Iglesia de Atlántida.
Local church
Category: Atlántida
End of the line
The antique Commer truck. September 2012:
December 2014 – mistakenly thought to be a different one:
January 2016: and yet again, parked at the zoo:
Alas, on a dreary day in 2019, that sad truck that appears to have finally reached the end of the line:
Interesting to reflect that this truck was built the year I was born. Happy to report I’m holding up better….
Guarding the carbón
First frost 2019
3°C (37.4°F) in the back yard, which never (there I go, tempting fate) gets frost. Beautiful clear sky, as last night.
First frost is apparently a little later than usual this year.
A walk on the beach
There may be a story here … or not.
Pigeon on TV antenna. Yes, weather that dreary.
A dead penguin on the beach.
An appeal to ecological awareness, which caused me to remark how surprisingly free of plastic waste the beach in fact was.
And a surprise: the fishing platform mostly gone – it has been a long time since I walked on the beach.
It always had room for several people … no more.
And Mocha never stopped running the entire time – so many new things to smell!
By the fire
The beautiful sunny days faded into more typical dreariness, and though it wasn’t cold-cold (do people say such things elsewhere?), a fire beckoned last night. We have a good supply of wood, and anything that decreases humidity is welcome almost any time, so it wasn’t difficult decision.
And The Committee approved.
Security, wherever you are
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?
At the feria
100 reasons not to live in Uruguay
This will be a little obscure to someone who hasn’t actually suffered through daily life in Acodike’s Uruguay. Gas for cooking (“Supergas”) comes in metal gas bottles sold by many vendors. All have phone numbers, and will bring gas on demand for a slight charge. And of course everyone has a cell phone, so anyone can phone anytime, anywhere, and have replacement gas within a few minutes.
However, one company thinks we still live in the 1990s, and has its drivers – apparently on commission, based on their wasteful repetition and overlap – drive back and forth endlessly, with a tinny and piercing version of Beethoven’s Für Elise screeching at high volume. Yes, the ice cream truck “music,” but not tempting you once a day. No, just driving up and back every street, occasionally turning the noise off abruptly, which makes it no less jarring. Not every truck is the same, and I’ve heard as many as three different ones in the space of a couple of hours.
Everyone (above a certain level of awareness, with the bar set pretty low) hates them. But they just persist with their noise pollution, because es lo que hay – that’s how it is.
Today – blissfully! – we have reached the afternoon without their intrusion. From being an acoustic hell the last few days, Uruguay suddenly seems like a nice place to live again.
In the road maintenance office
“So, the heaviest tourist season is over. What now?”
“Well you know that heavily-used pedestrian crossing by the Playa Mansa?”
“Of course. Leading to the most crowded beach, saw a lot of pedestrian traffic. Typical January. What about it?”
“It’s kinda faded.”
“You’re right. Now that the bulk of the tourists are gone, this might be a good time to repaint it. You know, so cars can see it better. Safety thing.”
“My thinking exactly.”
