Mirtes' Indoor-Outdoor

First things first, if you have no idea who Mirtes' is, get acquainted.

For an evangelical, Mirtes was sure good at making her home a living hell. It still boggles my mind how someone living in a tropical city would not have doors. There was a front door, of course, but there was no door leading to the outdoor kitchen (yes, $2000 reais a month to cook camping-style), and no door leading to the outdoor bedroom/bathroom.

Not to mention, the wandering refrigerator. It is a well-known fact that middle-aged Brazilian women have an irresistable urge for non-stop rearranging. There is a ceramic donkey at my Sogra's house that pops up in the oddest of places. I play "Cadê o burro" every time I visit her house.

But, the refrigerator, really? One day it was in the living room, the next day the indoor kitchen, the next day the outdoor kitchen, until she finally ended up hoarding it on the outdoor veranda and locking the door so we couldn't eat. Luckily, it was carnaval and a bottle of warm cachaça was enough to sustain us.

No doors in Rio de Janeiro means waking up to cockroaches skittering around your room. It became clear very quickly that these illusive roaches had special training from years of wacked-out Mirtes chasing them around in her calcinhas (the sight alone could kill a colony of roaches).

Without a doubt, there was a new cockroach for everyday we lived at Mirtes' Indoor-Outdoor. Yes, we named the house. We also named the roaches: Bush, Hitler, Jim Jones...you get the idea.

Killing the roaches became an art. Since there were two of us living the in the room, there was a chaser/smasher and a scooper/disposer. After a botched smashing attempt, my PTSD made me eligible for permanent scooper duty, for that I was thankful.

I so desperatly wish I could turn back time and put my scooper duty to good use, carrying on my legacy of going away gifts for my homestay families. A roach bag would have suited Mirtes perfectly.

Bad-Voodoo-Be-Gone Purse Hangers

My Namo’s mother has quite a few theories about Bad Voodoo. Okay, so she never refers to it as bad voodoo, but the theories are so wild, that voodoo is the best explanation. Basically (as almost every ex-pat in brazil blogger has mentioned), Brazilian mothers think they are doctors.

My sogra thinks she is a voodoo doctor.

“Ayyyy Nancy! Don’t walk in the house with your shoes off, its bad for your stomach”.

“Nossa! Don’t leave your purse on the ground, it will pick up bad energy and you will carry it around with you all day.”

“Meu Deus, Don’t put your purse on the bed! You don’t want bad energy from the street on your bed”

…and the list goes on.

I brushed this off as her crazy voodoo theories until I received an in-house email from my work:

“Ladies and Gentlemen: Do not leave your purses or backpacks on the table, on the ground, or hanging over your chair”

…uhhhh should I hang it from the ceiling?

Luckily, in my office I have a little Ottoman that isn’t classified as a table or the ground. Score! But it did leave me wondering what all the others would do. That is when I discovered this genius invention. I have never seen one in the US, but maybe just because I have never needed one.

In Portuguese it is refered to as a “Gancho para pendurar a bolsa”, but maybe it has a more slangy name. It comes in many styles from industrial metal (for the men) and blinged out (for the women). I've heard you can get them in most lojas americans or mercado livre.

They look pretty handy. I've even seen women whip them out of their purse and use them at botecos. Have any of you seen these before in the US/Canada or whichever country you are from?