Signs You've Become a Carioca Part 2:

1.  Your children choose rice and beans over Mac & Cheese. Hell, they choose it over everything.

2.  You are "tired" of all the Carnaval stuff and yet go to all the blocos.

3.  You use ceiling fans not air conditioning

4.  You toast your toast in the oven or on a stove top. Heaven forbid you actually buy a toaster

5.  Everything, and I mean everything down to pancakes, is mixed in the blender.

6.  Bleach is your cleaning friend, buckets full of it.

7.  You actually know what they women are doing when the spread the bowl of white stuff all over themselves at the beach.

8.  You have a soccer team, even if you don't watch regularly.

9.  Your bathing suit is smaller than your underwear, for both men and women.  And you strut in it like you are on a runway

10.  You know better than to call your Grandmother in the evenings, her soaps are on. Hell, you're watching them too

For part 1: go here

Rice, the Original Brazilian Wife

If you had asked me 8 years ago if rice made the world go round, I would have said no. Rice? Sure it's good stuff but I hardly eat it.

Oh how Rachel's life has changed.  I moved to Brazil and realized that rice was my husband's first and, very attached, wife.

Rice and I are on a first named basis now. I spend at least 30 minutes with her twice a day.  I wash her, season her, and cook her.  Heaven forbid we don't have any made in the house.  It'll be mutiny.

I'm just amazed by the power of this carbohydrate. My husband will complain at virtually every meal I make without rice.  Even lasagna needs rice on the side.

And I have to say, my children are being raised the in the same manner.  No matter the situation, I can always get some rice in them. 

So rice, it was a little touch and go in the beginning.  But now, I think, we'll have a beautiful and lifelong friendship.