A Little Lesson in Portuguese

When new medical news reminds you of your childhood

On 1/1/23 I had three resolutions.

First, I wanted to get a new book published. Done. (Shameless self-promotion- Shelter of the Monument is now available on all the main online channels! You can find them here-Shelter of the Monument.)

Second, I had a goal weight I was going to reach. That resolution is not done at all but at least I haven’t gained. And there’s still six weeks left. It could happen. Especially since holiday calories don’t add up.

And third, I wanted to revisit something that had been lost. I wanted to become more comfortable with the Portuguese language I learned as a toddler. 

Turns out, resolution number one kept me very busy shifting resolution number three to the background. I can’t really blame resolution number one for not achieving resolution number two but screw it, let’s do that anyway. 

When I was a kid, I spoke Portuguese. This is because in my formative years, when I was first learning to talk, my grandmother, my father’s mom to be exact, lived in the apartment above us. I spent every free second possible with her because she was lovely and loving. I have very fond memories of that time.

(The fact that she spoiled me rotten had nothing to do with it.) 

Because she didn’t speak English, I learned to communicate with her. Unfortunately, circumstances arose, and she returned to Portugal. And when she did, my parents only spoke English in the house-rude!

They knew Portuguese; my dad didn’t come to this country until he was 16 and my mom spoke the language her whole life so she could communicate with her own beloved grandmother. Yet, with me, English was the way to go.

Amid my schoolmates and bad 70’s television, (why didn’t the Brady’s ever visit Portugal? They went to Hawaii- even met Vincent Price there. Portugal is just as cool,) I lost the language. 

Every once in a while, phrases will come back like- “nao fassas isso” which actually translates to “don’t do that” but in my Portuguese means “please, please don’t do that my precious perfect little child Yvoninha.” Or “da a mim” which translates to “give it to me” but in my short Portuguese world meant “aiiieee child, give that to me right now before you hurt yourself precious one,” or “give that to me right now precious child before your parents find out that you broke it, and I can’t hide it so you won’t get in trouble.”

See, fluent Portuguese. 

Another word that is seared in my memory is the word pinguinha which I mostly definitely did not learn from my grandmother.  It is a slang word and means a little drop or sip, in other words, a bit of alcohol. My grandmother did not drink though you could be confused by this picture of her feeding me, with a bottle of good whiskey right by my milk. 

But my dad says pinguinha all the time, even when he shouldn’t. Like when the very strict priest walked into my sister’s wedding rehearsal with a cast on his leg and my dad jokingly asked him what happened, did he stop and have a little pinguinha on the way and hurt himself?  The priest was not amused. I wonder if that’s why my sister’s marriage didn’t work out…

Anyway, why am I telling you all of this?

Well, for one reason, the holidays are approaching and so I am filled with memories.

For another, it is Thanksgiving and I thought I would give you a gift of some Portuguese phrasing. You are most welcome! Since this is not a podcast you are on your own with pronunciation- good luck. My own pronunciation comes with the child like lisp of a 3-year-old.

But the real reason why I am telling you this is because I have another new medical diagnosis and this one has taken me back to my childhood. 

I discovered a blob on my eyeball, and it is beyond revolting… 

It looks like a yellow blister and when I noticed it, I grew quite concerned. I have a family history of glaucoma and was previously diagnosed with blepharitis which translates to oily tears (see former blog post Oily Tears and All,) and is also gross.

So when I noticed this ugly smudge I ran straight to Dr. Google who informed me that what I have is a pinguecula. 

That can’t be right I thought. I haven’t had a nightcap in a long time. And Dr. Google you are not so smart. The word is actually pinguinha but I can see how it can be confusing.  Perhaps Dr. Google needs to go back to medical school?

But further research showed that Google was right. I had not a pinguinha but a pinguecula which is a somewhat common growth that can form on the white part of your eyeball. It isn’t dangerous but it is also not likely to go away. It can also feel like there is an eyelash in your eyeball which IS dangerous if you start goofing around with your eye too much to try to get the invisible eyelash out.

And if I have too many pinguinhas and my eyes become bloodshot, the pinguecula can become inflamed and make your eyeballs turn red. Which is what happened (on its own- I wasn’t drinking,) and so I went to the eye doctor to get it checked out. She prescribed eye drops and said no worries, it is no big deal.

But it is to me. I am vain and if my eye is going to look all read and blood shot, I should have had a couple of pinguinhas to make it worth it. Not an ugly pinguecula that shows up out of nowhere just because I am aging and that’s when the weird, obnoxious stuff starts happening. 

In the end the drops took away the redness and so now it is not that visible. I can’t even see it unless I look very closely while wearing my cheaters which is another eye problem that comes from this beast called aging. But it is just like life to throw a Portuguese looking medical word right at me in the year that I did not complete my resolution to learn new Portuguese words.

What’s a girl to do?

I am going to forget about my pinguecula. Even if I have to have a pinguinha or dois to do it.

(Dois- the Portuguese word for two or, in my Portuguese, as many as you can reasonably get away with.)

Happy Thanksgiving my friends! Please enjoy your pinguinhas responsibly.

Thank you to my Tia Liliana for the Portuguese spellings. The translations are all my own!