Witchy Woman

So here's something that doesn't happen everyday.

On my way to a book store to look for a good map of Uruguay, two strange old ladies, sitting on a bench, one asked me if I had a light, which I obiviously didn't. After crushing their nicotine dreams, the same one asked where I was from, as, believe it or not, I stand out a little bit in South America. So after a quick moment of geographical chat, the lady who did the talking asked my to hold out my hand.

But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. When I first saw these two ladies, I thought to myself, "Self, these two ladies look like gypsies." Scarves, eleven layers of shirts, bandanas, big hoop earrings, patchouli. If they would have been wearing a Cream t-shirt they would have looked like half of the staff at the Grain Train.

So back to the magic. After reading the lines in my hands and telling me that I was going to have a long and prosperous life and everything everyone wants to hear, she asked for a bill, a piece of paper money. And now the graft begins. I wasn't born yesterday, but this was too cool not to spend five dollars on. So, the one who did the talking, the other gyspy lady just sat there, took my 100 peso bill, folded it into a tiny little wad of cash, and began to tell me, at least this is what I think she was telling me, something about loneliness, prayers to Mary Magdalene, and risk-taking. Asking to keep the 100 peso bill as a donation, she pocketed it as quick as anything.

But now this is where it gets fun. Now, she asked me for a larger bill and with her gypsy magic, I had a 200 peso bill out because I really wanted to see where this was going. Now, she told me she was going to throw it into the sea (read wallet) and if I was OK with that. Why not.

So, out from her giant gypsy jacket comes a small bottle of what she said was holy water. A drop on my palm and a drop on her palm, she put the 200 peso bill into my little dab of Jesus water and then put into her hand. Then she had me blow on the money - I know, right? Then she did the same. And then she spit all over the money. Like, alot. There was alot of spit. It was a bit icky.

After drenching the bill in spit, she wadded it up into her hand, and put it into her pocket to be "thrown into the sea." Now, with her clean hand, she get, from some other mystery pocket, a sprig of rosemary and what I think is a dried mushroom, as it looks like a pebble, but is still a bit squishy. I keep them, and I'll  have a wife soon, or win the lotto, or some shit. Beats me.

So, for fifteen dollars I got some herbs, a nib of fungus, and one of three things:

1. Good gypsy luck.
2. Eternal damnation.
3. Conned.

It's probably number 3, but hey, I'd be lying if I said I still didnt have that weird feeling around the back of my neck. If it worked for Springsteen, I guess it can't be too bad.

Radio Somewhere

I do not like American radio, at least the American radio I've been exposed to. As broad and brilliant as the music world is, things seem to get boiled down to there most base and icky forms.  One seems to have three basic options.


Sad Kroeger.



The first is your pre-packaged pop. Now, depending on the song, this can be either the worst or best choice for radio jamming. I am unashamed to acknowledge the fact that if Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" is ever on the waves, I will crank that radio to eleven and sing like a sophomore girl. Driving home once from college with one of my sisters, I'm pretty sure we listened to Pink's "Rock Star" at least eighty-seven times. For a solid four months one winter, I had "Apple-Bottom Jeans" perpetually stuck in my head, and loved it everytime the twelve seconds of lyrics that I actually knew crunked through my head.

However, as mentioned, I can also be the worst possible music ever concieved my mankind. Katy Perry is terrible, even if she does kiss girls. I would rather listen to starving goats than any album a winner of American Idol makes and would not listen to an entire Justin Beaver song for five dollars. Six is another story.



The second is, as one of my friends so eloquently dubbed it, butt-rock. AC/DC, Kid Rock, Staind, Puddle of Mudd, Linkin Park, Nickelback *pukes in mouth*, and a plethora of bands that just can't seem to spell their names right. This is terrible music for terrible occasions. If the musical world was highschool, this genre would be the kid who sits in his rusted truck revving his grimy engine, bragging how he "don't even need to finish school 'cuz my momma's uncle gonna git me a jerb fixin' stuff fer seven bucks uh a hour!" There is no redeeming quality for this type of sound, except that the songs are short, because power chords only go so far.

I smell an A-Rab...

The third genre is country. That is all.

However, the radio seems to have a different mentality south of the border.

My iPod, pushing seven years, is on it's final legs, and can't leave the house or it gets sick. And as I walk an insane amount in this country, I have quickly gone native in a adapting the cellphone radio.

Now, at first I hated the radio down here. It made no sense whatsoever. Who has ever heard of sandwhiching two ABBA songs between Sugar Hill Gang and Tom Waits? Sheena Easton - who will be forever in my mind associated with Vinnie Jones opening beer bottles with his eye sockets - followed by Kid Rock's "All Summer Long?" Tom Petty and Akon on the same station? What the hell Uruguay?



Vinnie Jones works 9 to 5 at the gun show (Hay-Oh!)



But now I love it. It makes no sense whatsoever! Who would have ever thought of sandwiching two ABBA songs between Sugar Hill Gang and Tom Waits? Brilliant! Sheena Easton and Kid Rock? A-maz-ing. Tom Petty and Akon, that still doesnt make sense, but whatever.

Even as I write this, I'm continually surpised and impressed by the absolute absurdity of the radio. At this very moment, "God's Gonna Cut You Down" by Johnny Cash just finished, followed by Men At Work.

Uruguay, "...where women gooo and men plundaah!"

The World's Friendliest Pidgeon

And I shall name you... Sancho Pancho.

There are lots of birds in Uruguay. In fact, the word Uruguay is an old Guaraní - the natives who were quickly and completely removed by the Europeans - phrase for "river of the painted birds." Green birds, white birds, little birds, big birds. Lots of birds.

In my particular apartment complex, there are lots of pidgeons, all of which are friendly. However, one pidgeon in particular seems to have taken a liking to me. Everytime I go out to get some air, it, without faults, flys and lands within three feet of me.

I decided to name him Sancho Pancho and we start English lessons on Monday.

And boom goes the dynamite...

Ska-doosh.

Despite the fact that it indeed has been winter here for the better part of two months, earlier this week was especially cold. Soul crushin cold. Cloudy, rainy, frigid fog: the works. I could see my breath while I watched TV. Anyhow, I didn't think to much of it, as the blood from my brain was detoured to my toes.

However, during a conversation at work today, someone mentioned that it was due to an ash cloud, which I thought was ridiculous at first. But then I remembered seeing on the BBC that a volcano in Chile had indeed erupted a week or so ago and had, indeed, covered most of Patagonia in ash clouds, freezing rain, and all around ickiness.

So while earlier this week the finer, more cultured particulates of the eruption literally rain on my parade, today the bigger guys arrived.

Dude, I totally get it.

As the human brain, or whatever, has the tendancy to notice things it just learned, my walk home today from work was quite the sight. Cars where covered in thin, gray ash. They all looked like Northern Michigan cars in early May. When I looked to something far away, it was noticeably hazy - today dry as a bone, by the way.

Now, this is nothing on a Pompeiian scale by anymeans, but it doesn´t take a stretch of imagination to figure that if a single volcano a thousand miles away can make a week of miserable weather, a few dozen world-wide volcanoes and meteors to boot could put a damper on the dinosaurs.

On a side note, between the Chilean volcano and those that burst in México and Hawaii, I'm hoping that Harold Campings predicions weren't a month off.