but when A didn’t walk until she was past 14 months old, it created a little bit of a pang when we would travel home for visits. So a few weeks later, when the family was all together for Thanksgiving dinner, just barely two-year-old A announced to me that she needed to use the bathroom. I stayed in my seat and told her to go ahead, which she did. She had graduated to pretty little panties by this time and she performed flawlessly. My brother-in-law immediately turned to my sister and said something to the effect that T needed to be trained. Shame on me, but my heart swelled with joy at my little girl’s new-found independence.

I got tagged

Hmm! I just about forgot that I had been tagged. So here goes.

8 TV Shows I like to watch:I don’t watch a whole lot of TV, even though I have a lot of stuff recorded on the DVR. When I watch this is what I like:

1. Monk
2. Medium
3. Color Splash
4. Myles of Style
5. Reba Re-runs
6. Star Trek Voyager re-runs
7. Biggest Loser
8. Design Star
9. Matlock re-runs
10. Murder She Wrote re-runs

8 restaurants I like to eat at:

1. Sizzler
2. Chuck-a-Rama
3. Outback
4. The Greenery
5. Maddox
6. Olive Garden
7. The Cheesecake Factory
8. El Matador

8 things that happened today:

1. Followed my morning ritual of lemon water, then vitamins and yogurt.
2. Bounced on the mini-trampoline for 20 minutes.
3. Indexed one batch of California 1920 Census on computer.
4. Received a weight vest in the mail – good to develop strong bones by wearing one hour every day, five days a week.
5. Drank my energy drink for lunch
6. Drove to Roy for some line dancing
7. Spent a good bit of time on the phone helping a friend
8. Started reading blogs and remembered I had been tagged by my dear daughter-in-law.

8 things I'm looking forward to:

1. Having this election over.
2. Continued freedoms and liberties, which I’m concerned might be yanked away from us.
3. To be able to continue to live within our means, meaning not having the cost of living go through the roof.
4. Becoming more comfortable with my new stake job of coordinating the stake indexers.
5. Thanksgiving tradition of pie night and finger foods with my family
6. Enjoying more common, ordinary days like we have taken for granted all our lives.
7. Making it a habit to jump on the mini-tramp.
8. Sharing more Brazil memories on my blog.

8 people I tag:

If you are reading this blog, consider yourself tagged unless that is you have already done it.

Gloria