all part of the adventure

Okay. I've tried to somewhat refrain from publicly complaining about our maintenance woes, but enough is enough. We have been here just over 3 months. In that time we have:

• used the back door exclusively for two weeks while we waited for a key to the front door
• waited 2 weeks for a working oven to be delivered
• waited 1 more week for that oven to be installed
• waited 2 more weeks for the old oven to be removed
• waited 3 weeks for window locks to be installed
• went a week with out A/C because it was leaking water into the apartment below us (I know we are spoiled with even having A/C, but it was the middle of the summer and seriously hot and humid!)
• waited 1 month for our TVs to be set up properly
• waited 1 1/2 months for a working dishwasher to be delivered
• waited 2 more weeks for that dishwasher to be installed (I'll come back to this one)
• evacuated our apartment due moldy, leaky kitchen pipes
• had a guy spend an entire day working on the patio doors, only to have the same opening/closing problem resurface a week later
• had two bathroom sinks worked on
• had two toilets worked on
• waited 3 months for a new working cordless phone

And the cherry on top: In the middle of doing laundry earlier this week, the washing machine started pumping water out all over the kitchen floor. They can't fix it until next Monday and Rio doesn't have self-service laundromats.

How does anyone get anything done in this country?

I have spent the day hand washing about a week's worth of laundry for my family of five, including that of a potty-training two year old.

After throwing a tantrum about it, I've decided to just get over it. As I boil the water, scrub the clothes, and try not to think about the dirt and bacteria I'm not removing, I just tell myself over and over that it's all part of the adventure. At least the dryer still works. Knock on wood.

We have a large utility sink next to the washer and dryer. The plug is too small, but if I stick a rag in the drain with the plug, it holds water long enough to wash the clothes. I've always thought it was a weird looking sink with a long slanted side in the front with bumps on it. After my first load, it dawned on me that it's a built in washboard.

Duh, Mary, you spoiled American.

It actually works pretty well, and I'm sure I'll never complain about doing laundry in my super capacity washer back home again.

At least it's a holiday, Matt's home, and we didn't have much else planned for the day.

I said I'd come back to the dishwasher. It was hit and miss if it worked for 2 months and it constantly leaked water all over the kitchen. Ironically, it started working right before they came to install the new miniature dishwasher. The new one is so small that I run it 4 (sometimes 5) times a day. I threw a fit about this one too, and still do occasionally when I have to practically dismantle the thing to get the dishes in and out because they don't fit, but I'm trying to find the positives. Here's what I've come up with:

1) most Brazilians don't even have dishwashers, so I'd better just be grateful I don't have to wash them all by hand too, especially with no hot water from the kitchen sink.

2) It's so much shorter than the old one, that there's about 1 foot of new storage space on top of the dishwasher below the counter. It works well for the dish towels and the new giant "dirty dish bowl" I got for the kids when they clear their dishes so they don't have to launch them over the high counter into the sink.

3) I'm becoming quite effective at cleaning as I go when I'm cooking. I have to load and wash the breakfast dishes before lunch, and I have to load and wash the lunch dishes before dinner. If I load the dishes I use to cook dinner right before we eat, they're done in time for us to empty the dishwasher and load our dinner dishes. By the time we're done eating, the kitchen's completely cleaned up.

Maybe I should print out my list and tape it to the front of the dishwasher so I can read it next time I feel like yelling at it.

Okay, that's it. I'm done.