Christ! It's 95° again!

It's hot right now in Buenos Aires. That's nothin' crazy: its summer. What kinda gets me, though, is that it was 95F/35C last night at 3 in the morning!

I'm feeling it because our new digs never had A/C... and we've been trying to find time to decide on what unit we want and how much we want to pay for it. My Missus is also predicting power outages this summer which would leave us feeling like we had a brand-new Lexus in the driveway... and no gas to be had.

For you out-of-towners (at least Midwesterners), 95/35 is not too hard to bear here because the humidity is only about 37%. Back in continental Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Memphis the humidity on a hot day like this would probably be 95%. Add to the equation that my neighborhood is very breezy and we have great cross-ventilation and you've got some very livable thermic sensation.

For you that live here, you've no doubt either fielded a few questions about the weather here and/or weathered the pitying gazes from people that can't imagine why you would want to live in the jungles of South America. Like my Father, it's hard to dissuade them of the notion that Buenos Aires is the Capital of Brazil.

But overnight temps like last night are what global warming is all about. The last couple of decades have shown increases in daytime temps... but the real jump has been in how nighttime just doesn't cool off on Planet Earth the way it used to.

Personally, I think that Baires has better weather than Hawaii.

Update: a new record, 101.1F at 4pm today.

However, for those scatterings of days each summer when the mercury rises, I recommend to you a favorite cure of mine: The Michelada.

Calling the Michelada the "Bloody Mary of Mexico" is a pretty good description... if only for the reason that so many versions exist.

My personal fix is of the truly minimalist style: beer, ice, lime, and salt. I remember the first time I ever heard that recipe... and I thought it was about the most disgusting concoction anyone had ever described to me. Then I tasted it on a hot day in Jalisco. Yum. A true heat-beater.

It's also compared to the Bloody Mary in that it often contains tomato juice and/or hot sauce and/or salsa inglesa.

Another reason for comparing it to the Bloody is that is widely regarded as a hangover cure... something that I found out one day in Mexico City's Colonia Tabacalera as I sidled up to the bar of a fine establishment awaiting the sun's crossing of the yardarm. My selection of the Michelada was strangely received with respectful nods from the barman... no doubt in honor of my imagined excess the night before.

Wiki Michelada

Hey! I just read the wiki article and there apparently is an Argentine connection to the Michelada now! "Recently, San Antonio Spurs Champion Manu Ginobili has a variation of the recipe named for him as the "Manuchelada"

Summer's Here and the Time is Right...

I truly ADORE Spring in both the city and the province of Buenos Aires Argentina!

However, being in the cattle bidness (and now, in the planter game)... I'm glad to see primavera over and done with. There's much less work in Summer.

If you include a little post-solstice flurry, this year has been, how shall we say?, HELLACIOUS for my Missus and I.

In no particular order:

We built a bridge (yes, Virginia), we planted crops (corn, soy, linen) for the first time since dinosaurios trod our fair turf, got rid of all our 150 sheep, we retired on full pension a gaucho after 40 sterling years of service to the S.A., we hired his son, we fired his son under very contentious circumstances who took all his horses, ended up with no horses, we bought a beautiful horse that we later discovered was pregnant... so we couldn't work her but she was so beautiful that we couldn't bring ourselves to go get our refund, we busted the budget by buying another horse, we had a baby horse, we hired the fired gaucho's brother, we went separate ways with the fired gaucho's brother under friendly circumstances, we hired a third young gaucho and his pregnant wife who had worked at another estancia under rather brutal circumstances and welcomed them with open arms to our little section of paradise, a big portion of our herd of sweet young heifers contracted venereal disease from a dirty neighbor's bull (we had to turn them into bifes), we bought a load of beautiful pregnant young cows, we selected a fine bunch of young heifers to artificially inseminate with some champion spooie, a particularly "driven" young bull of ours for whom electric fences meant nothing as barrier to true love impregnated about half of the young lovelies we were saving for artificial insemination, we turned a particularly "driven" young bull into Big Macs, we inseminated the remaining 22 heifers with Lo de FELIPE!, we built/replaced so many fences that we now have a full-time fence builder on the payroll, we planted our own acreage of sorghum and corn as feed for our cattle in case of drought in the pastures, we moved from our cave-like apartment into a big sunny place... much to the distress of our pet monkey-rat which was originally represented to us by the animal shelter as a cat, I was elected Chairman of the US Democratic Party in Argentina, we finally convinced our aging mater-familias to accept a wonderful young woman as her live-in companion, I took my first university level class completely in Spanish... and passed! and learned something!, we joined a terrific group of revolutionaries devoted to implementing the most modern methods of agriculture in the grand pastures of our area, I sprouted seeds of okra, collard greens, epazote, and mint for mojitos on our new sunny balcony, I committed myself to growing acres of a "secret crop" heretofore unknown in Argentina next spring.

God knows that there was more... I just can't think of it right now.

It's been a good year... but I'm glad it's over.

Newcomer to Buenos Aires?

There are lots of internet forums for old-timers, newcomers, and those simply considering coming to beautiful Buenos Aires Argentina... but I haven't seen a new one in a couple of years.

There's a new one now: Good Morning Buenos Aires.

Most of the forums that you can find are a little on the cold and clinical side... probably because they were started a few years ago and haven't updated their appearance. But Good Morning Buenos Aires has a warmth and friendliness that even the best of the bunch don't seem to have.

The warmth isn't all just design... it's by design. This nifty little start-up has the advantage of having been created by one of the gentlest souls that ever offered his hand to a traveler/expat down this way.

You can compare (and you should!) all of the available advice-sites / opinion-exchanges available for Buenos Aires. Just be sure to include Good Morning Buenos Aires along your way. Let me know if you don't find it just a little more, I don't know... human.

I've never met the proprietor, although we exchanged a few emails when he was thinking about starting it up (full disclosure: I disagreed with almost everything he described to me!) But I knew him by reputation, like most people.

The poor blighter put in his time trying shoulder the burden of reason and fairness over at a well-known evil expat-ripoff forum until they kicked him out for being reasonable and fair. When a good number of his fans rose up in protest to that action... they banned them for life as well.

My feelings over that incident were a bit vengeful; I argued with the idea of a warm and friendly new forum in favor of something more pointed. I think I was wrong.

Maybe the perfect antidote for that kind of evil... the kind that gets my back up... is just doing it all over from scratch the right way.

Give him some support! I'm not talking about financial support... the bunch of poseurs that banished him aren't making any money either.

But forums need the support of participants.

If you have good advice to give... chip in. And definitely, if you need some advice about anything REALLY Buenos Aires... from REAL expats... forming a REAL group of good-hearted people for the purpose of nothing more than helping people find out about this beautiful place... http://www.goodmorningba.com is as good a place as you could ever find.

The proprietor over there is fond of quoting Gandhi. I gotta Mohandas quote for him that has always come to my mind when I think of what he went through: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Democrats Abroad are Founded.

With our final Founder, Jonathan, from Boston, Massachusetts... we are born.

With 51% of our membership having voted... here are the results:

29 votes for Chair:
3 Armstrong 10%
26 Skowronek 90%

29 votes for Vice Chair:
3 Armstrong 10%
17 Frost……. 59%
5 Novitz…… 17%
4 Skowronek 14%

25 votes for National Secretary:
23 Doran……. 92%
2 Skowronek 8%

26 votes for National Treasurer:
9 Armstrong 35%
3 Skowronek 12%
14 Tihany……. 54%

26 for National Counsel
9 Armstrong 35%
7 Novitz……. 27%
2 Skowronek 8%
8 Tihany…… 31%

Don't expect much news for the next couple of days... this should be enough to last you.

Talk to you soon... and CONGRATULATIONS,
Mike

...more live blogging from Buller's Microcentro! Lot's of Quaffers, lots of Democrats... MORE new members! Come on down! Have an Ice Cold Beer! Leave a comment! Send an email. SEND YOUR VOTE! Yummy.

LIVE BLOGGING FROM BULLER'S DOWNTOWN

COME ON DOWN! SEND AN EMAIL! THE BEER IS COLD!

Afternoon in Almagro

My favorite barrio, Almagro. "Almagro de mi vida... barrio de me sueños", goes the old tango.

Most expats don't know it. Tango people know it pretty well. If you've been on the bares and cafés safari you may have made your way up out of the subte to visit Las Violetas which is growing a soul again after being closed and gutted for many years (ya know, once they lose their chairs and tables...) The neighborhood at least used to be the center for boxing in Buenos Aires. (Maybe the words of The Poet are whispering to me, "It used to be a writer's town, it's always been a fighter's town."

I can't explain why I always feel so good, so full of peace... so much at home when I'm strolling through those callecitos between Rivadavia y Belgrano. Ordinary people doing ordinary things. Living in ordinary homes going to ordinary jobs under the trees that line the ordinary sidewalks... it seems unchanging to me. I'm comforted and I don't know how to put it other than I feel a love for every person on the sidewalks, at the bus stops, poking their heads into little kioscos.

I had to put the old coche in the shop for a check-up. That meant stopping into my mecánico's storefront taller in the middle of the residential street of Quito. Always a pleasure (Imagine that! Always a pleasure to visit your mechanic! Such is the magic of Almagro.)

My mechanic being a problem-solver by nature, likes to hear me speak castellano. Listening to me speak his native tongue is probably like finding the source of a leak, the origin of a strange tapping, the mysterious location of a short. It's fun for him and he always finds it. My being an amateur motor-head makes it even more fun for him (after I told him that I once owned a '73 Coupe de Ville with a 501 cu. in. engine... the largest production engine ever made... I was permanently promoted to honored guest.)

He welcomed me into his little office at the back of what could be a large suburban US residential garage, except that its about twice as deep and we shared mate with another friend/customer. We chatted and chewed the fat about Buenos Aires, cows in the province, comparative crime-rates in other countries, food, all in the most relaxed and friendly and... dare I say it... civilized manner. Three people, sucking a bombilla and smoking cigarettes and taking a moment. A moment to live, a moment to be human, a moment not to be happy about what the world gives you... but, rather, to be happy about the things that the world does not take from you.

Leaving the ol' boat with him overnight required me to hoof it back toward the nearest mass-transit. What perfect weather was today! "Un día peronista!", they say because it smiles down upon rich and poor alike. I looked around a bit for a familiar bus line but decided in the end to make my way to one of the old wooden subway cars and transfer at Lima.

Almagro, being almost dead-center in the city, can be hot as summer approaches. Today the air was magic. I felt I was swaddled in silk or in some sort of perfect liquid as I made my way in the late afternoon along the veredas with everyone else. On Castro Barros, I decided to avail myself of the fine facilities at Tuñin and fortify by sitting outside for an ice cold beer and a slice of napolitana. It was out of this world with it's perfectly crunchy crust, great cheese, a big green olive, tomato slices... and a bunch of freshly minced garlic and other spices. (Whadda pizza town this is!) Just a few minutes, to read the house Clarín, munch, slurp and smoke... in a kind of peacefulness, on a sidewalk, in the midst of a burgeoning rush-hour. Maybe my memory is fading me but I can't remember a similar experience in the old country.

I hope you had a wonderful day too,
Mike

DAA in Daily Kos?

A tiny mention... but that's COOL!

Over at Dems Abroad Argentina...

Da Dems already got 25% of their membership to send in their vote... with more than three days left until the deadline! Go read. Go join. Go vote!

More Pulp Mills for Uruguay

Any yanquis here from the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, etc... anywhere where you may have had a pulp mill on your path back in the old country?

How 'bout a testimonial to how almost nothing surpasses old-style paper production when it comes to disgustingly fouling the area for miles and miles around?

Maybe you might even chime in on how happy people became when those mills converted to "1st world" production standards... or even how happy people were when they closed?

99 is ALL OVER this in her post today that features a video from the seldom heard here in Buenos Aires, Uruguayan opposition to the controversial pulp mill in Fray Bentos, Uruguay... and the newly announced pulp mill that will be installed in picturesque Colónia, directly across from Buenos Aires (something 99 predicted back in May of this year.)

The video is great. It comes with excellent English subtitles and let's you hear uruguayos that will have to live with damage and loss that will come from plants too dirty, ugly, and illegal for installation in Mother Spain and Finland.

De verdad... ¡es TREMENDO!

I really can't say enough about how a bunch of good expatriates, people born with their hearts on the "correct side", came together to found Democrats Abroad Argentina.

The group has 55 members and counting!

That is truly a milestone and allows us to put the finishing touches on our creating a little Argentine history: nominating and electing 5 officers and submitting ourselves to the International Chairperson of the US Democratic Party for Americans living outside the US.

Keep in mind that you can NEVER have enough members... and I would especially like ask for your assistance in finding members from EVERY province in Argentina. A special request goes out toward finding Democrats residing in the Islas Malvinas and Antartida Argentina.

If you haven't yet made up your mind to become a founding member... please do so today and go to http://www.democratsabroad.org/join and give us your vitals.

If you HAVE joined, please use your on-line voting code to help nominate officers to the executive committee of DAA. Nominations close at midnight this Sunday then it's on the elections... (electing officers is a requirement for recognition.) Members should really consider nominating themselves for office.

Also, please DO dig the official website of Democrats Abroad Argentina! It contains a blog that is open to all members that respond with their on-line voting code. Have at it! Blast away! Tell us all what you REALLY think!

The Cancellería has approved our domain name www.democratsabroad.com.ar which makes things easier and ALSO allows us to give an email account (you@democratsabroad.com.ar) to any member that wishes one. We're only waiting for the DNS servers to propagate.

Keep the memberships and nominations coming... and try to come out and meet with us all on Thursday, at 8pm, the 20th of December at Bullers Microcentro at Paraguay 428 in Buenos Aires... or from anywhere via the internet (details coming soon.)

It's election time!

...at Democrats Abroad Argentina, that is. We HAVE to do it... it's in our charter.

We HAVE to elect officers.

If you, as a founding member, have received your email ballot, please respond... whether or not you have anybody to nominate (that really helps us keep our active database up to date.)

If you want to join/vote/nominate/become a founding member... but haven't received a secret email ballot as of yet... just leave a comment and we'll get back to you.

In violent times, live at peace.

From Rachel at earth and starrs:

I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD!"
Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together.
To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
For there the thrones for judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers."
For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, "Peace be within you."
For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.

Happy holidays to all adherents of desert religions,
Mike

Sheesh! What a week it was...

We moved to a new apartment. We had a big round up in the campo. We waited for the internet-guy to show up today. Man, I'm still exhausted... and I can't believe that it's already the 7th!

More to come soon,
Mike

Tomorrow begins Zappadan

She's in love with the boy from the rodeo
Who pulls the
rope
on the chute
when they let those suckers gooooooooo!