This is a pair of fake Crocs my wife bought at Géant for a few bucks. They turned out to be just a half size too small for comfort.
And she prefers open-toed shoes for summer.
All it took was a few minutes with a razor blade and voilà!
Do they sell razor blades in Uruguay? I have no idea. I almost didn’t bring these from the United States. I’ll explain.
When we flew to New York in 2012 for my niece’s wedding in Connecticut, we had offered to bring an absurd amount of stuff back to Uruguay for people.* My last-minute packing operation occupied a significant part of my sister’s living room floor. I kept reassigning goods to different suitcases. It took a while, but finally everything fit.
But just before we headed out the door for the airport, I suddenly realized I needed one more item reassignment…
…because going through airport security with two box cutters and 100 razor blades in my carry-on bag didn’t seem like something that was going to end well.
The few hundred acres of scrub bushes and pine trees we where we walk dogs has little in the way of stunning beauty, and sometimes glaring examples of human ugliness, but it does not have thousands of people like the beach.
And it almost always has fascinating little discoveries, like these lines in the sand.
They must have been caused by wind and the grass, but how exactly they managed to make those outward curves was not at all clear.
A couple years ago, I posted about this face cut-out sign near the tourist office in Atlántida. The artwork has changed (or maybe it was different on the other side the whole time), but nearby a newer version has appeared.
With a message: the condom is always fashionable, and advice to condom yourself this summer! (a play on words, I expect).
Yes, that is what you think you’re seeing.
I’m having some difficulty imagining to whom this might appeal, or how. Or who thought this was the best use of $3,000, much less 3,000+ condoms. Maybe I should hang out some sunny day and ask questions.
I sometimes think this country’s motto should be Welcome to Uruguay. Please take a number. Because everywhere you go, you take a number. Even in the feria, the street market.
Overall, it’s a good thing. I recall my nephew’s amazement at the civility of our ferias, compared to their chaos in Guatemala, where he taught at an international school.
In the local ferretería (hardware store), where everyone knows my name, I have for years responded “42” and waved my paper in the air when the clerk calls out my actual number, which is of course never 42.
Alas, inquiring about property taxes in the intendencia the other day, I did get number 42. But there was no line, and no number called out, no number to turn in. What a waste!
Hot sun, relatively cool breeze, and welcome episodes of shade thanks to the puffy clouds. Beach jammed, but dogs found nothing to chase in the bush (they missed a couple of little lizards that we spotted).
We were walking in an area of shrubs, dogs lingering behind. Suddenly a YIP! from Jordie, and I swing around to see him flushing a rabbit to the right across the path behind us. But there’s Kiya, and the rabbit abruptly turns right, on the path, toward us, Kiya barely a length behind. Not good. I instinctively place my feet wide on the path, to force the dog to detour, if only for a split second.
BAM! The rabbit bounces off the inside of my right leg. I spin my head around. Syd has turned halfway around to the right and BAM! it bounces off the outside of his right leg. This carom serves to change its course 90 degrees, and instantly it’s gone into the brush.
And then even more amazing — the five “chaser” dogs completely miss it, and go charging up the path ahead. Only Leah, the princess who prefers watching chases to participating in them, spots the rabbit’s real path, and takes off into the bushes after it. Secondslater it’s obvious the rabbit has escaped, which comes (happily) as no surprise.
And then the other dogs, who had chased ahead on the path, reappear from behind. Go figure.
Running Hare Drawing by Malcolm Tait, Saatchi Art (click for source)
Syd has recounted several times the occasion when a flushed rabbit ran out of the bushes and through his legs, but never before contact, much less such a perfectly set up carom that the rabbit-hunting dogs completely missed.
During our time walking dogs together, there have been two kills, bring the total over all the years Syd has walked there to maybe seven. The first occurred at the end of the walk. A young rabbit bolted when five dogs were within a few meters, and didn’t stand a chance. Benji proudly came away with fresh blood on his back, having rolled on it. The second, recently, involved a longer chase, from which all of the dogs returned except Benji. Finally he emerged from the bushes with a dead rabbit in his mouth (no way of knowing who actually caught it). My immediate feeling was that I was looking at a classical painting.
I don’t recall having seen one, so I set out to look, and found this.
Sir Edwin Landseer — interesting guy: click for story
But that dog, except for its size, looks surprisingly like Leah, the non-rabbit-hunter. Go figure.
