Author: doug

Christmas decoration in a store that gets it

Let’s not forget the real reason for the season: to sell shit. In this case, remote-control dinosaurs. Alas, this ain’t e-gadget-obsessed Tokyo. I waited in line at Tienda Inglesa Atlántida in back of, and in front of, shopping carts laden with slabs of meat, chorizo sausage, cheese and baguettes, the ubiquitous gallons of Coca-Cola poison, plenty of beer, potato chips, plates and glasses for vacation dwellings, deli sandwich packs, a head of lettuce and some tomatoes (RIGHT ON!), but… …not one remote-control dinosaur.

While even the impoverished in the north remain enslaved by consumerism, here the holidays mean time with friends and family. Granted, shoppers in Tienda Inglesa Atlántida aren’t the social equivalent of the unruly crowd waiting for free toy handouts at a Salvation Army in Pittsburgh. Nonetheless, there exists in Uruguay a family “glue” that will trigger a touch of nostalgia in USA-Americans of a certain age.

Personally, though their presence makes my life a little more difficult, and a lot louder, I really do wish for our seasonal visitors a really enjoyable holiday time with their family and friends, playing with a soccer ball or fishing during their endless hours on the beach. I think they understand that a remote-control dinosaur adds little to that experience. I hope so, anyway.

Elbow grease

Cleaning baldosa floor tiles

When the others left for the States, I launched into cleaning the casita (little house), where my son lives, which was appallingly dirty. He was housebound for four months while his shattered ankle healed, and hadn’t quite lost the habit of doing nothing, and going nowhere.

The unglazed tiles in the foreground will come clean, but it’s a hands-and-knees scrub brush job. The second two rows have been scrubbed but not mopped, the next three have one coat of some sort of treatment, and the remaining have two coats.

Much work, but rewarding to see the place look half-decent, at least a little.

Maybe not

I’m cleaning the casita and was glad to find in a bathroom drawer this large bag from Macro Mercado, because there’s a lot of crap in the casita that needs to go away and a big bag helps. Problem is, the bag, advertising its biodegradability, has already started to go away itself….

My many-greats hangin’ with William Penn

Yesterday was contacted by a third cousin through the Clayton (my middle name) side of the family who’s into genealogy. Turns out my many-greats grandfather William Clayton accompanied William Penn on his second trip to America in 1699.

Beats the Huguenot DuBosques’ arrival from France by a long shot…a cool little piece of knowledge that made the day more interesting.

In offices here, I’m often summoned as “Clayton” because they think that’s my father’s name, as it would be in Spanish form (given name – father’s surname – mother’s surname, which doesn’t change in marriage).

I’ll appreciate that a little more next time.

Maybe ready in time

Pedestrian bridge under construction, Atlántida, Uruguay

It will be a very long walk (notice switchbacks on far side), but the new pedestrian bridge will be wheelchair- and bicycle-accessible. Because of the distance from the last traffic light eastbound, on January weekends it is almost impossible to cross the road—no gaps in traffic whatsoever. Numerous people have been killed here, including the mother of our contractor, when he was a boy.

Tero-tero!

Tero-tero nest, Uruguay

A pair of territorial Southern Lapwings, or tero-teros as they’re called here after their raucous call, have created this “nest“ near our tajamar, and, given their aggressive nature, have staked their claim for a significantly larger area. I was able to get close to take this picture (they’re the size of very small chicken eggs) without them dive-bombing me.

When the young hatch, that will not be the case.

A new blue travel document

 
Today was the day. By the fourth passport, they got my wife’s right. Mine only took two tries. The name thing: Spanish names include two first names and two last names, father’s and mother’s, and these do not change. It’s a very consistent, and sensible, system.
Unless you’re a gringo. We each had one where they got the name wrong. My wife’s first they screwed up (she got a guy who is fluent in English; that’s how he expressed it), then she managed to sign hers outside the allotted area, which nullified another. Then the name thing.
When she finally got hers, we were more than ready to get out of there, and though we thought it odd they gave her a second one with the corner clipped, we just threw it in the envelope and skedaddled. When she finally looked at it—back home—she realized it belonged to someone else. Someone else with five years remaining on his US visa. He would want that passport!
My first thought was to send an email to the passport office. But the form on their web site doesn’t work. The phone number given is 152 and an extension. Of course (as with our mutualista), everyone’s supposed to know you add a 2 before it if you’re not in Montevideo. When I remembered that, I got someone who told me to call back in the morning when the office was open.
I hung up and within five seconds the phone rang. It was someone else from the office, asking if I had the stranger’s passport. I asked what I should do. She said she’d call me back in five minutes.
Its owner lives relatively nearby, and will come to our house tomorrow morning to collect it.
Had a chuckle pondering the likelihood of such a casual resolution happening in the U.S….