my god, the heat

The silence in our household is deafening. This morning I woke, not to the dulcet tones of Bubba's snoring, but to the hum of the fans keeping the hot air circulating through our bedroom. There were no dirty dishes to be found in the sink. No one was in the bathroom for an hour forcing a near-pants-wetting incident. Everything was tranquilo. Again.

Last week Bubba left for an epic month-long adventure in Bolivia via the Argentina northwest. We haven't heard from him since he left. Maybe he has been kidnapped by gaucho bandits. Maybe he fell asleep on a bus cama and ended up in Chile. Maybe he is having a great time and is too busy to keep us abreast of his plans.

The artist formerly known as Shane Amaya is also gone. We tried to give him a proper send off with 9 de Oro Agridulce cookies and a hell ride on the 1.5 hour bus ride through the ghetto to the airport but apparently he made it through unscathed.

The rest of the weekend passed in a blur of heat-stroke at the mercury continued to rise hellishly until it broke into thunder and lightning last night. Scottish girls are not made for this, to be sure. I spent the weekend sweating into my chair, waking from delirious naps with my hair stuck to my head, and unable to eat due to the heat. Me? Not eating? Yes, folks, something is seriously, SERIOUSLY amiss here.

I am trying to enjoy the empty house by rearranging furniture like a champ, keeping the bathroom neat and tidy. Visitors will flock in again in the delightful form of my friend Heather and her partner in crime, Taylor (who I am yet to meet), at the end of March followed immediately by Jenny 'Hyphen' Fickert who clearly needs a serious vacation from The Independent. Maybe by then, Paul and I will be sick enough of each other again to welcome more visitors.

The unrelenting Buenos Aires heat always brings weird moments. Last week I went to lunch with my friend Hilary from UBA and her daughter Antonia - both champions of great company. We ate some killer empanadas at local favorite El Sanjuanino and took a little stroll through Recoleta near the famous cemetery - the top tourist draw in town. Towards the end of last year, the city randomly scattered some giant recycling bins throughout the city and as we wandered through the most upscale neighborhood in town, we passed one so full of glass it was spewing out the bottom, smelly meat sizzling around the outside, and decorated with graffiti. She told me to take a photo, so I did. "That is the kind of photo I like," she said. "What Buenos Aires is really about." Recycling bins throughout the city a good intention with no execution left to rot on the summer sidewalk along side the dogshit and garbage. Hilary - here is your photo.