One of the pleasures of having live in Uruguay a while is not having to set up your life here. Having to buy furniture and appliances in Uruguay brings little joy. In fact, shopping in general brings little joy: selection is limited, quality dubious, and prices in general exorbitant.

But, with little pressure, and various changes and upgrades, should be better, no? We plan to furnish and perhaps rent our little country house, which gives us an opportunity to buy a better stove for our house in Atlántida, and means moving beds around, so maybe we can buy a better mattress (for the record, I find no fault in our existing one). Also, if we can find a reasonably priced washing machine, that would be nice to provide to a country renter as well.

So, today we were off to “close” Montevideo, half the distance to “far” Montevideo, first checking out stores in Costa Urbana Shopping, the newest mall, which straddles the Ruta Interbalnearia.

We wandered into Multi Ahorro, where a salesgirl provided all kinds of useful information and advice. I made notes. Then we walked into Divino across the way, a large mostly-furniture store.

The first thing we noticed was that the mattress measurements didn’t correspond with what we are putatively trying to replace. It may be that the bed we bought, from an American, had originated in the United States, hence weird metrics, but perhaps measurements changed here at some point? After all, we bought it eight years ago; he and his wife had been here seven before that.

So, why not ask an employee? Well, perhaps because the first one walking toward us abruptly seated herself at a computer with her back to us. Wandering past her toward a group of three employees, I watched them kid around with each other, and then walk away. Well, one walked past us, studiously avoiding eye contact, though we were clearly potential customers and clearly needing some attention.

In the end, a total of seven floor employees managed to completely ignore us, happy with their little chats and kidding around.

Welcome to Uruguay!

On the way back from dog walking, I stopped by the shop of Daniel, our herrero (blacksmith), with a little challenge. We have this pot we use almost daily: Susan boiling eggs, me making oatmeal. But the handle, though connected, moves, and I have not been able to remove the screw that attaches it.

 I’m pretty strong, but the reluctant screw yielded quickly to Daniel’s efforts, which then included straightening the sheet-metal mounting point, reaming it (or something), re-mounting the handle, and — voilá! — good as new.

Granted, Daniel just made our new fence and gate, but I expect, given our history, the upshot would have been the same nonetheless: no thought of charging me for this service.

Welcome to Uruguay!

A few days ago, walking dogs, Syd handed me this handwriting gem from his and Gundy’s excursion to the weekly feria (open air market) in Atlántida.

OK, not as impressive as his last contribution, but still begs the question — who teaches kids in school to make backwards 9s, or lollipop 9s? And if not taught, how do they learn?

But the freaky numbers today had nothing to do with nines. Or fours.

They were the number 200.

I have an ongoing routine with the carnicería (most of whom I know by name, and all of whom know me by name), where I ask for 454 grams (one pound) of bacon. The owner, Javier, holds the record for coming closest, cutting off a chunk that weighed 447 grams or so.

Javier also has one of the most impenetrable accents I’ve heard in Uruguay: his speech sounds more like a weed eater cutting through thick grass than a human language.

Whatever: I didn’t stop there today, because though we “needed” bacon, I had not long ago visited a new carnicería that slices bacon, far more fun to cook than my hand-cut slices. Back to them in a sec.

On my way back from buying organic produce from out neighbor Pilar in the country, I stopped at the feria in Estación Atlántida for the first time, because I forgot to get Roquefort (ROAK-aye-fort) cheese Thursday, when Syd was collecting weird nines, also at the Atlántida feria. I found a guy selling cheese and sausages and hod-knows-what else out of a 60-year-old Bedford (English) truck. I asked for 200 grams of Roquefort.

He dropped on the scale two little plastic-wrapped chunks. 200 grams, exactly. I have never — ever — gotten a round number when buying cheese. I was impressed!

So on to the new carnicería, a large space where the slicer is in the back, and scale in the front, and where, last and first time I visited, I asked for 200 grams of bacon (panceta) and ended up with 400+. So this time I just said 200-300 grams, and the guy shuffled back to the slicer. And finally shuffled back, and deposited the sliced bacon onto the scale. 200 grams, exactly.

Exactly.

What is Universe saying?

As I mentioned in my last post, my best efforts were for naught when it came to re-installing the tire after I installed an inner tube on the hand truck/dolly. The tire I inherited simply did not behave like the ones in YouTube videos. I’m pretty strong, but it just wasn’t happening.

Because Syd mentioned the gomería (tire shop; translates as “gum,” unh huh) on Ruta 11, I stopped by there this afternoon. They don’t know me — I went maybe there once six years ago — and the place was crazy busy. No sign of an office. How long would I have to wait before someone noticed me — and then how long before they could get around to it? I was in no hurry, and would happily have left the hand truck there for, well, whenever.

But a kid (anything under 35 is a kid at this point) noticed me. I quickly explained in Spanish that I’d installed an inner tube, but no way could get the tire back on.

Whatever he was doing, he stopped. Tried to do the job by himself with big-ass tire pry bars they have (an order of magnitude larger than the screwdrivers I have), called over another worker to help him, and it took them a couple of minutes, working together, to fight the tire back onto the rim. Nice! Wasn’t just my incompetence!

In the process (don’t ask me how) the other (non-tube) tire lost all its air. No matter. He filled both, passed the rig back to me.

How much do I owe you?, I asked.

He simply waved me off.

Please remind me of this the next time I complain about business in Uruguay.

No complaining today about doing business in Uruguay!

I asked our butcher to save some bones for the dogs. Usually I end up with 6-8 kilos. But today they only had 2.5 kilos .

Not enough to bother charging me for, apparently.

Nice!