MLK Weekend

Before we set flight on another weekend in sunny South America (It has been sunny. Today is beautiful. My soggy blog of weeks of rain and a land like Yoda’s planet Dagobah from Star Wars is long forgotten), I would quickly like to recount our MLK weekend.

One of the best parts about my new job is the fact that I get all U.S. holidays and all Brazilian holidays off. Yes, we get a five-day weekend for Carnaval. Last Saturday, we packed a lunch and had a picnic at the Pontão, a park along Lake Paranoá with two playgrounds and lots of great restaurants. We watched several what had to be pastey Brits glide up on their paddleboards and spotted a burrowing owl guarding his den.

Sunday night, Elise and I had our first date night in Brazil and our first date night in several months. We bucked convention and decided to trek into the heart of the city, Asa Sul, and a Lebanese watering hole we had seen Friday afternoon called Libanus. We were definitely channeling our inner Anthony Bourdain, no holds barred, no reservations, as this was where the locals were. Even on a Sunday night, the place was buzzing. When the waiter approached, seemingly overdressed in a black bowtie and vest, we spooked like deer in headlights. The man could have easily been working his section for the past 20 years, maybe before either of us were even born and Brasilia was still sprawling and concrete and commune-like in its Jetsonian way and not the dripping urban jungle we are coming to love. He had the olive leathery skin of a true Brazilian or the true Mediterranean and the white wiry whiskers my jidou had. After looking at the tables around us, we ordered an absurdly cold liter of Antarctica. And, later, the best kibe and tabouli and ground lamb, kafka, that was like steak. We were outside, and there was smoke, men, boys, really, in t-shirts, young women in bathing suit tops though it was eight at night, our waiter smoking behind a playground slide, a bored bouncer checking his watch, the street lights florescent orange, like plump jack-o-lanterns suspended in the damp air.

Herein, it is easy to forget many inconveniences. Our air freight, which I packed out 2 months ago, has yet to arrive. It’s taken almost 9 weeks. 9 weeks! Truth be told, not all can be blamed on lethargic Brazilian bureaucracy. it didn’t leave the states for 7 of those weeks.

As a result, our careful diaper plan is coming apart. We had calculated how many diapers we would go through between the time we would arrive in Brasilia and our air freight—with relief diapers—would get here. Now, with no air freight, we are buying $4 diapers. We are even on diaper rationing. Sam needed to start wearing his training pull-ups anyway, as he is full on—and very successfully—potty-training. So, after bath I pulled out one of his Diego training pull-ups only to have him say he preferred the training pull-up with “Finding Nemo” on it. No problem. So, I went to get “Finding Nemo” out of the diaper drawer, trading it for Diego.

Fast forward to 6:10 this morning when Sam comes padding into our room, tiptoes up to my side of the bed and whispers in my face, “Daddy, me wet.” I pull him into bed between Elise and I, not yet really registering the fact that, yes, he was soaking wet. It doesn’t occur to either Elise or I until later that morning, when everyone is awake, gathered around the breakfast table, shoveling silver dollar pancakes into their mouth, that Elise realizes “Finding Nemo” isn’t a training pull-up after all, but a swim diaper that doesn’t hold liquid. Nice one, dad!