Please be Gentle

And also a Coritiba player jumping over the barricade to celebrate his goal without realizing there’s a hole right behind it

A Coritiba player was celebrating a goal yesterday, 12 years after the original meme, and once again fell in a hole behind the barricade

The year was 1994. Brazil hadn’t won the men’s World Cup in 24 years, which (until then 🥲) had been our longest dry spell since we won our first title in 1958.

And then, in 1994, we had finally assembled the super team. And this team’s main star was none other than Romário.

In May, disaster struck. Romário’s father was kidnapped in Rio by a group of criminals, who demanded a $7 million ransom.

Romário, who played in Barcelona at the time, flew back to Rio. But instead of negotiating with the criminals for his father’s ransom, or even pleading with the local police, Romário called the press.

He announced to the Brazilian public that if his father was not returned unharmed immediately, he would not travel to the World Cup, which was set to start in a few weeks.

You don’t get it. This was catastrophic news to the country. We couldn’t win this WC without Romário. It’s like Argentina winning the WC without Messi. Romário essentially told these criminals that if we lost the 1994 World Cup, it would be their fault.

This caused absolute chaos in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The local police turned the city upside down hunting these guys. All of the cartels issued bounties on them. It was open fucking season on these guys. Even normal ass people were on the streets of Rio looking for them.

You had cops, crime bosses, drug lords, regular people, fucking EVERYBODY in Rio was hunting down these kidnappers. It was insane.

The pressure was so great that within 4 days, Romário’s father was released, unharmed, without a cent of the ransom being paid.

And so, Romário traveled to the World Cup, and brought home our 4th trophy.

Let’s practice calming down our nervous system and reminding our lizard brains that things are okay. 🙏

Sesame Street Memory: Lucy Liu | #ThisIsMyStreet

Lucy Liu shares a heartfelt memory of learning to speak english by watching Sesame Street and finding a family within the cast. Share your favorite Sesame Street memory on social media with #ThisIsMyStreet!

any time someone is in any kind of crisis or upheaval, offer to feed them. tell them they don't have to choose what it is if they can't make decisions, just ask about allergies and preferences and tell them you're just gonna make food happen at their house.

friend having a baby? delivery gift certificate to order food to the hospital after the kid shows up.

someone's relative passes away? offer to make them dinner.

buddy gets laid off? ask if you can order them lunch.

pal stuck in a depressive episode? offer to drive them to fucking mcdonalds, if that's what they want.

people in crisis are tired and sad and angry and the last thing most of them are doing is thinking about feeding themselves. so if you have the ability or time or money, providing that is always, always a good move.

My friend Kate got a bunch of our friends together and bought us a shit-ton of Uber Eats gift cards. The entire week Emet was in the hospital, I ordered salad with salmon on it for dinner. It was about as much as a burger and fries would have been from one of the places that can make gluten-free stuff for me, and I didn't have to do anything but poke a few buttons on an app.

Neither of us really had dietary restrictions at the time, except "no red meat," but we didn't actually get food from people. It would've been really, really helpful when she was losing weight because apparently irradiating your intestines means you don't digest calories properly, but no one actually followed through with food. Not church, not friends, not anyone in our social circle.