Life's a bit dull right now

I'd like to believe you've noticed I've been blogging less. It's not so much for a lack of interest in writing to you as a lack of subject matter to talk about. I prefer to talk about my travels, since I assume you find those interesting. But Tres Lagoas is, well, dull. It's a rather sleepy, hot, small, Brazilian city. It has a lot of very small restaurants, most of which serve the same stuff. It has 3 or 4 decent pizza places. They're all fine, but no one in Brazil makes pizza the way I really like. Not enough sauce, and the crust is never quite right. We keep going to the same handful of restaurants over and over. None are all that interesting. Not bad. Just not anything to write home about. We're thrilled to occasionally eat dinner someplace with real chairs. Nearly everywhere is outside on the same crappy plastic chairs. Or the even more uncomfortable wooden ones. At least the food is pretty cheap. Billy and I can easily eat for less than his allotted per diem. Breakfast is included at the hotel (a very limited buffet). Billy eats the provided lunch at the mill. I buy cereal and eat that every day. Sometimes, I steal a banana or apple and a roll from breakfast and have that instead. If I really want something larger, there's a gas station across the street with all the usual Brazilian meat-stuffed breads. Some are fried, some are baked. I bought some ketchup to keep in the hotel room in case I go get one of those.

So please don't think I'm living some sort of glamorous life down here in Brazil. Thing's weren't much more interesting for me in Porto Seguro (our last long-term stay in Brazil) - but at least my room had a tiny view of the ocean. Here I don't even have a proper window to look out of! The room's a bit of a cave. Probably more so than Australia. Only here it's too hot to leave the window and door open. There it was too cold. Even with the AC running, it's about 80 in the room during the day. I feel bad for the poor AC unit working so hard, so I leave it off whenever I can stand to. On a cloudy day I can leave it off all day. But the rainy season is over - and the cold time of year hasn't started yet. So I'll be living in a hot box a while longer. Luckily, we should be gone before the coldest time of year. When it's down to the 50s outside this place is going to be uncomfortably cold. Even if the AC unit has a heat pump, the ceiling is so high it wouldn't do us much good.

I have been working a bit more. After a rather drawn out start, I finally have the green light on my big new help center project. Between that and all the new smaller jobs that have been added to my list, I have more work than I know what to do with. It's difficult to ramp myself back up to full hours. I'll be falling short again this week. I thought I'd make it, but it turns out Billy will not be working Saturday. So I can't put in a full day. For some reason I tend to put in better work days on the weekends. Maybe because Monday feels like a deadline I need to meet? I always want to have something good waiting for the bosses when they come in on Mondays.

Most of the pictures here were taken with Billy's camera and never made it onto my computer. I'll try to remember to get those from him this weekend. Then upload them all Monday. Internet's a lot better during the day, weekdays. In the evenings, all the hotel has more guests trying to use it. On the weekends there are usually power fluctuations that knock it on and off. I think we've lost power at least once every weekend so far.

Billy's paperwork is still with the Brazilian officials. His pass is good until March 13. I do hope he has his documents by then.

I ordered my Kindle yesterday. I think it will ship Monday (super-saver shipping). I got a zippered neoprene case to protect it when not in use. The one I'd really wanted (a folding fake-leather book cover style) wasn't going to ship for a week or two. Maybe I'll get it someday, but I can't wait that long right now. I'm having the Kindle and cover shipped to mom to test out and load my books. I've saved a list of a few dozen freebies I can start with - classics like Dante and Jane Austin. Then she can ship it to Aaron in Atlanta. He's flying here at the end of March. He promised to carry it on for me. Cool electronics have a tendency to disappear from luggage. International shipping is very expensive, and I'm not sure I trust it. I'm so very grateful he agreed to bring it for me!

I've been having a bit of insomnia the past week. Hence Billy's in bed sleeping, and has been for an hour. And I'm here writing this. I think I might start dosing myself with benedryl at dinner if this keeps up.