Uruguay moves ahead with marijuana

“Uruguayan president Jose Mujica will send to Parliament a bill to liberate the production, trading and consumption of marihuana as part of a package of drastic measures to combat crime which he will discuss with security area cabinet minister before making them public.” Read more.

What? Instead of building a prison-industrial complex as in the land of the free, with not only the highest number, but the highest per-capita number of prisoners of any country in the world, largely based on the victimless crime of possessing a plant that grows naturally?

What if they end up acknowledging the health benefits of cannabis?

Could be a slippery slope into sanity.

Shifting pebbles

Beach treasures

I’m not much of a phone person normally, but this morning two people called me and the conversations kind of went on, and my fidgety fingers emptied the little glass container of all the little gems I’ve stuck in my pockets walking on the beach – most from when we first arrived – and starting arranging them. The long one on the left is ‘musical’ – it rings like some crystals. I think of drilling a hole in one end and making it a pendant.

Sticking pebbles in my pocket on the beach, to bring home, is one of those things about which I occasionally ask why do I do this?

The answers range from elaborate, to the most simple: because I can.

Back and forth

A year ago, I ‘upgraded’ our internet service with a modem/wifi router from AntelData, the only-a-half-decade-behind local ISP. Immediately it proved inferior to the previous modem with our own wifi router, dropping connections and assigning identical IP addresses to different computers. I went back to revert to our previous arrangement. Oh no, can’t do that, you have a one-year contract. So at the end of one year, I again went back to the office. Now it’s oh no, we can’t change the router. You have to call tech support. (You know, the phone that never answers.)

Sounds like a good time to rant about how things should be, and how they do it ‘back where I come from,’ no?

Well, back where I come from:

You may find this amusing (or not). The additional info requested for the 8802 came back stamped “Return to Sender/Forward Time Expired – IRS 2970 Market St, Philadelphia, PA.” After waiting on hold for 15 minutes, I spoke with a rep who said PO Box 16347 was quite old and hadn’t been valid for at least a year.

“But you just sent me a letter on May 29th with instructions to send the document to that PO Box.”

“Oh, well the Market St address is good. Send it there.”

Of course, this is for a document we have ALREADY PAID the IRS for. Were they extracting money otherwise, I expect the approach might not be so casual. Just guessing.

Strange weather

The cold yielded yesterday: 100% saturated warm air that kept mopped floors wet all day, that condensed onto cold surfaces untouched by a mop. By afternoon thunderstorms rolled over, and we unplugged, plugged, unplugged again – everything, but first and foremost the phone line to the DSL modem. When that goes, you can’t just waltz by the office and get another. You wait and wait and wait on the phone along with everyone else, then you wait for a technician to come and swap the modem. Last time it took 11 days.

When the rain stopped, the low clouds remained, catching the light of the setting sun and turning everything incredibly yellow – then incredibly orange. We watched in amazement. I didn’t take photos. I knew they wouldn’t do it justice.

Then I was siting with my laptop at the kitchen island, and did an abrupt double-take. The yard outside the sliding glass doors had disappeared into black. One minute it was still day; only moments later it was night, as if someone cut off a light switch.

Had I been outside, I probably could have watched the shadow race past overhead, the line between light and dark on the top surface of the low clouds, lighting below as though through frosted glass. Next time, if ever?

Today we have just fog.

Clean break

Saturday

Before I reach the dunes, I note the impressive swell lines. On the beach, clean left breaks with the tops thrown back by a gentle offshore breeze. 1-1.5 meters high, brown waves (alas), a couple of intrepid surfers doing their best. After a frosty-cold morning, the afternoon has turned out comfortable. Not so much that I would add to the fresh barefoot prints I see in the sand, but almost warm.

Sunday

Again pretty waves, this time a crystal green-blue color, again a clean break. And maybe 30cm high. Awesome – if you ‘re a surfin’ GI Joe.

GI Joe surfer

Amazing what a little paint can do

It’s been over two years since I bought a $140 Chinese-made bike (now $159; here’s what it looked like before losing front and tail lights, derailleur and gears). It was falling apart before we got it home; went from 18 speeds to one (we live on the beach; no problem). Its primary redeeming feature has been no incentive to lock it up. With rusty 28″ wheels, it was uncomfortably big for most people here, and hardly looked worth stealing. In fact I wouldn’t have really cared if someone did take it.

The other day a valve stem broke. In pursuit of a new inner tube, I asked the bike guy about getting aluminum replacement wheels for the ugly rusty ones. The problem – this is a bike thing, not a Uruguay thing – is that 28″ aluminum wheels are not the same size as 28″ steel wheels, so I would need to replace tires and another tube as well, which just seemed wasteful.

But here is a Uruguay thing – take the rims, minus axles but with spokes – and send them to Montevideo to be sandblasted, painted, and oven-baked. At the same time, swap the kickstand for a safer rear-wheel model. And of course replace the inner tube.

For $40, I have a bike that looks worth stealing again.

(Now where’s my cable lock?)

Ah, tropical Uruguay!*

frost

-1°C this morning in Montevideo; 93% humidity. Heavy frost in the front yard (none in the enclosed back yard where my latest planting of cilantro has just peeped out of the earth). It’s been a month since the chimney cleaner didn’t clean our chimney . I got some slabs of steel cut to replace the bricks he broke in the wood stove; just installed them this morning. Who knows when, or if, the guy will ever return. It’s Uruguay.

As I mentioned before, most mydayuruguay.wordpress are neither well insulated nor well-heated. I’m sitting next to single-pane windows set into single-brick walls. I finally wised up and put a small heater under my desk; it helps. As do multiple layers of clothing.

* no one claims Uruguay has tropical weather, but some people apparently have that impression.

Bulk, recycled, cheap – what’s not to like?

In an obscure and unmarked store I would never have stumbled upon, you can buy several things not generally sold, such as pure bleach, not the expensive and watered-down Agua Janes, so ubiquitous that the recycling station has a separate bin for its distinctive orange bottles. The real stuff costs a fraction of the diluted.

They also sell detergent that is not watered down, again unlike the crap sold in the supermarket.

It comes in recycled 1.5 liter soft drink bottles (notice the variety of caps). In the beginning, I only had one bottle with the white at the bottom, and with the latest batch it apears to be normal. I know next to nothing of the chemistry of detergent to guess what it signifies, but regardless we use ‘Deter’ for dishes, clothes, and other duties as assigned.

When you buy it by the funda (wrapped quantity), it’s cheaper. In this case, a little over a dollar (23 pesos) for 1.5 liters. A single 2-liter bottle of bleach cost 39 pesos, or just under US $2.

The Tibetan Buddhist Temple in Uruguay

Yes, there is one. It sits high stop a hill (400 meters altitude; highest point in Uruguay is 500-something) on 600 hectares (almost 1,500 acres) of beautiful barren hills. Inspired by a vision of a visiting lama, started a dozen years ago, it sits basically in the middle of nowhere.

We went in a minivan with a local tour company, at the suggestion of friends with whom we did a bus trip to northern Argentina a couple years ago.

Interesting way to spend a day. Not something I’d be in a hurry to do again, nor necessarily recommend as a must-do. But different – which alone gives it points in a country that is, for the most part, anything but exotic.