Ya think? New filter cartridges above; the ones below have been in place for all of three months.
A few minutes later, all set to go again. One of the cartridges is supposed to be changed twice a year. No way! Four times a year for each.
You can see water that came out of the tap (more than once) here. Unfortunately, when we had a well hand-drilled shortly after arriving, they stopped when they reached water at 17.5 meters. Had I known better, I would have had them go 10 meters more for potable water, not just irrigation water. Alas, it was done, and to revisit it now would involve removing one of our two avocado trees, and that is not happening.
A flier showed up in our mailbox for the new droguería in town. Start with that: droguería translates as “drug store,” so what’s the one thing you would expect a droguería to not sell? Did you say drugs? Congratulations! They sell industrial chemicals, cleaning supplies, garden products, cleaning and beauty supplies…but not drugs. Here’s the flier:
Deliveries without charge; that’s nice. But if you’re a native English speaker and your brain shuts down halfway through, you can read it as “deliveries without cargo.”
Worse, if you’ve lived in Uruguay a while, that almost seems right.
I’ve been gradually de-Googling, and was delighted to find an alternative to Google Translate that promised to be good.
Alas, that delight was short-lived.
So, forget this – on to something practical: find out if the window people are ever going to measure for a screen, as promised weeks ago. Need their phone number. “Stuck to soccer field 5” seemed like a strange address, so I wondered if I was missing something.
Apparently yes. Or at least, someone/thing is missing something.
The brakes on my bike had gotten bad enough that stopping without putting shoes on pavement was no longer a sure thing. (You will, by the way, often see Uruguayans braking bikes and even motos using that method.) So I rode it in the wilting heat this morning to the little bike shop for them to do their magic. Bicycle repair really does seem like magic to me, especially after I try to do it.
I then walked to Tienda Inglesa, where a cashier last night has shortchanged me 20 pesos. I thought something was wrong, but the mathematical part of my brain seemed to be on vacation. When I got home, I confirmed it. 20 pesos is maybe $0.60, but there are lots of new hires for summer in Tienda Inglesa, and it bothered me that the cashier had not counted the money up – at least not the small stuff – the way I’m sure they’re required to do.
Was she lazy? Incompetent? Perhaps skimming a coin here and there? I can’t speak to the first two, but long story short, at the end of her shift she counted 20 pesos more in her till than she should have, and all was duly noted by Tienda Inglesa, and promptly given to me after the requisite recording and my signing in a spiral notebook.
I was impressed.
Back to the bike shop, a pad had been replaced, brakes now threatening to throw me over the handlebars. For a total of 50 pesos, or $1.50. Which made me wonder when was the last time in my native country one could have had something like this done for $1.50 – the 1960s?
After trying wicker chairs, which require difficult cleaning after time in a damp climate, and uncomfortable Uruguayan stuffed furniture, we settled on a comfortable lawn chair for my wife in the living room. It’s great! And we replaced the rustic and rotting wooden bay window with an aluminum one that actually keeps rain out (what a concept).
All told, it’s a wonderful little spot for a dog to hang out, watch live “television,” and munch on a Hibiscus flower, with a backup tennis ball nearby (we didn’t put it there) just in case.
Yesterday: Syd expecting house-sitters arriving by bus at our usual dog walk time, suggests we go at 1:45 instead of 3:00. No problem. I show up on time. Except that it’s 12:45. And now his dogs are all agitated, so we go an hour early. I wonder what exactly I was thinking. It must take a special set of skills to misread a digital clock: my computer and cell phone.
After the walk, I stop by (an hour early, but fine with them) to collect house keys for friends going away for several days, in case a real estate agent wants to show their house. Out their front door, I am unable to lock the fence gate. I ring the doorbell. Don comes out; also tries it without success. This is weird. Well, let’s check the driveway sliding gate, he says. It doesn’t work either.
At which point he realizes we’re using my keys, not theirs. Well, there’s that little mystery solved.
It’s spring, getting warmer, but nights are cool, so we’re indulging the last of our firewood.
Is it just my imagination, or is the wood stove laughing at me like I’m an idiot?
Shopping for most things in Uruguay is not fun, given prices, lack of selection and quality, and not-quite-ready-for-first-world business practices. But recently, shopping for tile, at least I found a title amusement in these ceramic tile displays.
OK, the English-sign thing. That’s definitely got appeal. Of course they’re missing out by not including possessive apostrophes, but ta.
I don’t see how ceramic versions of old American license plates would find a place in too many design schemes. But then again I’m often surprised at the limits of my imagination.
Which brings me to what I bought for the terrace above our dining room, in an atempt to solve the moisture/mold problems below. I found a great deal on these 50cm (almost 20″) square tiles: good albedo for summer heat deflection, nice texture. The kid at the store (at a certain age, almost everyone is a kid) advised I should take my 24 square meters in two loads of about 300 kg (660 lbs) each, given my vehicle.
The first trip went swimmingly. On the second trip, I decided I should stop at Tienda Inglesa to stock up on wine, which involved a turn to the right up a ramp. As with the first trip, the tiles were vertical in the back, leaning to the right.
Kar-umpph! Load shift to the left! I did my shopping, then carefully re-leaned the tiles, noticing that happily, few had broken, and with them just corners.
Getting off the Ruta Interbalnearia, I realized we were short on cardboard, still necessary for fire-starting (it’s been a few weeks since this happened) and provision for night time puppy “accidents.” So I pulled slightly off the road, which involved a slight incline, and kar-umpph! This time the fall wasn’t quite as drastic, seeing as it was limited by ten bottles of wine – ten because that’s what fits into a very sturdy bag we have, gift from a friend in Mexico.
And – sorry if this disappoints you – the story does NOT continue with my ruing the odor of alcohol replacing (what’s left of) our new-car smell. No bottles broke, and though significantly more tiles suffered breakage, overall it’s not as bad as you might have imagined.
And there is – at least was – plenty more where it came from.
Just shy of six months ago I totaled our Chevy Meriva. The driver of the delivery truck that hit me (the whole thing was entirely my fault) had no insurance, and I assured him I would help him with repairs. He spoke great English, and we had quite an interesting and unrelated discussion as we waved away the ambulance crew, who couldn’t quite believe there were no injuries.
It turns out I had no insurance, either, since the company never sent a bill, and lied that they had called me ten days before they cancelled it for non-payment – just a couple of weeks before the accident. And though I sent a couple of text messages to Jorge, the other driver, I heard nothing back. Was it possible I got his number wrong and he got my number wrong?
Yesterday my cell phone rang. That in itself is unusual, because it’s almost always in airplane mode, serving primarily as a camera. It’s Jorge, wondering if I remember him (of course) and was still willing to help (of course). He said the repairs would be around USD 2,000,1 and I agreed to meet him today at the gas station near the accident, as he would be on his way to Montevideo.
Let the ironies roll: traffic was crawling on the highway, and I saw police cars and an ambulance, so guessing I couldn’t cross the most direct way, went over the bridge and through the awkward back streets to get there. I was early, and curious what the fuss was about.
Irony #1: it was about a car broadsided. Though I have heard there are many accidents in this crossing, before and since my car being broadsided I have never seen another.
The closest point of grass in this photo is where the Meriva and I ended up, spun 180%.
Irony #2: I thought I had gotten a picture of the crashed car (silver, to the left of the police truck), but with shutter lag instead have it obscured by a black car.
Irony #3: that black car is exactly at the point of impact of my crash.
Irony #4: the black car in my photo is in the exact position of the black car in the Google Earth screen shot I used to illustrate my accident back in March.2
Feeling little chills yet?
Anyway, our meeting was rather emotional and ended with a big hug, and Jorge telling me if I ever need something delivered from Montevideo, let him know and he’d do it for free.
1 I asked if I could see the estimate, and it was closer to USD 3,000 2 wrong lane, but hey….
It’s been over a week since I last posted, about dissecting a dead laser printer and discovering that it yielded several pounds of recyclable plastic. Today I was cleaning out files and found a photo taken a month ago.
Some low-functioning individual decided a more appropriate way to dispose of a broken printer would be to take it 180 meters from the nearest dwellings, and dump it in a field.
Meanwhile, doing a bit of spring cleaning – it’s amazing how much grows around the edges of those concrete plumbing junction box lids – I found that ants had been using this unused one as a dumping ground for sand as they made their nest under the patio. All the sand in the wheelbarrow came from that box, which means it probably came from below the wheelbarrow. Great!
After removing all the sand I could, I flushed the rest with the 3/4″ hose attached to our well. (Unfortunately not potable water.) “Someone” who saw the hose “come to life” decided it needed to be taught who’s in charge here. He managed to wrap it around this little orange tree three times, tightly.
Meanwhile “there’s something happening here” in the little park near the intendencia in Atlántida. And, as is to be expected, what it is ain’t exactly clear. Huge eucalyptus and pine trees cut down, all the tile torn up, and – nothing. The eucalyptus stump will send up new shoots; the pine in the foreground won’t.
The real question: will whatever they’re doing be complete in three months, when the summer season starts?
