Author: doug

Another boring blue sky day

blue_sky

View from our ever-cluttered dining room.

Blue sky? Actually the morning dawned dull and gray.

However, weary of looking at the drab wall of the neighbor’s garage, that faces us and that only we can see, I painted it sky blue (celeste) the other afternoon.

Mauro (of the weird haircut and motorcycle accident) cackled in delight as he did when I fixed his motorcycle at the idea of my painting part of the neighbor’s house on a whim.

By noon, by the way, it was a beautiful blue-sky, chemtrail-free sky.

Small and unexciting

The dogs had fresh bones and did not want to leave the yard. So I walked on my own, pausing longer than usual at the goats’n’geese (and apparently now a duck) enclosure at the local zoo, which the Bradt Urguay Guide (first and only in English) dismisses as ‘small and unexciting.’

Well, yes: I read the headlines. Looming economic, environmental, and political catastrophes on a scale that boggles the mind.

Small and unexciting? I have no problem with that.

Goats and duck in Atlántida, Uruguay zoo
Goats and duck in Atlántida, Uruguay zoo
Goats and duck in Atlántida, Uruguay zoo

 

Personal responsibility

trash left by fishermen on beach, Atlántida, Uruguay
Apparently not an issue for the city fisherslobs who come out for the weekend and leave their plastic and tangled fishing line on the beach, 30 meters from a trash receptacle. In the summer, a couple of people would come along at 8 AM and pick up everything. This time of the year it will simply blow around, wash along the shore, perhaps snare and kill a bird or fish.

Small-minded, selfish, ignorant people.

My thoughts jump to the geniuses of GE – who bring ‘good things to life’ – and the small-minded, selfish, ignorant design and management of the Fukushima nuclear plant – and the dozens of reactors in the United States sharing the same faulty and design (hence the blackout on the subject by GE-owned ‘mass media’).

If (when) the storage tank at unit #4 fails, there will be no one coming around at 8 AM to clean up the mess. It will simply blow around, wash along the shore, and quite possibly end civilization as we know it.

But the bringing good things to life ads sounded good, some people made a lot of money, and no doubt the fisherman took a couple of nice fish home to fry.

What else matters?

An argument for buying local?

Moldy shoes in Uruguay

The trusty Timberlands on the left have taken me through Mexico City, Paris, Prague, Bratislava, Buenos Aires. Notice the mold growing on them. The same is true of most shoes we brought to Uruguay.

The ‘Freeway’ shoes, made in Brazil and bought here, remain unaffected, even though stored in the same (ventilated) place.

What to make of that? Who knows.

If, however, you find yourself here and similarly afflicted, the answer (leftmost shoe) is Blem – furniture polish – and a rag.

Battle of the stones

If it’s Monday, May 21, then it must be last Thursday, May 18, the holiday in honor of Artigas’ victory in the town of Las Piedras (‘the stones’) outside Montevideo in 1811, in which he vanquished the forces of the Spanish Viceroy – which outnumbered his troops until 200 defected and fought for him instead. He apparently exclaimed ‘Curad a los heridos, clemencia para los vencidos’ (Cure the injured, mercy to the vanquished), so that his followers wouldn’t hack the remaining Spaniards to pieces, as the vanquished most assuredly would have had they prevailed.

So today I don’t have to wonder if the chimney sweep who came two weeks ago, broke the inside of our wood stove, and never came back, will return. I don’t have to wonder if the refrigerator guy will have fixed the shelf he promised to deliver about the same time.

Mercy to those whose freedom he fought for, for no doubt one of these days – or weeks – they’ll deliver on their promises.

Fresh butter!

Friends who live near where we’re buying land came into town to go to lunch with us at the wonderful Garní Armenian Restaurant in Solís, a 20 minute drive from here.

They are milking a neighbor’s cow while he’s settling affairs in Nevada, so they made butter and brought us some. Fabulous!

Can’t help but reflect that in certain parts of the ‘land of the free’ these days they might be thrown in jail for daring to make their own food — and give some to friends.

A chemtrail in Uruguay

In over two and half years in Uruguay, it’s only the second or third chemtrail I’ve seen.

chemtrail
Pretty much what I saw: borrowed and altered photo

I’m not happy to see it, but living on the windswept edge of an immense expanse of water, in a thinly-populated country, it’s not as threatening as in the northern hemisphere, where blue skies frequently turn to gray under the onslaught of spraying.