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to see Tom. She has school friends still, so it is not so lonely for her. We said we will visit Dan whenever she decided it would be best. We received a call from her just before supper suggesting 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. She thinks seeing us will help cheer up Dan. 

In the afternoon we strolled down Av. Atlantica looking for bookstores. We wanted Frisch's bird book, and Tom wanted Helena Marley's diary in Portuguese. A small Livraria in the Copacabana Palace had neither. Another customer was asking for the same bird book without any luck. On down the Avenue we stopped to look at specimens in windows of Amsterdam Sauer and were lured inside by an efficient woman, who showed us a magnificent museum specimen of a rubellite find of 1979 and then seated us at a table. I asked about rubellite stones and she began her display. Advancing to tourmaline cats eyes, she produced a pair of matched rubellites: ~ [[image - drawing of cat's eyes) with double chatoyancy the long way & single at 90[[degrees]] (the cat's eye closes). 3.96 carats @ $100 US per carat. Next it was a green catseye with very bright line(s). Two or 3 depending on orientation. Beautiful -- not blue & inexpensive like my long lost one, but it would do nicely: 12.7 carats @ $110. (w. some discount for cash or personal check). Basically $1397. We were not about to buy it off the shelf the first afternoon, but she gave us her card & her store hours and wangled our names & hotel, and set aside the cat's eyes just in case we came back, which we may. Tom told her I was a mineralogist and we also told her about working in Brazil years ago. (I was wearing my green toucano T-shirt

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through all this. Rio has lost all semblance of the universal elegance it once had. Unless one has entrée to private gatherings, T-shirts and worse apparently go everywhere).
She sat us down again after we started to leave and presented me with Sauer's book on Brazilian gemstones in English. After that we got away. A good beginning. 

Farther along we struck inland to investigate N.S Cocapabana and there we discovered another bookstore -- a big one. There, after some searching, Tom found Helena Marley's book and two copies of Frisch's [[underlined]] Aves Brasileinas [[/underlined]]. He bought both -- one for us and one for Brian Cassie. Back home by end of p.m. 

Saturday is Feijoada day with signs announcing this all up & down the avenue. We decided, since the Ouro Verde does not feature feijoada even on Saturday, to have it at the Copacabana Palace. 

As we walked the block over to the Copa about 8 p.m., a shoeshine boy began pestering Tom, falling into step with us and commenting in pidgeon English. "Shit, shit" he kept saying. "Look, look, shit, shit." Pointing at Tom's shoe. I finally looked down and saw a big gob of something gray on Tom's right shoe. So, we stopped & got it cleaned off -- Tom telling him he knew perfectly well that the [[?moro]] had put it there. Thinking that worse might come from no tip, Tom took out his wallet & the boy crowded close to gaze into it. We jerked away, of course, but were considerably amused by the whole incident. As Tom could find no small bills, the boy made a fortune from that caper - 5000 Cr. He was astonished. 

Transcription Notes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatoyancy Retained misspelling of Copacabana