An inquisitive old fart with a camera
Cool wind this morning. Time to wear shoes and socks again after happy months of flip-flops.
As a kid, I loved autumn crispness, new clothes and return to new adventures in school. Now it seems more a chore: order firewood, figure out how to clean the stove pipe, clean up garden. Stay warm. Wear shoes to the beach.
Autumn in the months that ~should~ be spring — still weird, the third time around.
At times here, you’ll hear a frog chorus sounding like the ‘mew, mew’ of cats. Confuses newcomers used to croaking. Last year we had many, many frogs – but also many, many mosquitoes. This year less. On the decline, or just an off-year?
Yesterday, our friends’ afternoon asado of suckling pig turned to evening with fat toads hopping around the parrillada.
This morning, the honey bees are busy on the basil plants I’ve let go to seed.
Good to see the indicator species – and the bees – thriving. From what I understand, that’s not the case elsewhere.
All my life, so disconnected with the meat part of my food supply that I’d never killed anything other than a fish to eat. Yesterday changed that. The three boys of friends’ seven suckling pigs were destined for the parrilla.
Click (or don’t) to enlarge images.
These three pigs brought their total to five so far. With experience and other adults the process went faster – but still very time-consuming. Removing the bristles is a lot of work.
Fresh pig ears and tails for the puppy.
From anus to windpipe, everything must go. Weird at first; by the third, I was used to it.
Liver and heart examined by kids. Quite an education.
I got inspired to cut bottles, but so far have ended up only with a bucket of broken glass. Dumping that that into the trash seemed a dangerous idea, so I took them where the garbage trucks go.
There, huge plastic bags lie as far as you can see, awaiting their turn to be clasificado – sorted out. Yes, there’s a person who goes through everything, finding and sorting the recyclables
Asking to take a photo, I got a tour instead. Unprepared, it didn’t occur to ask about the most ubiquitous item of all: plastic shopping bags.
Next time.
I expect a few more broken bottles.
The retiring executive we bought furniture from in Montevideo a couple years ago, whom we introduced to our town and who now lives a few blocks away, mentioned to my wife the other night a book he thought she’d enjoy.
A couple days later, I saw written in her calendar, A Deadly Affection, by Cuyler Overholt. That’s not a name you forget, but I hadn’t thought about it in probably four decades. We went to junior high school together in Connecticut a third of the way around the planet from here, even hung out with the same kids. She was cute. 😉
I left after 9th grade, and didn’t stay in touch with anyone at the high school, but someone from my prep school and her college connected us. Delightful to make contact – turns out later in high school she and my 8th grade girlfriend became best friends, and in their calendars is a trip together next week to enjoy Anchor Steam and sourdough bread in San Francisco.
The Argentinian we met in Buenos Aires through friends in Hawaii told us that our house name ‘Caviahue’ (houses here have names, not numbers) refers to a small town in Patagonia with ski resort and thermal baths. She used to have an apartment there. For all the mentions of Bariloche, also in Patagonia, I’ve never heard anyone mention Caviahue – oh, except for the owner of a excellent nearby winery – who also had a house there.
It looks like a cool place to visit. Unfortunately, the government’s latest plan to destroy the Argentinian economy tempts me to wait before thinking about it.
Yes, a full-size pickup truck called the Wingle 3.
Sometimes I feel like sending a memo to Chinese marketers: Look guys, before you name a product…
…and then I think nah, this shit’s too much fun.
Yesterday, we spent a pleasant afternoon and early evening in the campo, at the chacra of friends, having an asado on their parilla.
campo = the country
chacra = ranch (in their case a bit less than 30 acres (11 hectares)
asado = traditional BBQ, also called parrillada, also the name of various cuts of grilled meat, including carne de asado, which is ribs cut the ‘wrong way.’
parrilla = grill, adjustable and relatively elaborate cooking part of the parillero, which, when enclosed, is called a barbacoa. (Got it?)
You build the fire in the grate to the side. As embers drop below, you rake them underneath the meat, which cooks slowly. Very slowly.
Key point for Norteaméricanos::
If the flames touch the meat, you’re doing it entirely wrong.
When I was a kid, a ‘Coke’ meant a six-ounce returnable glass bottle. Recently, these 200 ml* returnable glass Coke bottles showed up here. Hard to imagine a kid these days being satisfied with a drink that small, but somebody bought them.
Behind them is a 2-liter bottle, plastic, also returnable, meaning that all three have a deposit paid on them.
Beer bottles half-liter and larger, and wine bottles 1.5 liters and larger, all have deposits and are re-used.
I like that.
*approximately 6.762805 fluid ounces
Neighbor’s gardener is here. I note with respect the safety precaution he has taken, seeing as the original lenses from his trailer’s tail lights are long gone, and it’s a good bet the lights don’t work anyway.
No, I’m serious. It wasn’t that many months ago that I was able to avoid – with perhaps two seconds’ notice – slamming into the back of a motorbike with no tail lights and no reflectors. This was on the main highway to Punta del Este, on a pitch black and rainy night. In general, people here – on the road or casually blocking an aisle or only exit from the supermarket – display a stunning lack of situational awareness.
But perhaps I could say that anywhere.
Our first friends here (who have since left the country in disgust, having learned virtually no Spanish) went searching for a computer part. Long story short, they were told they would have to go to Texas. Hard to imagine the average Uruguayan hops on a $1,500 flight in order to get a computer part.
Turns out there’s a computer store called Tecsys.
– – – – –
Here’s a Tecsys flier:
Note the banner item. Today at Best Buy in the USA, you can buy a Playstation 3 for $300 with goodies. Here, it costs double. Welcome to Uruguay.
On the flip side, you can find a Verbatim 4GB pen drive for $13.90. Find the same thing under $10 on Amazon, so ‘only’ 40% more here. But look closely:
Here, you can buy it with six monthly payments of $2.31 each, and actually save four cents! I suppose a person buying on credit would have other items as well, but still, the thought of a monthly payment of $2.31 boggles my mind.
Welcome to Uruguay.