Death by Corkage

Ah jeez, how could I forget. The Buenos Aires Herald reported on Monday that a total of 49 people received medical treatment for "accidents with fireworks or bottle corks" during last weekend's Christmas Eve celebrations. Which really isn't that bad, considering this is a city of almost 3 million people. But the flip side of that, I suppose, is that in a city of 3 million people, someone is bound to shoot their eye out (or somehow injure themself) with a bottle cork. And that of course begs the question: How many of those 49 fun-hogs actually injured themselves with a fucking bottle cork!? I'd just love to be a fly on the wall for that one ... Push, POW! Oh shit, sorry honey. Honey? Oh fuck, there goes Christmas Eve!

The Bus, Gus

It's all about the 152 and the 29. Best rides in the city. We'll ride from Barrancas de Belgrano to La Boca with our faces glued to the window the whole way.

The Old Ladies, Tito & the Bolivians

We get our veggies from the Bolivians. They might not be Bolivians, actually, but we do get our veggies there. Sometimes, anyway. Actually, we only get our veggies there when we don't feel like walking down to the produce guys, who have the best veggies in the neighborhood. It's where we usually go.

If we don't get our pasta from Tito (who closes his shop for three hours after lunch), we get it from the old ladies. We get our wine at the wine store and our chicken from the chicken guy. We buy our Buenos Aires Herald every day from the news stand on Scalabrini Ortiz. We buy flowers (either gardenias or African daisies) from one of the three flower guys between our place and Santa Fe.

On the way to Santa Fe, we pass the old Bolivian lady (who might not be Bolivian either) who sits cross-legged in the same spot every day with a giant pile of vegetables and herbs spread around her. We buy garlic or peppers from her because it's cheap and easy.

When we need telephone cards or beer we go to the kiosk owned by the Armenian family next door. The kid that works there calls me "viejo". Ok, viejo. Chao, viejo. It's right next door to the Armenian restaurant named Shark, which has a giant neon pyramid on top and a card table out front where three guys in suits sit and smoke at night, looking like rejected Old-World gangsters.

When we want to eat cheaply, we either go to the Armenian pizzeria (which doesn't have pizza but serves the house-wine in big, white, ceramic pitchers) or to the little bodegon just up the street that's crammed with brik-a-brak and doesn't have a plate on the menu (which is on the wall) for over US$2. Sometimes I'll run across the street to the pizzeria (this one really does sell pizzas) and get empanadas, if only because I love it when the old lady there calls mi "papa."

I don't know the names of any of these places. The only place I know the name of on our street (besides Shark, and that's because the neon is so goddamn bright, it's impossible to miss) is Coto, a national supermarket. But that's what happens, I guess, with chains. Safeway is Safeway, Starbucks is Starbucks, and that's that. I'm happy right now with the old ladies, even if their pasta ain't as good as Tito's. And we're stickin' with the produce guys.

Michael Thomas has it Easy

What was I thinking buying a bike? In San Francisco, all you gotta do is pick a route that doesn't have hills. And then you just sit back and yell at people for opening their car doors in front of you, or stopping in front of you, or making a right turn in front of you. Life is good on a bike in San Francisco.
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Here, shit. Not only do I have to choose my routes based on the directions of the streets (they're all one way, and going the wrong way is a death wish), but I gotta find one going my way without cobblestones and without busses! It's madness.
And there are no stopsigns in this city - or at least not any that actually mean stop. So you just gotta ride and time it - if you make it to the intersection before the car comin' at you, you're golden. But then, I swear to god, there's a huge pothole right before the entrance to every intersection. So I'm watching to my right, I see the car barreling down, I got it, got it, yep I'm in there - wham! I hit the fucking pot hole and my hands slip down my cruiser's handlebars, and I almost lose my footing and jesus christ, what the hell was I thinking?!
But I'm gettin it down. I probably should have taken the hint when I had to take back the first (brand new) bike I bought (for US$60) because it broke the second day I was on it. Broke. Just stopped. No way to get across an intersection.

We're dead

A $2.2 billion wall along the US Mexican border?? I think I'm going to be sick. They'll jump it I tell you. They'll dig under it! They'll bio-decellurize right through it! We're never gonna be safe! Thank god the House is on our side. And the mexicans and terrorists and ugly, ugly, scarey, scarey people are on the other side!

Madness, I tell you

Oh my god, would you look at the size of this avocado! And that's nothing, I tell ya. I saw a tree last month that had avos the size of footballs on it. The owner told me they grow to three pounds! Three pound avocado - can you imagine the fucking guacamole!!!

Asado

Ok, I know, it's a small one, but this was my first solo attempt (for the most part) at the Argentine asado. I do believe it came out quite well, though not quite as it looks here since the entrana isn't done of course. But from top to bottom, left to right, we have asado de tira (sort of like short
ribs), chorizo (that's the sausage looking stuff), and another little piece of asado de tira, another chorizo, a morcilla (blood sausage), another piece of asado that I through on late because it was thin, and two beautiful slabs of entrana (skirt steak). Damn, the only barbeque that might be able to out-cook me now is that beauty over at the Shelves house!