An inquisitive old fart with a camera
…when you spread jam on fresh toast it tastes like pond scum…
…no worrying about whether it’s moldy, because you’ll never be able to tell.
Definitely bolsters my faith in humanity to know that someone, somewhere, thought this was a good idea.
On the dog walk, a small twin engine jet went over quite low, headed northeast, which would mean maybe Porto Alegre as its destination. I thought I might look at FlightRadar24 when I got back, but forgot all about it until the same plane flew overhead, equally low, heading southeast out over the water.
But it’s a Brazilian Air Force plane, so I’m sure everything is completely normal.
Just like that, one day a broken TV appears in the middle of the path.
In the middle of nowhere.
Because of course. Where else would one dispose of an old, broken TV set?
Just as I was heading upstairs to wash up, a faint clapping (the way of summoning attention here) and saw a long-haired 10-11 year old boy with his bicycle in our driveway. This is unusual.
He was selling raffle tickets for Colegio Pinares (a few blocks from here) and he had a nice jacket with the emblem of the school, so I gave him 50 pesos (~USD 1.25) for one. He awkwardly wrote the ticket number with his pencil – his fifth customer, I noted – then squatted to try to write on the concrete in the driveway, finally retreating to the bicycle seat as backing where he managed to complete his data collection – my first name and telephone number.
Only back inside did I look at what I had bought a raffle ticket for: a basket of candies.
For once I am grateful that I never win these things.
Mid-winter, fresh veggies from the feria (street market) a couple days ago. I threw all this and more into my own bag in order to bring home as little plastic as possible. Most of the vendors just love putting everything in plastic bags.
I saw this on the Faceborg recently and saw this in an Uruguay Expat Group.
Later I was standing near a house on the dog walk where I usually spend about ten minutes, and have hundreds of times, noticing its outdoor wiring for the first time.
Sure, just bring the current into the house through a wire lying on the lawn. Just pass over it with the lawn mower when you need to. No problem!
A peaceful walk around the neighborhood.
A large, red-pained pole that’s charred at the far end. Why, and why? And from where?
And then a dead–well, most likely dead–comadreja. We didn’t hang around to find out.
Workers here at 7:30 AM, set up secure scaffolding (braced and tied to house) to work on replacing rotted parts of the roof valley. Done and gone by four.
Inspires a little more confidence than what Martín used to paint the house in 2010. Yes, that’s a crappy wood ladder (left with the house) tied to the top of my aluminum ladder.
The local “excitement” for the last few weeks has been the re-doing of the neighbor’s thatched (“quincho”) roof. They’re apparently doing it in two layers, so the next time the whole thing doesn’t have to be torn off, just the top half. New idea?
I would be more curious, but the last time that roof was done, in October 2011, Denise Glass did and exhaustive and exhausting account of the process “here in Uruguay.” After reading it again, I do not want to burden the fabric of the universe with even one more word about it.
So, a new, bright pink dog food bag full of garbage appears in the middle of nowhere.
Even if brought from the closest house, someone would have walked half a kilometer to litter. All the houses to the southeast have regular trash pickup, and it would surprise me if that house didn’t have the same.
So what’s the “thinking” here?