I don’t really even want to go to Brazil

And yet, I keep entering, even though I’ve never won one of their shiny red cars.

For this month, at Tienda Inglesa checkout you get a separate receipt, which you scan near the front door, at a machine that spews out coupons to fill out. I got tired of handwriting them in past drawings, so had a rubber stamp made, stamp them at home, and forget to take them the next time.

They’re giving out one trip per day, on a charter jet to Brazil to watch Uruguay play England.

Unlike certain friends, who have gone twice to Brazil and returned very disappointed, I have never been too interested in going to Brazil.

But if the lack of a shiny red car in my driveway is any indication, it’s not going to be a choice I have to make any time soon.

Maybe shouldn’t have had that last beer

No, not me. The goofball who swerved into the ditch in front of our house last night and took out the end of our little-two-brick-high wall.

It actually doesn’t bother me terribly. I have materials to repair the wall, and the guy not only lost the plastic liner to his wheel well, but, by the fact that he didn’t get stuck in the ditch, must have traveling with sufficient velocity to require, at the very least, a serious alignment.

The tow truck approaching in this picture brought a jump-start to our neighbor. I half-expected it to retreat loaded with a car whose front left wheel was hanging loose.

Anyway, in case the driver remembers the incident and returns, I left the wheel well liner there for him.

Carefully cut into five pieces.

Not sure what I was thinking

mango tree in back yard

Mr. “real” Anonymous who comments here gave us a mango tree, one of two he had in a sheltered nook of his property. The other one died, not entirely surprising considering it’s a tropical plant and the Oriental Republic is not a tropical place. He and his wife have been in purge mode plant-wise after this last horrid-growing-season mucked-up-by-HAARP summer, and I agreed to take it.

I got as far as a basic structure with top and front sheathed in plastic (at times I’m not real good with math, as in buy the amount you actually need all at once). Yesterday’s strong and prolonged wind basically trashed it. Apparently the wall anchor (taco Fischer) was not adequate for the closer crosspiece. Back to the dangerous power tools.

To his credit, Mr. “real” anonymous did not claim we’d be making homemade mango chutney from our backyard a year from now, though a Uruguayan did tell me this afternoon that, though not allowed, it is quite possible to smuggle fresh mangoes in your car from Chuy, on the Brazilian border, one of the few places in Uruguay where it’s actually fun to shop, because shit is cheap … as long as you have a foreign passport to show when returning. Not for the mangos, which you’re not revealing, but the other goodies: electronics, alcoholic beverages, and such.

A message from Universe via cheap Chinese shit

I saw this morning that my cheap Chinese alarm clock had died. The first battery lasted six months; its replacement more like four.

batteries

The package of five replacement batteries cost only $1.80, with free shipping from Hong Kong to Uruguay, so no big deal. I put one in the alarm clock, set about setting the time, and suddenly the thing made a strange noise and the clock face turned to gibberish.

I wanted to take a photo, but couldn’t find my camera, and realized that if I’ve lost it, I might not particularly miss it. I’ve gotten kind of tired of carrying it everywhere. I neither have nor want a smart phone.

I grabbed our older point-and-shoot camera, but it wouldn’t turn on, even though the battery was fine just a couple days ago.

Then I sat down to my desk, and the UbiRock vibration speaker which inexplicably died a few weeks ago. Oh well, I mostly use headphones anyway.

Then I remembered the indestructible Westclox Big Ben / Baby Ben windup clocks I grew up with. I wonder if they still sell wind-up clocks? Indeed they do:

When Westclox alarm clocks were made in America you couldn’t beat ’em–or sleep through their alarm! Now they’re made in China, and the Baby Bens I’ve been buying last routinely from two weeks to four months. Then they just stop ringing, and sometimes stop telling time, whether the winder is wound up all the way or just a few turns. They stop without warning & on the day they do, you sleep in–miss work, miss your appointment, miss your plane. I’ve traded them in for a new one ten or twelve times. They never last longer than four months. I’ve finally given up. Thinking of a Baby Ben? Don’t waste your money!
T
hen I wondered why I even need a bedside clock.

Then I remembered Chicago, from a time when I did need to wind the clock and set the alarm every day. Does anybody really care?

DTOTB double header—two mysteries

I saw two raptors ahead on the beach. They took off, and flew over me. Large, with a most unusual wing pattern: white on the inside, black on the outside. Not just the flight feathers: a clean line in the middle of the wing. Stranger still, what they dining on appears to be another of the same species. Note the beak (head is bent under).

dogs investigate dead bird on beach

I have looked through hundreds of birds online and found nothing resembling these, which I would have guessed to be eagles.

Then this:

dog with dead river dolphin

dead river dolphin on beach

I’ve seen this DTOTB before — any idea what it is?

Update: river dolphin.

Birds and fruit

A year ago, our neighbor in the campo’s flock of guineas was down to two, from six.

And they were both males. So they got six more, expecting similar attrition (which hasn’t happened). And they’re more sociable than ever. As I was leaning on the gate talking to the neighbor, one, then another, then two more fluttered up next to me.

Then they all followed us back to our place, where one of these days I’ll get back to making kitchen cabinets. (Found a stainless steel 20-tube 150 liter solar hot water heater the other day for USD 675 🙂

Then we got back to town, wondering if we had really left a bag of garbage on a chair with the gate open? Last time we did that wandering dogs left a mess. But no, simply several kilos of oranges left for us by another Uruguayan friend.

Nice.

My exciting new calzados con Velcro

cheap shoes, Uruguay

Oh boy, you’re thinking, he’s really lost it now.

I know: shoes with Velcro are not exciting. But in Uruguay, cheap shoes that fit me are exciting. And most of what’s available is size 45 or less. These are 48. And they fit. And they cost under USD 30.

The ones I wanted they had, surprisingly, in 46, 47, and 49, but no 48. They called another store a few blocks away (I thought I’d been in every one in Pando already), and told me someone would bring a pair in size 48. Which they did, though the only similarity to the others was the color.

I have a special disdain for Velcro shoes, our nemesis in our early days of doing school author presentations. Well, not the shoes in fact, but the combination of the shoes and the kindergarteners in the front row who couldn’t stop sticking them and loudly unsticking them. I sometimes felt like screaming at them, WHY DON’T YOU BRATS LEARN TO GODDAM TIE SHOES? But I didn’t.

My neighbor Manuel told me that going to Pando used to be the butt of jokes in Montevideo, since it was popular for its whiskerías (whorehouses) and hourly motels. It’s significant for us because they deliver for free (the stores, not the whores): Montevideo is farther, and through the toll booth.

While in Pando, I found a 20-tube solar water heater with a 3-year guarantee for USD 675. So maybe one day soon I’ll actually get to do a hot baking-soda-magnesium-oil soak in our expensive bathtub.

My excitement today in Uruguay: cheap Velcro shoes. No, really.

Lazy gardening

The garden was totally nonproductive this summer. Horrible weather.

But so what. Throw the base of green onions in some water, even without roots, and they’re off and running in a couple days.

Here they are in dirt, between “recycled” bok choy in the foreground and a broccoli stem in the background (we’ll see). We may get a few green peppers, but meanwhile the only garden success are the very hot peppers on the left, called infierno negro (black hell) where they’re sold (they go from green to black to red), and otherwise known as puta parió, which sort of translates as “son of a whore.”

Not sure why they even grow them; generally anything spicier than black pepper is anathema to the Uruguayan palate.

Sky on fire!

With a little help from Photoshop 😉

Dusk on the beach