Porquerias de Uruguay

Or, translated, odds and ends from Uruguay.

Oh baby, I went SHOPPING before I left Montevideo. I went to one of the malls with a PLAN. First stop, the anchor store - Tienda Inglesa. Yep, they have a reasonably priced suitcase. Good. Tienda Inglesa is my last stop and I'm gonna fill that bag on the way to the cab.

I look to see what Tienda Inglesa has in the way of alarm clocks. Yeah I've got this weird idea in my head that I want an alarm clock that displays in 24-hour time. They have one possible item but I decide to look around in the mall a bit more.

Dinner. I get a chicken milanesa, french fries and some tomato salad with oregano. Yum. Diet coke and sparkling mineral water to drink.

Thus refreshed I go to Urban Outfitters. Yeah, same name but certainly not a franchise, just using the same name. Reasonably hip cheap clothing. Hard to find in my size but Augustin, the sales rep, helps me as best he can insisting on speaking English. I'd rather he talked in Spanish but I understand he wants to practice. I bought a pair of jeans and two shirts. They gave me a murse to carry it all in.. Nice. Never owned a murse. Not sure how I feel about it really.

Then I went to Mistral. Mistral is an Argentine clothing company. I bought a pair of shoes and a polo shirt.

Then chasing after that damn alarm clock. The Britania brand (brazilian made) runs on 127v and 220v. Chances are good it will work in the USA but its not displaying 24 hour time. Punktal is an Uruguayan brand. The clock is 220v only but displays 24 hour time. I figure, ok, will just get a transformer that will be that. There's no possible way it could be deriving the time from the AC power, not in this day and age..... So $15 spent on that.

Tienda Inglesa. Pre-packaged salamis. Adobo. Yerba. Alfajores of several different types. And - why not - a couple of small ultraviolet light bug attractors with high voltage grids to fry the little bastards. Yeah they are 220v but are rated at 1 watt.

I pay nearly USD$100 for the suitcase, the spices, the meat, oh yeah and a fucking "Pan Dulce" (fruitcake)... Done. I stuff it all in the suitcase outside the store and realize that I don't have any more Uruguayan cash on me. I hit a banred machine and get a thousand pesos. Now I have a new problem. Ain't no cab going to make change for a 1000 pesos note. Not gonna happen. So I walk up to the Ancap station north of the mall to the minimart and buy diet coke and sparkling water. Given the price they charge for gasoline (USD$6 per gallon) they damn right well will have change for 1000 pesos. Walk back to the cab stand and get back to the hotel.

At the hotel - message from Alejandra. Pizza at her house? It's 23:30 by this time but I call her back and get the address of the new house. Cab ride over and back plus my share of the pizza depletes that 1000 pesos jiffy-quick.

adventure in Chicago

My typical adventure in Chicago used to be pretty formulaic. Go to the bar, get smashed, go to another bar, get more smashed, wake up in some stranger's apartment. Or a variation on that would be to wake up at Steamworks. The second of the two is actually sometimes preferable because then you know what side of town you're on, that your wallet and cellphone got locked up in their safe deposit box, and you don't have to snoop around for the odd piece of mail and hope you're not calling Mr. Right Now by his roommate's name - in a joint like Steamworks you just don't need to exchange names, y'all just get busy.

I made some new friends very quickly here - I will be deliberately vague about how this came to pass - and we wound up watching a DVD compilation of Family Guy episodes and eating pizza in one of their VERY high-buck super-decorated loft condo apartments up in Andersonville. We shared a couple of youtube videos we each liked - funny how everyone busts out a laptop these days... And in this particular gathering we all laughed like hell and remained clothed. Seriously. Not even any dry-humping.

These are the ones I liked the best.

This one is not safe for work.


This one is not very PC (but little on this blog IS). It's a clip from a Helen Keller play. Watch the woman in the middle overdoing her role as HK.

9 years old and has a friend with benefits

I was hanging with my friend Dara and her daughter Madeline today for lunch. Madeline is nine and she has some very interesting 9-year-old ideas about life. For example, puberty is a virus you should avoid catching at all costs because it will give you a fever. And she recently came home from time spent at her dad's house having followed a recommendation from her cello instructor to have a pad in between the instrument and her shirt.

The poor dear, her step-mom improvised with a maxi-pad. What's more she sent the poor child home with it stuck to her shirt! But I digress.

So Dara was trying to get a rise out of her daughter about a boys name written on a notebook with hearts around it. Dara wanted to know if he was Madeline's boyfriend.

Madeline vehemently denied having a boyfriend.

Those of you who know me know that I like to throw the occasional cinder block in the proverbial koi pond.

So I asked the Madeline this: if he wasn't a boyfriend, was he therefore a friend with benefits? I kept a poker face and watched Dara's reaction as she swallowed HARD to keep from bursting out laughing. I was awaiting the response. Madeline looked pensive and said "friend with benefits."

She clearly had no idea precisely what I meant.

Dara was maintaining good self control over either bursting out laughing or I don't know what, but her voice wavered a bit and said, "Well, Madeline, what kind of benefits do you get from (name)?"

And Madeline answered, "Oh, he carries my books, holds the door, stuff like that."

GREAT RELIEF crossed Dara's face and she put her head in her hands to giggle a second before moving on with lunch.

mi mejor amiga conmigo (my best friend with me)

Ale and me, La Jolla bay @ San Diego, CA August 2006