There are Many Many Things in this World that I do not Understand...

There are many things in this world that I do not understand, a few examples: Monarchies, Lima Beans, Sports Fanatics, Republicans, WalMart, Nepali Goat Sacrifice, Morman Missionaries on Bicycles, The Flat Earth Society, Fox Television News Bigots, and Los Angeles to name a few of the great mysteries of life. These are just a few of things I just don’t understand…

You see, I just returned from a grand day in Los Angeles at a meeting with the Brasil-California Partnership people. It was amazing, the creativity and energy and dedication (and they served pão de queijo and guaraná). Upon return home in my email was a message from Jeff. He is a very dear friend that I went to college with at Oregon State, who every fall thinks I need to return to my alma mater, sit in the rain and make weird Beaver noises with 20 000 people dressed in Orange (what orange has to do with Beavers has never been thoroughly explained to me but I digress). I replied to his annual query:

“You are most kind, and most patient... (I am swamped here and must need save my wild cards for my trip to Brazil in November), besides I detest football, almost as I much as I detest Los Angeles (was there for the day at a meeting)... Let me explain, my meeting was in the Brazilian Consulate on the corner of Wilshire and La Cienega in Beverly Hills... curious building, 15/20 stories, brown, very 70's... in front (next to an enormous John Wayne Statue, was a sign announcing it as the home of "Flynt Enterprises, LTD.; Flynt Publishing ,etc...". The security guards made me uncomfortable so I do not have a picture of the Flynt signs to post… ) at any rate, in my by now well established and spacey professor head, I was thinking “hmm... Flynt, Flynt... hmmm... sounds familiar”. I then rode the elevator up with a girl with a security lanyard (hustler, hustler, hustler, hustler, hustler, hustler, hustler, hustler) I stepped off at the 7th floor at the Consulate’s floor, wished her a nice afternoon and I then realized (caiu a fisha)... “ohhhh THAT Flynt!”

I had to call my Brazilian friends to let them know how very proud of them I was...