At the Christmas day party of our neighbors, we met a house-sitting couple from North Carolina who happen to be professional videographers with decades of experience, who love stories. And we – particularly my wife, who got caught in the middle of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and who survived a perilous crossing of the Indian Ocean in monsoon season, detailed in her memoirs – have a few.

Charles and Linda came to visit and we set a date and time for a shoot for their One of a Million series. They arrived with what I thought was a lot of equipment, but they insist is just a fraction of it.

They rearranged furniture, set up lights and background (I helped with background lighting, great fun!). Charles did most of the technical work, while Linda prepped Susan for their interaction, with her as off-screen and unheard interviewer.

What’s remarkable is that the end result feels as if it was one take, whereas the final 5-minute video is carefully edited from perhaps an hour of shooting (I lost track of time). They want it to feel like you’re chatting with someone over a cup of coffee.

Then there was the acoustic environment. The neighbors’ music, playing since 8:30 AM, stopped. It was raining lightly, so there were no weed eaters or lawn mowers. There was almost no traffic on the street. The dogs didn’t bark once the entire time. And the completely obnoxious gas delivery truck with its piercing Führ Elise noise was nowhere to be heard.

As soon as the shooting stopped, the renters next door returned home from wherever. Shortly after, I heard the gas truck in the distance. 24 hours later – today – we would have had a very loud weed eater and lawn mower going next door. With the shotgun condenser mic, maybe background noise would not have mattered. But the lack of it was amazing and wonderful.

I wondered what would happen to the left-behinds, and it appears that anything goes, indeed. The big container re-appeared in position number one.

Inside it appear what looks like the base of a fan, and a toilet, along with podas. But no visible appliance or fencing from my previous post. So perhaps the people who delivered this container, being more than one and thus able to load those items into the container, did so, and took them away?

If so, a remarkable and encouraging display of initiative – kudos!

Maybe six months ago I wrote to the Intendencia of Canelones (our departamento), who had been putting up lots of signs like this.

Given a ditch in front of my house, and narrow street, where exactly was I supposed to put tree and bush trimmings (podas), I asked? I never received a reply.

However, a month or so ago a large container appeared nearby on the large circular lot, and filled rapidly.

It actually appears in two different places. This was the second.

And here is the first. Apparently they assumed – as did I, for that matter – that it would be obvious the containers were there solely for organic material. Apparently, though, the owner of the washing machine and the guy who dragged overgrown chain link fencing didn’t get the memo. Or maybe they would have been hauled away, had they actually made it into the container instead of being left next to it. Either would have required more than one person to accomplish.

Before the container appeared, I had made substantial and ugly pile of trimmings this side of that little path in the foreground. I made a point of cleaning it all up when the container appeared, even though it was not actually in this spot, but the other, 50 meters away. It was a bit of work, but it was the right thing to do.

Will the people who left this stuff be equally responsible?

I suspect I already know the answer to that question.

I’m no fan of two-stroke engines, because if you don’t use them regularly they simply don’t start. Sometimes it works to empty the fuel-oil mixture, start and run for a few seconds with straight gasoline. Sometimes, and inevitably messy. “Start chainsaw” has been on my to-do list for weeks now – maybe months – while the thing sat on a big piece of cardboard, oil slowly leaking and soaking through to the baldosa tile floor below. Rather than actually try to start it, yesterday I put it back in its case, and took the oily cardboard to the trash container on the corner.

At the end of our driveway, I noticed trash – what looked like a plastic plate – at the entrance to the culvert under our driveway. I’d seen it a few days before, and decided it should go in the trash too. Can’t put off everything forever.

Removing it and a plastic bag, I saw there was more, and pulled out a mucky shoulder bag, spilling its contents: hypodermic needles, veterinary supplies, and a stethoscope. Then I realized there was a second bag, containing a sodden laptop computer.

My neighbor Álvaro was mowing the lawn, so I showed him all. I figured the vet supplies were useless, except perhaps for the stethoscope. I had no idea what to do with the computer until Álvaro pointed out a sticker on the back. I hosed mud off, let it drain, then headed to Electroshop, our local computer repair store.

The owner quickly spotted a number on their sticker, and identified it as one they had reformatted in 2010 for a Mario Fernández. I was hoping he’d offer to call the owner, but with that offer obviously not forthcoming, asked for details. He thought maybe it was the vet whose shop was a block and a half away.

Indeed it was! His car window had been broken, home gate opened remotely, dogs let loose – and when he heard where I’d left the other bag, was out the door in a flash. By the time I got home, he already had the bag fished out and inventoried, and was talking with Álvaro.

Between pedestrians and passing vehicles, a small crowd gathered, and Mario explained how the vet bag contained controlled substances, including those to sacrificar – put down – animals. Someone asked, and no, he wasn’t worried about data loss; all client data was en la nube – in the cloud.

His wife appeared on foot. They live two blocks away, and I’ve walked past their house many times. She was amazed thieves would discard a computer, as was I. The robbery had occurred a week before, and they had been diligently searching. Sounds like their son was in and out of every garbage container in a five-block radius. Yuck.

After the recent heavy rain, I had wondered why the upstream neighbor’s ditch was overflowing, while ours was flowing normally. So: two mysteries solved.

…to start thinking about an asado.

This calf was tethered along the road a few blocks from our house on Saturday.

In town, not in the country. A few blocks from the beach.

Go figure.