Something new, something

Well, of course I had to try it. And—? Since I’m not a wine reviewer, I’ll defer to the experts:

Wicked and extra-ripe. Whispers of fruit punch, acidic monster melon and aggressive lemon rind. Drink now through April.

Actually pleasant enough to drink, despite visual whispers of

this Windex, from Target web site or this. Swimming pool anti-freeze from watsons.com

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see that Blue contains artificial coloring. But I was surprised to learn it comprises only 10%.

Aunque el 90% del color se obtiene de forma natural, se añadió un 10% de colorante, para conseguir un tono más turquesa, deseado por los responsables de la bodega. (source) — Although 90% of the color is obtained naturally, 10% of dye was added, to achieve a more turquoise tone, desired by those in charge of the cellar.

From the same article:

Young people and people who like to try new things are the target audience for the product, said the director of fine wines at H. Stagnari, Virginia Moreira. She added that the product was born for a personal reason: “In part, having four teenage children wanted to seek a change of habit to choose a natural wine instead of other stronger drinks.”

I hope they like it. I don’t expect I’ll be tempted to buy it again.

The ANTEL Bill

Three months ago, some guy sputtered up to our rusting mailbox and delivered someone else’s phone bill. Sombunall companies (phone, electric, and water are gubmint) deliver bills privately instead of using the government postal servicee (some irony there?). I don’t know which, since we get ours electronically (sometimes excessively). But two months ago, when the same bill arrived again, I went to tell them that I did not want this to happen again.

Which of course it did.

I did make an effort to find out to whom this bill should have been delivered, but didn’t get too far into that before hatching an alternate plan.

So here’s how I have chosen to advise the misguided mail carrier that the only bit of info he had right was the Manzana, or block. (No, you haven’t forgotten your high school Spanish: manzana does mean apple. I just live here, OK?)

ANTEL bill Uruguay

Then came the presentation.

ANTEL bill taped to mailbox, Uruguay

Style-wise, I’m of the school that says you can’t go wrong with duct tape. But if you think placing the offending bill across the opening where lazy doofus would cram it into mailbox is clever, you’re only revealing your northern-ness. It will not surprise me at all to see the next bill inserted behind this one.

Stay tuned….

Worn out, burned out

While waiting for the repair guy coming to replace the heating element (resistencia) in our water heater, I took a picture of my flip-flops. They’ve lasted at least a year and yes, the grass is showing through the right heal.

Worn out flip flops and burned-out water heater element

I often have to wait outside to wave people down, since my telephone explanations of how to get here are remarkably and consistently misunderstood. Today’s communications snafu also started on the wrong foot, as I didn’t really know how to answer an incoming call on my new smart phone. Seriously.

handwritten repair bill, Uruguay

Here’s the bill: visit, heating element, and cabling – actually for the toll, since he came from Montevideo (it should have been 160 pesos, but then he probably charged it to everybody this side of the peaje).

1,000 pesos is around USD 36.

And if that 1,000 on the bill looks like 7,000 to you, you might share my fascination with Uruguayan handwriting.

A weed shop in Montevideo

Cañabis Protectio shop, Montevideo, Uruguay

No, not selling weed. Seeds, paraphernalia, maybe growing supplies. I didn’t even bother to look inside. I was showing some visitors around.

Uruguay legalized marijuana — sort of — in 2013.

You can legally grow six plants at home, but you’re supposed to register with the government, an idea which for some reason weed users (and people who remember the military rule) don’t universally embrace. You can join a cooperative and grow up to 99 plants. But no weed is available through pharmacies, as planned, because many pharmacies oppose the idea. (Because marijuana is so unhealthy, don’t you know.)

Cannabis medicine — Between 1850 and 1942, Big Pharma did not exist. Thanks @hemprojectsocial on Facespook.

Unlike Jamaica, Uruguay has decided not to sell marijuana, if and when it’s ever available, to non-residents and non-citizens. However,

Montevideo is now littered with shops selling weed paraphernalia to both locals and tourists. A biscuit firm is marketing alfajores – the country’s national snack, two chocolate biscuits sandwiching a layer of dulce de leche – at dope users suffering the munchies. Its yellow “Marley” packaging seems to be in almost every convenience store, complete with a lion waving a Rastafarian flag and a large dope leaf. [source]

Alfajores Marley — Source: subrayado.com

Needless to say, I’ve never seen one. Must be a Montevideo thing. Reminds me of the Macarena: the U.S. nationwide song craze that no one outside the Washington Beltway had ever heard of. But I digress.

Uruguay’s laudable marijuana initiative will hopefully pan out. Meanwhile, it’s looking — to me at least — as a well-meant, and welcome, move, that can only come to fruition through a miracle: the government bureaucracy actually allowing human beings to thrive. Here, as everywhere else, they seem to revel in doing the exact opposite.

Tienda Inglesa: from class to trash

Tienda Inglesa: Lo bueno por menos

Classy may be too strong a word, but Tienda Inglesa has been for me the best of the handful of “large” (remember, Uruguay is small) supermarket chains in Uruguay.

Back in 2012, Tienda Inglesa sold LED lights imported by Renovables S.A., a wide-ranging and impressive Uruguayan renewable energy business. The owner, Rolando Ringeltaube, told me how carefully their company monitored quality control in China. And, he told me, LED bulbs should have a life of 20 years. Which, considering the history of incandescent light bulbs, seems an unlikely prediction. Still, they have to last longer than these mercury-laden compact fluorescents that seem to last about a year, no?

So imagine my surprise when an LED light bulb I bought there died after three weeks. They have a “no refund” policy, but thought about it a couple days, and gave me another. Which also died after three weeks. Once again, they reminded me of the “no refund” policy, but gave me a credit after a few minutes. Meanwhile, I walked to the lighting section to examine the packaging. Sure enough, they are now imported from China by Tienda Inglesa. No middle man. No quality control.

LED bulbs are great (10X more efficient than incandescent), but the Tienda Inglesa LED bulbs are now officially trash. Consider yourself warned.

Extremely poor quality LED bulbs sold at Tienda Inglesa in Uruguay

Walmart wisdom™ comes to Uruguay.

Update 5 January 2017: the latest Tienda Inglesa garbage LED light, acquired 3 December 2016, has started overheating and malfunctioning today, after 33 days.

Compet—

—Several years ago, getting a quote on a large order, I complemented the local lighting store on their prices, which were much better than another place I’d just been. The kid behind the counter said, ”Sometimes they’re more expensive. Sometimes we’re more expensive. There’s no real competition here.”

He used the word competencia.

competition and competence in Spanish

And today his statement was again proven true (with a twist, twice!) with a phone bill address and delivery.

ANTEL bill delivery fail, Uruguay

Lumberyard inspiration

I can vividly recall, back when we lived in the USA, sorting and sighting (for straightness) dozens and dozens of the cheapest 2x4s at Lowe’s or Home Depot for various projects. Whatever words I might attach to that experience, “inspiring” would probably not be one of them.¹

Going to the local lumberyard here is entirely different.

Whole cut logs at lumber yard, Uruguay

How can you look at entire logs sliced raw into thick slabs without starting to imagine things to make out of them?

Boards "au naturel" at our local aserradero, Uruguay

Inside, you can wander around among the various wood products, including dimensional lumber, either comun (I think they use that term) or cepillado, planed. But then these gems of individuality.

cheao interior door, Uruguay

But I wasn’t there for inspiration, but rather 3mm plywood veneer to re-face an abused and incredibly cheap bathroom door, since we have friends arriving in a week who will stay in the casita. It’s not a standard size, so I couldn’t simply buy a new one. Note that it doesn’t have a frame — just little pieces of wood glued to the veneer. I think they’re a little more solid up north.

trying to re-face interior door
So, glued, clamped, and ya veremos (we’ll see)!

¹ However, being in North America, at least I didn’t have to double-check them for accurate dimensions and right angles

Greetings from ANTEL

In January, it will be ten years since I last lived in the United States, and one wonderful and immediate change was no more junk mail! Now all our utility bills are delivered electronically, which is great. There’s almost never anything in the outside mailbox.

But, yet to find and explanation: why they emailed yesterday’s bill ten times.

Well, some credit due — at least you don’t have to type “www” to get to their web page on this just-recently-introduced Internet thing.

Clean up: public vs private

Paul asked about the end state ot the aloe vera harvesting I posted yesterday.

after aloe harvesting, Atlántida, Uruguay

The private workers actually left their work area very clean. Of course, the aesthetic appeal of the plants has been greatly reduced, but they’ll grow back.

after aloe harvesting, Atlántida, Uruguay

Much of the waste, I expect, they left around the base of the plants, but that will return nutrients to the soil. On the ground in front is a piece similar to what they were packing into crates.

Meanwhile, near Syd’s place, the public workers actually did come back, and did remove the rest of the brush pile, and the other one around the corner!

Brush, but not trash, cleanup in Uruguay

But all the trash carefully removed from the brush pile remains in its own pile on the ground, just meters from an empty trash container. Because “not their department,” no doubt.

Gracias por dejar

A new sign has appeared in the Tienda Inglesa parking lot in Atlántida.

Shopping cart sign at Tienda Inglesa, Atlántida, Uruguay

In a northern setting, it wouldn’t merit a second glance (except for being in Spanish: ”Thanks for leaving your shopping cart here.”)

However, as I joked to the employee in the parking lot, you can tell the new owners are American.

Klaff Realty, LP, owners of the Safeway and Albertson’s supermarket chains in north America, bought Tienda Inglesa’s 10 stores in March for $120 million. The shift has been subtle but palpable: aisles opening up, less innacessible merchandise cluttering the tops of shelf units.

And now this — thanking customers for not simply abandoning their shopping cart anywhere in the crowded parking lot (often requiring the next person to move it before being able to park).. Wow! Efficiency! Innovation! Think of what could happen next.

Maybe they’ll instruct employees not to block entire aisles with shopping carts as they stock shelves during the busiest periods? Nah, unlikely.

Or teach cashiers that their little bar, referred to up north as a “separator” or “divider,” and sometimes saying “Next Customer,” has a function other than breaking the photo-electric beam that makes the conveyor belt move? Seriously, as we started to unload our shopping cart onto the Tienda Inglesa conveyor belt today, my wife reached for the divider to separate our groceries from the previous customer’s. The grumpy cashier actually grabbed it and put it back, insisting that its function was to turn the conveyor belt on and off.

Perhaps I should take a felt marker and start writing on them ”Próximo Cliente,” No, they’d probably consider that vandalism.

I do, however, find some inspiration in the gringo who got so tired of Montevideo restaurants listing unavailable menu items that he started carrying a Sharpie marker, and crossing them off the menu with indelible ink as they were announced nonexistent by the waiter. So wrong it’s just right!