Return of the swimming hole

I took this photo two days ago. We had been avoiding this route for several days because the water level had gotten so low that it only invited the dogs to get filthy. But my neighbor — who has a swimming pool — estimated earlier that we had gotten 1.5″ of rain in the early morning storm. Naturally Syd and I were curious to see how that translated in the doggy swimming hole.

dog swimming hole, Villa Argentina, Uruguay

Just wonderfully, it turns out! Plenty of room to splash around, lie down, or sit for a few seconds, looking goofy, before chasing each other around or digging holes (an activity frowned upon at home).

Now I can only wonder how deep will this get when we have continued rain? Stay tuned.

Something new, something

Well, of course I had to try it. And—? Since I’m not a wine reviewer, I’ll defer to the experts:

Wicked and extra-ripe. Whispers of fruit punch, acidic monster melon and aggressive lemon rind. Drink now through April.

Actually pleasant enough to drink, despite visual whispers of

this Windex, from Target web site or this. Swimming pool anti-freeze from watsons.com

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that Blue contains artificial coloring. But I was surprised to learn it comprises only 10%.

Aunque el 90% del color se obtiene de forma natural, se añadió un 10% de colorante, para conseguir un tono más turquesa, deseado por los responsables de la bodega. (source) — Although 90% of the color is obtained naturally, 10% of dye was added, to achieve a more turquoise tone, desired by those in charge of the cellar.

From the same article:

Young people and people who like to try new things are the target audience for the product, said the director of fine wines at H. Stagnari, Virginia Moreira. She added that the product was born for a personal reason: “In part, having four teenage children wanted to seek a change of habit to choose a natural wine instead of other stronger drinks.”

I hope they like it. I don’t expect I’ll be tempted to buy it again.

Burned out burner

We bought an old barbecue grill from some Americans who left a couple years ago. When the stamped-metal burner rusted through and fell apart, I tried finding a replacement. Alas, nothing for that model was any longer available from Sears.

But obviously had been — and needed — before. None of this handwriting is mine.

A friend who is an accomplished metal worker offered to fabricate one, but it turned out the only way to get a suitable piece of tubing was to buy 6 meters of it. Instead, he found a place in Montevideo that made one for $2,500, about USD 89.

That seemed like a lot, and only now did I try again to find a replacement part online. The closest I can find on thebbqdepot.com is something I can’t be sure is the correct part, and I would have to find someone to bring it from the U.S., and — drumroll please — costs almost as much!

And would eventually need to be replaced again.

In contrast, this galvanized burner built in Montevideo will certainly outlast the rest of the grill! Better still, because of the way they made the feeder tubes, it was simple to install. The original part was quite fussy.

Now I am curious what it might cost to fabricate a cooking grid locally, with stainless steel….

Reaching for…

This morning, in my maybe-sorta dare-you-to-grow garden, an ambitious squash plant aspires to — what? A penthouse apartment in the avocado trees?

Ambitious squash plant, Uruguay

Most noteworthy about this image is what it lacks: shadows. After weeks of blistering sun, the temperature dropped dramatically overnight (90s – 70s F, 30s – 20s C). Unlike the last few weeks of forecast nonexistent thunderstorms, this time they got it right. We’re delighted, though reminded that *sigh* winter in Uruguay comes not far behind.

The ANTEL Bill

Three months ago, some guy sputtered up to our rusting mailbox and delivered someone else’s phone bill. Sombunall companies (phone, electric, and water are gubmint) deliver bills privately instead of using the government postal servicee (some irony there?). I don’t know which, since we get ours electronically (sometimes excessively). But two months ago, when the same bill arrived again, I went to tell them that I did not want this to happen again.

Which of course it did.

I did make an effort to find out to whom this bill should have been delivered, but didn’t get too far into that before hatching an alternate plan.

So here’s how I have chosen to advise the misguided mail carrier that the only bit of info he had right was the Manzana, or block. (No, you haven’t forgotten your high school Spanish: manzana does mean apple. I just live here, OK?)

ANTEL bill Uruguay

Then came the presentation.

ANTEL bill taped to mailbox, Uruguay

Style-wise, I’m of the school that says you can’t go wrong with duct tape. But if you think placing the offending bill across the opening where lazy doofus would cram it into mailbox is clever, you’re only revealing your northern-ness. It will not surprise me at all to see the next bill inserted behind this one.

Stay tuned….

Sunrise

sunrise on beach, Atlántida Uruguay

It’s not often I get up early, but I was awake this morning and thought, if I leave by 6:15, I can watch the sunrise on the beach. I looked at my clock (which involves picking it up and pushing the button to light it) and saw that it was exactly 6:15. Two minutes later we were out the door.

The bike

Ralf, Syd’s brother in law, left for Germany Saturday after several months here.

He had brought his electric bike from Germany to have some adventures exploring Argentina and Uruguay. The bike itself provided some adventures, requiring the German Embassy in Buenos Aires to intervene with the bus company that “lost” it. And then the airport: though the bike had come from Germany on Air Europa just with a plastic wrapping, the Uruguayan employees decided it had to be in a box.

And of course they had no box.

So with airline tape, and the help of four helpful guys who apparently appeared out of nowhere, Ralf scavenged cardboard bits from every shop in the airport.

The end result was equally amusing and terrifying. But OK with Air Europa.

Bicycle packed for air transport, Montevideo Uruguay

Of course, upon arrival in Frankfurt, the whole mess had to be taken apart, which took so long that Ralf missed his train and so, after 25 hours of traveling, had to wait two more for the next one.

Having lived in Germany, I can only imagine what other Germans thought of the mess of plastic and cardboard abandoned in the airport.

The eclipse

I had spent the morning up to my eyeballs in accounting. When we sat down to Sunday brunch, we were both noticing that the day wasn’t very bright. Clouds? The respite from the hot sun was welcome.

It wasn’t until I finished my omelet that I remembered: the Ring of Fire eclipse!

Alas, we missed the best part, but here’s what we did see, projected through a binocular lens.

Ironically, yesterday I made a little device for a friend to do first- and last-light shadow observations for a small group of pilots who are somehow convinced the earth is flat (pilots!). For those of us who are NASA-brainwashed, we at least have Occam’s Razor: the simplest explanation is that a spherical object is passing between this spherical planet and the sun. I’ve asked him to get the explanation of the flat earthers. If past experience serves, it will no doubt involve physics that can’t be duplicated or observed in any other aspect of the physical universe.

During my brief interaction with flat-earthers, I made a graphic for them.

Commercial airlines don't realize earth is flat

Worn out, burned out

While waiting for the repair guy coming to replace the heating element (resistencia) in our water heater, I took a picture of my flip-flops. They’ve lasted at least a year and yes, the grass is showing through the right heal.

Worn out flip flops and burned-out water heater element

I often have to wait outside to wave people down, since my telephone explanations of how to get here are remarkably and consistently misunderstood. Today’s communications snafu also started on the wrong foot, as I didn’t really know how to answer an incoming call on my new smart phone. Seriously.

handwritten repair bill, Uruguay

Here’s the bill: visit, heating element, and cabling – actually for the toll, since he came from Montevideo (it should have been 160 pesos, but then he probably charged it to everybody this side of the peaje).

1,000 pesos is around USD 36.

And if that 1,000 on the bill looks like 7,000 to you, you might share my fascination with Uruguayan handwriting.

Mangos, sort of

A couple years ago, after one of their distinctly non-native mango bushes died, Syd and Gundy gave us the other. The first couple winters, I built a custom greenhouse around it. But it has never produced fruit. Sure, lots of flowers, and lots of tiny starts, then they simply disappear.

Mango tree in our backyard, not native to Uruguay

But this year, it has produced a few tiny, very dry, somewhat tasty fruits. As you can see, something got to a couple of them first. The lemon is normal-sized.

Tiny, dry, almost-tasty mangos from our tree in Uruguay — Our son did the glass piece in 2008

The mango bush/tree is completely uncontrollable, as was the anacahuita (small leaf shade tree) next to it that had become so ungainly that I cut it down a few years ago. After two years, a new shoot appeared out of the stump. I carefully pruned it, until one day it became clear it was not connected to the stump, and had virtually no root system. So I pulled it up and got rid of it.

I’m not convinced that the mango bush-tree is the best use of this space.