Early yesterday morning, I found myself with coffee at McDonald’s at MVD – Montevideo airport – near this receptacle for “mixed waste” and “recyclable materials.”
The “mixed waste” graphic caught my eye.
What’s this? Your McDonald’s hamburger will be so bad you’ll throw it out half-eaten? Or worse, it’s so bad that the hamburger itself is vomiting?
I guess in a country of 3.5 million people you’re not going to get the cream of the crop when it comes to graphic design. Or it may be that someone has a really really good sense of humor.
For a country that considers itself non-religious, Semana Santa – oh, sorry, Semana deTurismo – is a big deal. That’s Easter Week in case you’re still not up to speed 😉
Duly noted, of course, in my calendar:
Fortunately we had nothing of particular importance to accomplish this week. Our friends Sandy and Don, whom we just left at the airport for their move back north, were kicking themselves that they didn’t factor Semana de Turismo into their planning, but almost everything that needed doing got done regardless.
A little security company mini-minivan pulled partway into our driveway and beeped the horn. When I went out front, the driver got out, leaving two (three?) people sitting in the car.
He was offering a security special of free installation something yadda yadda. I told him we had lived here almost ten years with dogs and no security company, and that the only problem we’d had during that time was the alarms of our absentee neighbors’ systems going off at all hours for no apparent reason.
Still, I asked him about what they had. And whether they were local.
No, not local, he said, but they have detectors with cameras, and when they pick up a signal, an operator checks the camera and calls the police if things look suspicious. I asked enough more to determine that dogs and cat would set off the alarm continuously, and his solution for that was to keep the animals in a segregated part of the house, and … ¡chau! Mr Security Man.
Though of course the idea of giving complete strangers the ability to activate cameras inside my house at any time … how could one not feel warm and fuzzy and secureabout that?
Walking dogs a few days ago, we crossed a wide sand road very recently groomed – the entire thing was parallel furrows. Nothing else.
I took a picture. I lost the picture. Don’t ask me how.
Anyway, same place, same time, next day.
Lots of horses had used it, apparently. I don’t recall ever seeing more than two horses at a time out there, maybe three. And I make no claims of expertise. But that looks like the tracks of much more than two or even three horses. Where did they come from? Where did they go? Who groomed the road?
Instructions: imagine a stainless steel French coffee press on a marble counter, with its handle on your left at an angle toward you. Illumination is a diffuse overhead light on the left.
