Abby, Zoë and Enzo

We had a few issues with the apartment, mainly the phone and the shower in the master bathroom. 

I wrote an email to the owner, who is the daughter of the Divanda, whom we call the land lady.  The owner is in Germany, she works for the Brazilian consulate in Frankfort, and is married to a German.  He wrote me back on her behalf, stating that the land lady, would come by today and bring a new phone (the 4th one) and also bring a specialist to fix the shower.  The land lady showed up around 10:30 - 11 AM.  We tried the new phone with the same results.  The line is always busy, even when trying to call out.  And when someone can call in, the phone makes a very short single meep.  That meep is so soft, we wouldn't hear it in a completely quiet house, which this isn't.  So the phone will wait another week until a specialist can come to take a look, Wednesday. 

We were then waiting for the electrician from an engineering company to come and fix the shower.  I know, an electrician for the shower, keep reading.  Apparently the showers in Brazil are all heated on demand, with electricity.  Actually, they are heated in the shower head by massive amounts of electricity.  I know, water and electricity don't mix, but they have a ground wire in the water stream to make sure you don't get any of the 20 Amps at 220 Volts while getting squeeky clean.  The shower worked moderately well after we learned to only allow a slight amount of water to trickle, enough to activate the trigger, and put electricity through a coil that heats up the water flowing around it.  I tried the shower after Laura was in there on Wednesday or so, and it was completely luke warm, tap temperature.  We checked the circuit breaker, the switches, everything, no hot water in that bathroom.  It turns out, the coil was on it's way out, and finally snapped with her shower.  So he installed a new coil, super quick operation.  The engineer couldn't get the lid back on, for the shower to have enough pressure for the trigger, so he wrapped about a half mile of teflon tape around it, and said it was good to go.  I was going to leave well enough alone, not wanting to mess with the electrical aspect of this job, but while showering, it threw the breaker and I had cold water again.  So I took it apart, fixed the gap and applied the lid correctly.  The shower is now so hot, even on the lower setting we can finally get some higher water pressure.  It is a joy to shower now, but unfortunately, once you look behind the curtain, you can't pretend showering isn't a super dangerous event, not because of slipping in the shower, but because 20 AMPs will kill you, and between life and death is a small green ground wire in a water stream.  Thank god we can predict where the water flows. ;)  Now I know why nonno Ernie only wanted to shower in the maids quarters, no hot water and no risk of death.

Oh yeah, Lunch with the land lady.  So we are waiting and waiting for the phone company to open back up after noon.  So around 1 PM, we offered the land lady some rice with chili over it I made the night before.  She said it was good and ate it all up.  Maybe she was just being polite, I do not know.  But she got to see me clean the apartment once the girls went to nap, and commented to Laura how Brazilian men wouldn't be caught doing any domestic housework.  Laura just smilied at how lucky she has it, then ordered me back into the kitchen to do the dishes.  Anyhow, around 2 PM, she got ahold of the phone technician, that told her the earliest they would be here, is in 7 days, next Wednesday.  She tried to argue with them, was cut off, and then called back and said, sounds good, see you next Wednesday.  I hope one day soon, we will be able to call out with our phone, and hear the ringer when someone tries to call us.

This morning I took Abby and Zoë down to the park to run off some energy.  It was maybe half an hour after breakfast, which the girls devoured.  They each had an egg sandwich, some yogurt, and half a banana as well as some juice.  When we first got down there, I played 'mother may I' with them as requested and then they just wanted to run around a bit.  After that they wanted to do some different kinds of running and races and things and to pretend that they were racing in the olympics.  They always asked which of them won the gold medal.  They ran track, hurdles, long jump, did swimming and other odd things.  Every now and then Zoë would come over to me and say she needed to take a breather, so she'd sit with me for a moment before continuing.  After maybe half an hour, maybe, Zoë plopped her head down next to me and asked me to give her some shade, as the sun had come out from a cloud and was beginning to be strong.  She was whining and said she was ready to go back to the apartment so I gave Abby one more chance to do a run and then we walked back.

At the building, Zoë was really slow to walk up the steps to the entrance and once in the hallway she said she didn't feel well.  I took a look at her and asked if she was going to be sick and she said that she was just tired so I told her we'd get her some water and she could lie down.  Once in the elevator she just leaned against me and held my hand, then proceeded to throw up.  Her face grew instantly white, including her lips, which had absolutely no color.  Chris keeps telling me, "Well that's what happens when you throw up" but this was fairly extreme and she was lethargic all of the sudden.  It really made me nervous so I scooped her up in my arms and as soon as the elevator opened I instructed Abby to get to the door for Daddy to open up.  He helped me to get Zoë in a cool shower, where she sat on the floor for a bit and I got her some water to sip.  I was trying to figure out how to call down to the front desk to tell them that my daughter had been sick in the elevator, then just went to clean it myself but someone had already wiped up the mess.  Chris got a towel for Zoë and her and I lay in the bed together.  Abby came in and asked Zoë if she'd like a foot rub or a hand rub and said that she was giving Zoë 'the treatment'.

Pretty soon Zoë perked up and slowly got some food back in her and we hydrated her and took it easy the rest of the day, much to the dismay of both girls.  They wanted to go to the pool later on, they wanted to walk to ice cream, this that and the other.  Zoë is completely back to normal now, I think she just had some heat exhaustion coupled with a full tummy.