Raw meat for the doggos – 2.5 kilos (5.5 lbs) each of meaty bones and chicken gizzards (menudos) and 1.2 kg (2.6 lb) of beef heart. US $15 for all. Heart the most expensive at about US $2.25/lb. Seems like a good investment.
In the background milk (yes, in a plastic bag) for another batch of yogurt, and cilantro for another batch of salsa Mexicana. And flour tortillas: I’m OK making pizza and bagels and such, but the idea of making flour tortillas hasn’t grabbed me. Maybe one day. Sure, they look easy enough…but doesn’t everything on the internet? (Here’s looking to you, it’s-so-easy two-stroke engine tuneup guy with 15 years experience.)
In the voting for municipal funds for special projects, our neighbor Álvero’s latest initiative has prevailed. Our local park/playground (which he spearheaded) will now include a bocce court. This should be interesting.
I can’t help but be grateful for relatively consistent trash pickup here, and I have great respect for the collectors—male and female—who ride on the back of the trucks as they speed from stop to stop. (And I try to avoid walking dogs off-leash if they’re within a half mile.)
Still, I wonder if the designers, engineers, and manufacturers in Europe took into account the enthusiasm of Latin American operators, who seem to think they’re the wrecking crew from Consumer Reports.
Sometimes as early as the beginning of June; sometimes as late as mid-July, but here it is, and heavy. Polar front predicted to give us several days of cold weather…oh sorry, “extreme” — from -2 to 3°C, or mid 20s to mid 30s°F. Pretty funny for someone who grew up in Connecticut. Or, God forbid, Canada! 😱
However, what we lack in extreme cold outside we make up for with our home’s insulation, consisting of single brick and stucco. In other words, nothing.
But Uruguay! This apparently goes back a bit (source):
They have fine houses and well-padded pocket-books. Many of them trace their descent from families that came to Uruguay hundreds of years ago. Their possessions are in great estates, rented houses, and in cattle and sheep. They have their palaces in Montevideo, whose floors are marble, and whose ceilings are frescoed and upheld by marble columns from Italy. They have vast one-story buildings on their estates, where in summer time they entertain like lords, supplying every guest with a horse. 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.
When it’s time to get rid of the old CRT TV or computer monitor, you don’t leave it in one of the hundreds of containers put out for that purpose by the municipality, you somehow drag it into the middle of nowhere and leave it there instead.
For years, I have wondered about rectifying the horrible plumbing we inherited in our back yard. It always seemed a little silly, since it would involve breaking up part of the patio we had installed. The exact tiles we used are no longer available, so the new ones wouldn’t match perfectly.
But recently I asked our contractor about it, and he said no problem! And when he says that, he means it.
Not only did the drain include a zigzag design, it also had a buried (inaccessible) elbow and substandard pipe, some of which turned out to have been broken.
I don’t find most construction projects particularly gratifying, but this improvement is actually exciting. Because, you see, three or four times a year I had to pry up all the junction box covers, put on long rubber gloves, and force a stiff plastic tube through the pipes connecting them—and yes, the one with the elbow was a bitch—when they got clogged up with grease that shouldn’t have, but somehow got beyond the grease trap.
Nasty job. No more!
BTW the gray square on the garage floor is a closed-off junction box. From four to two—so delightfully uncomplicated!
