During a quick São Paulo stop before Christmas, I had dinner with Gil and Gian (in the picture), Igor and Bianca. My cousin Junior came afterwards, with his girlfriend. I've known all of them, but Gian, for some time.
I met Gian online, on fotolog some time ago (he was already friends with Gil and Junior) and we found out that we worked for the same company, with some of the same people, almost at the same time. We would probably have never met if we didn't bump into each other online and I'm so thankful we did. We talk a lot, considering we never saw each other before today, and he was of huge influence on my decision to drop everything and move to the US, to be with Scott. He did the same sometime ago, when his wife had a good job opportunity in Italy, and it ended up being a great experience also for his professional life. He made me think that if he could be a "housewife" for a while, why couldn't I? And I'm very thankful for that.
Something funny happened on the way down.
I was flying down to Brazil and stopped in Dallas to change planes. As always, I sat at the counter, at Friday's, and ordered the usual (half portion of) potato skins and a beer. The bar was crowded and I put my computer bag on the stool by my side, mostly to avoid having people too close.
When I looked at the door, I saw this very big black man, with shiny black pants, shiny black jacket and lots of gold jewelry. He looked at my computer bag stool and came right away, to ask if he could sit there. I removed my bag, he sat and introduced himself "Hi, I'm Mike, where are you heading?". I said I'm Katia, going to Brazil blablabla. In less than two minutes half the bar was by our side, taking pictures of him. Apparently he used to be a famous football player and has a TV show now. Maybe I should have known, I even watch football on Sundays and all, but for me he only looked like a scary very big guy.
It was Mike Irvin, apparently an ex Dallas Cowboy.
