Yeah, it's been a minute. General malaise. Downright laziness. Snowdrifts blocking my path to the computer. Lindsay Lohan lawsuits. Killer whales. Too soon? Perhaps.
I can come up with a million and one excuses for taking so long since my last post but I don't really care and I imagine neither do you. The fact of the matter is there is very very little that stands between this man and Spring. Although perhaps another huge snowstorm, but aside from that, very little. Spring brings little gifts that are absent during the winter, like the title of this blog, "Indians Love Papaya". You see, there's a fruit truck outside my office, and during the bleak days of winter the asian husband and wife team that works inside this little metal kiosk of an office don't bother showing up. And frankly why would they bother freezing their tails off trying to sell people fruit and fruit smoothies. Well, with temperatures flirting and playing a little grab ass with the 50 degree mark the fruit truck is back, and when the fruit truck is back I get my $3 strawberry/banana/blueberry smoothie aka "the #5" aka "the yummy shake". THe name "Yummy Shake" is what they call it. Their forte is slicing and blending and not so much coming up with names. Today I took down the first smoothie I've had in a long while. The lady working the blender wasn't the usual woman, but she seemed quite pleased to earn my $3. In fact, she was so excited that she kept talking about her brother, or maybe it was a boat rudder, or maybe a cow's udder. I couldn't understand a damn thing she said, but she sure hooked me up with a delicious smoothie. My buddy from work came with me for the smoothie break. He's Indian. The woman working the blenders seemed especially excited to see my friend, talking to him unintelligibly as well. Strangely though, in crystal clear english she pointed to my friend and said "Indians love papaya". I looked at my friend quizzically and he nodded in confirmation. Indeed, Indians love papaya. Who knew?
You see, this is why the Spring is so wonderful. New cultural insights at every turn. So what that I was outside shivering my ass off drinking a fruit smoothie while my fingers turned blue. It was a nod to Spring and it was worth the frostbite.
More cultural insights this Spring...In my current rotation we deal periodically with the Brazilian office. I love me some international exposure, but the only problem is I never can tell who is who. It was the same thing at Michigan. We had a couple Brazilians in our section and when we'd have a new class and the professor would call roll he'd say a name and everyone would scratch their heads, look around and be like "no sorry, he's not in our section". And then from the last row the Brazilian student would put down his caipirinha, raise his hand and say, "eh, yes, this is me but eh, this is my fifth name", which begs the question, how many names can these Brazilians have. So here's an example, let's say there's a guy you work with from Brazil, and his name is Cristiano Feitosa. Well, his actual real name isn't Cristiano Feitosa, it's probably Joao Gilberto Feijoada, but of course around the office he's probably known as Didi. So when your boss says call Didi, I mean, what the hell are you supposed to do, put "Didi" into the company directory? I'll tell you what I do, I go to this website and have myself a couple good laughs then go to lunch. (PS, I'm Fingincha). When did life get so difficult? WWPD? What Would Pele Do?
I have to ease my way back into blogging so I'm going to call it an evening, but do me a favor, seek out those crocuses (croci?), give them funny Brazilian nicknames like Crocusinho, and appreciate the fact that Spring is allegedly lurking right around the corner.
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