Most days I look around and imagine I’m in a slightly dingier Paris or Rome. I close my eyes, take a bite of freshly made ricotta stuffed ravioli or bite into a buttery medialuna (the argentine croissant) and I’m right there. Running through the parks designed by renowned French landscape architect Charles Thays and admiring the tacky yet deliciously glamorous ladies of Recoleta, I marvel at my good fortune.
Now and again, it’s something different – a bit more…third world. Our Fibertel (DSL) has been on the fritz for nearly two weeks. At first we thought it was just our apartment so we chuckled and patiently waited for the router lights to start twinking again like they always have. Then days passed and our English speaking neighbors stopped by to vent their frustration. They are thinking of moving if they don’t get it back up soon. Hugh waited all day on a Saturday two weeks ago expecting the Fibertel fix it man. They never showed up and when he finally called they laughed haughtily – “no, not this Saturday, you must wait at least 2 weeks”. Last week one of the Argentine neighbors popped by to inquire if we also had problems with our internet connection. Well, at least we’re not alone. So, I have to either take the laptop to a café with wifi or stop by a locutorio (internet café) to ck email(photo above at locutorio near our apt). No more skype calls and most of my more lengthy computer correspondences have trickled to one-liners. The third worldy part of it all is not that it happened because even in SF we lost our internet connection from time to time. It’s that we have no idea when or if we’ll ever get it back. It could be weeks, or even months. My friend Sharon just moved into a new apartment and has been trying for 4 weeks to get cable hooked up. She’s resigned herself to renting videos.
Autumn rained in this month. Heavy stormy showers near daily for the past week. Last Wednesday the storm made the front pages as major streets like Santa Fe and Libertador were flooded waist high. Lots lost power and the subway shut down. I was just beginning to get used to my coppertone arms and legs. The first real summer I’ve had since the teenagers years in sticky San Fernando Valley.
We saw the Oscars on TV and Hugh took note of all the winners. He’s a meticulous movie researcher. We can’t rent one unless it’s been given the thumbs up on the rottentomatoes or myriad other sites. This time he found a gem I would have never known about called “Once” – which won for best original score. Then he downloaded the soundtrack. I am officially obsessed. Glen Hasard and Marketa Irgloba’s voices are haunting, raw and beautifully complementary. There’s one song called Falling Slowly that I have played no fewer than 10 times in the last 24 hours. The chorus goes like this…
Take this sinking boat and point it home, we’ve still got tiiiiiiiimmmmme.
Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice. You’ll make it nooooooooowww.
It’s the perfect rainy day sing out loud in your pajamas with hairbrush microphone fix.
No comments:
Post a Comment