Ah, tropical Uruguay!*

frost

-1°C this morning in Montevideo; 93% humidity. Heavy frost in the front yard (none in the enclosed back yard where my latest planting of cilantro has just peeped out of the earth). It’s been a month since the chimney cleaner didn’t clean our chimney . I got some slabs of steel cut to replace the bricks he broke in the wood stove; just installed them this morning. Who knows when, or if, the guy will ever return. It’s Uruguay.

As I mentioned before, most mydayuruguay.wordpress are neither well insulated nor well-heated. I’m sitting next to single-pane windows set into single-brick walls. I finally wised up and put a small heater under my desk; it helps. As do multiple layers of clothing.

* no one claims Uruguay has tropical weather, but some people apparently have that impression.

Small and unexciting

The dogs had fresh bones and did not want to leave the yard. So I walked on my own, pausing longer than usual at the goats’n’geese (and apparently now a duck) enclosure at the local zoo, which the Bradt Urguay Guide (first and only in English) dismisses as ‘small and unexciting.’

Well, yes: I read the headlines. Looming economic, environmental, and political catastrophes on a scale that boggles the mind.

Small and unexciting? I have no problem with that.

Goats and duck in Atlántida, Uruguay zoo

Personal responsibility

trash left by fishermen on beach, Atlántida, Uruguay
Apparently not an issue for the city fisherslobs who come out for the weekend and leave their plastic and tangled fishing line on the beach, 30 meters from a trash receptacle. In the summer, a couple of people would come along at 8 AM and pick up everything. This time of the year it will simply blow around, wash along the shore, perhaps snare and kill a bird or fish.

Small-minded, selfish, ignorant people.

My thoughts jump to the geniuses of GE – who bring ‘good things to life’ – and the small-minded, selfish, ignorant design and management of the Fukushima nuclear plant – and the dozens of reactors in the United States sharing the same faulty and design (hence the blackout on the subject by GE-owned ‘mass media’).

If (when) the storage tank at unit #4 fails, there will be no one coming around at 8 AM to clean up the mess. It will simply blow around, wash along the shore, and quite possibly end civilization as we know it.

But the bringing good things to life ads sounded good, some people made a lot of money, and no doubt the fisherman took a couple of nice fish home to fry.

What else matters?

A chemtrail in Uruguay

In over two and half years in Uruguay, it’s only the second or third chemtrail I’ve seen.

I’m not happy to see it, but living on the windswept edge of an immense expanse of water, in a thinly-populated country, it’s not as threatening as in the northern hemisphere, where blue skies frequently turn to gray under the onslaught of spraying.

When the rain comes

When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads. They might as well be dead.

~ Rain, John Lennon

It rained much of the night, and the morning was unpleasantly rainy still. Our son went to catch a bus to his class in Montevideo.

There were no buses.

No strike, no holiday; simply no buses on the road in ugly weather.

My wife called the friend who agreed to translate for her at the hairdresser. Let’s do this another time, the woman said, it’s ugly today. This despite door-to-door transportation.

Perhaps the bus drivers knew no one would go anywhere, so they stayed home too.

My best guess is that people here have learned to avoid the risk of getting wet, and consequently chilled, because homes here aren’t built to be warm. There is evidence that this has a historical basis (1897):

In the winter, their surroundings are equally pretentious, but very uncomfortable, for the houses of Montevideo are as frigid as the white marble in which they are finished. The people believe artificial heat unhealthy, and in this city, which is as large as Washington, and quite as cold, there is not a furnace or a steam-heating plant. During cold snaps, a hostess often receives dressed in furs, with her hands in a muff and her feet on a hot-water bottle, and gentlemen and ladies come to state dinners in over-coats and fur capes. Source

Still life with cat and squash

In other news yesterday.

Firewood was delivered yesterday, but the people never showed to clean the chimney.

Mid-morning, our son’s friend arrived at the door quite agitated. The night before another friend drunkenly refused his offer of a couch, instead climbing on his motorcycle to head home. He’s alive, but parked in the hospital for a while with two broken ribs, ruptured spleen, head injuries and perhaps a broken foot. Apparently there was no contact with another vehicle. His is the motorcycle I fixed a few days ago.

By late afternoon, it was clear our dying 18 year old cat Zeus was nearing the end, so we took him to the vet to be put down. As soon as we got back, I buried the body, wrapped in newspaper and still warm, in the front yard near where he used to hang out. I say near because sometimes we’d see him lying in the middle of the street, which didn’t seem a good place to bury him.

45 minutes later our dinner guests arrived.

Feeling a little stressed out?

Actually not, come to think of it.

Dare to grow!

No, I’m not going all inspirational on you.

I should more properly title this, Dare You to Grow, but then you might still assume I refer to you, which I don’t.

Inspired by the audacity of this tree that clearly has no intention of rolling over and dying, I decided that various cuttings from avocado tree and sprawling geranium bush deserved a chance.

I stuck them into the sand/dirt/rubble bordering neighbor’s unkempt lot with a challenge: I dare you to grow!

Check back in a couple months.

Garní in Solís, near Piriápolis

Being the wife’s birthday, we had a ‘splurge’ meal at the Armenian restaurant Garní in Solís, near Piriápolis, where we’ve been going off and on for over a year. It’s about a half hour away.

If you don’t know Spanish, the accent indicates the accented syllable, and in Spanish only one syllable is emphasized, no matter how many exist in a word (it can be 7-8 easily)
If you don’t know Uruguay, this conversation does not exist: She: it’s my birthday – let’s go out to eat. He: Last time we ate out it was Thai. Do you want to do that, or Tex-Mex, or Chinese, or Italian, or…? It’s more like, what kind of meat do you want with your french fries? So an excellent restaurant with food with different flavors is remarkable.

Though we haven’t been there in a while, Michel, the waiter, knew exactly what we were going to order.

Sitting in their shaded outdoor area a block form the ocean, we started with a meze of tsatsiki, hummus, tabouli and a delicious eggplant concoction, with pita bread and a half-liter of white wine. We shared a lamb shish kebob and enslada belen, a wonderful mix of eggplant, apples, red pepper, cashews and prunes (I think). And another half-liter of wine.

I got a laugh out of him with my comment (actually no need for Spanish; he speaks English and French as well) comimos como Uruguayos – we ate like Uruguayans! Servings can be HUGE here. He repeated it and got a laugh out of the chef Ani (who also speaks English, and also Armenian and Turkish). We normally don’t eat dessert, but when Michel came out and started talking to us in a low, conspiratorial way, we figured they were going to offer us a free dessert since it was the wife’s birthday, something that had come out earlier in conversation.

No, not that. The entire meal was on the house.