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We have now decided that the poltergeist living in the Tiki Lounge (as we refer to our apartment) has been frustrated beyond belief because we weren’t really picking up on his message to get the hell out!

We didn’t understand that the water that sprays us from the bathroom sink, the floor polish that rubs off on our feet so that their bottoms are dark brown, the shower head that streams in an impossible-to-rinse-your-hair flow, the lights that burn out constantly (even with new bulbs), the door to the porch that gets more and more difficult to open, and the couch sectionals that tip over are really attempts to dislodge us from the apartment.

How did we finally get the message? That frigging ghost has started messing with our Internet connection.

Mmmm, hmmmm, that’s right. Our perfectly good WIFI connection doesn’t want to be found, blinks in and out randomly, and generally thwarts our attempts to do things like pay bills online, or waste time on mindless YouTube videos!

Interfering with our Internet connection, now that’s war…everything else, we can put up with!

And, we even know what the bastard looks like! The gentleman pictured above (in a painting that hangs in our entry way and is the first thing we see when we enter the door) must be our phantasmic friend.

(Sure, we’ve talked about the coin shortage crisis a few times before, but here are a couple examples of how it affects me every day. — Tom)

1. To get to school every morning, the girls and I take the bus, which only accepts coins. So, everyday I have to figure out how to get more coins. One strategy I tried, when I happened to take the subway, was to forgo using the convenient subway card and actually stand in line to pay for a single fare ticket. A huge pain, but in exchange for a 2 peso bill, I would pay my fare and receive a precious $1.10 in coins.

   Problem solved, right? Well, not exactly. The clerk at the subway stop I most often frequent stopped selling me single fare tickets. I would show my 2 peso bill and ask for 1 ticket, and he would say “no monedas” and wave me through the gate for free. Every day, the same thing would happen. Same clerk. Same 2 peso bill. No coins, and he would wave me through for free. This went on for 2 weeks.

   You would think that I’d be pretty happy about this, but actually, it infuriated me. I don’t want to ride the subway for free…I really want the coins instead!

2. Paying cash at the supermarket can be glacial. They keep very few coins in the cash registers, so every time they run out of coins, the checkout clerk has to call for a manager, who has to go to the safe to get more coins, who then exchanges 2 pesos worth of coins for a 2 peso bill. Yes, that’s right…they restock the coins in the register with the equivalent of 60 US cents at a time!

Ian and his fellow drum ensemble members made their performance and directorial debut on Monday, opening for the very popular La Bomba de Tiempo drumming concert that happens every Monday.

Ian kissed the Zs before going up to direct, which enamored him to everyone in the crowd. I must admit, I found myself with a tear in my eye as I looked on in admiration — it’s not easy to put yourself out there as a performer, especially when you are a 39-year old just beginning to learn your craft. He was fab, the group was able to follow his direction cleanly and crisply, and his directing was quite creative and engaging!

PHOTO GUIDE: Top photo is an Ian’s-eye view while he directs; two left is Ian directing; and, one left is Ian on the congas (in the center, and you can just make out the Zs). (Click to Enlarge Photos)

Although Spanish and English are both Latin-based languages, you realize when you are living in a Spanish-speaking culture that we Americans use about 1% of our available vocabulary and we use that vocabulary in the least poetic and lyrical fashion possible.

I notice this most at social events when we are saying goodbye. Farewells are a lengthy event here in Baires and they involve a lot of cheek bussing and lovely words of parting…well, at least on the part of Porteños and very fluent expats.

For me…not so much.

When leaving a parent event, for instance, you will hear, “A thousand kisses, I was enchanted to spend this time getting to know you.” Your family is so lovely, your daughters so beautiful….” “Please, I am here to help you in the event you should require any assistance, you have all of my telephone numbers.” You get the picture.

To all of this we say a lot of “gracias,” and “adios!”

Not really in the same league. I think Spanish classes should begin with how to say an appropriately poetic and lyrical goodbye. Now that would be practical.

At first blush, juice may seem to be an odd topic for a blog post. However, when you have kids, juice and juice boxes are an important part of your life. And, here in Argentina, it is fraught with challenge.

We try to pump the kids full of water and milk in terms of general beverages. We also allow them a bit of juice, which we are finding most difficult as boxed juices are generally filled with high fructose corn syrup and/or soy.

Yes, you read correctly, soy. A lot of the juice boxes are fortified with soy, so the juice tastes…well, like soy, and it has a milky appearance.

Needless to say, the soy juice is not popular with the girls!

Luckily, there are alternatives. Fresh squeezed orange juice is very big here, and easily accessible in nearly every restaurant and cafe. The display of squeezing oranges is bigger than the display of peeling oranges at the grocery store. Licuados are also widely available at restaurants, which are milk, banana, and berry type smoothies. At home, we juice our own oranges and make our own licuados, but that doesn’t solve the box of juice at school dilemma.

And, on a “juice” non sequitur, the Castellano way to indicate that you would like your steak cooked rare (which will probably come back medium!) is “jugoso,” or “juicy!”

“Hey, how many bags of milk do we have left?” is a question you commonly hear in our apartment.

Milk in Buenos Aires comes in two types of containers: milk in a box, or milk in a bag. Tom and I used to buy the milk in a box. It is pasteurized regularly and tastes fine.

One day, Ian did the shopping, and bought the milk in a bag because it’s a peso cheaper. The milk in a bag is ultra pasteurized, which leaves any dairy product with a slightly off taste. (Do a side-by-side taste test at home if you don’t believe me.) Ian also bought the yellow plastic milk-in-a-bag holder/pourer that you need in order to successfully wield the bagged milk.

Now, for some reason, we keep buying the milk in a bag even though we prefer the taste of the milk in a box. To make our continued patronage even more confusing, I am very challenged by the milk in a bag. I often forget to put it in the plastic container before cutting the corner of the bag, which then makes it a challenge to stuff the bag in the container without spilling.

I also am known for accidentally cutting the pouring spout hole in the bag too large, which creates a sort of milk fire-hose effect when you try to pour! Everyone lives in fear of me changing out the bag of milk — hee hee.

You want proof that people in Buenos Aires are insanely fabulous? Well read on…

Amaranta, the restaurant where we broke bread for “El Dia de la Accion de Gracias,” or Thanksgiving, is a weekly brunch haunt for Tom, Ian and me.

While perusing the Thanksgiving menu during one such brunch visit, we mentioned that our kids had nut allergies (always a concern with stuffings) and wanted to clear the turkey dinner for the Zs, well technically, I guess just for Zelda. Anyway, the owner of the restaurant kindly assured us that there were no nuts in any of the main courses.

We noted to ourselves that there were nuts in the pies and we just figured that we would avoid those for Zelda.

Well, we began our Thanksgiving meal at the restaurant and learned that, completely of their own volition, they had prepared one of each pie in a nut free version just for the girls. (I nearly fell out of my chair.) And, if that doesn’t make your eyes mist, they had prepared a special holiday gift bread for everyone as we left the restaurant; and because the traditional version contained nuts, they made a special chocolate bread just for the girls.

I am often surprised and warmed by the true kindness to be found in this vast metropolis.

Last year, we were in Victoria, BC for Thanksgiving and had a traditional meal at the Empress hotel. Sad to say, it was a subpar meal, as this homage to turkey excess goes.

This year, we were joined by Ian in Buenos Aires for Thanksgiving, and we had a great meal at a nearby local restaurant. It is owned by a Bolivian chef who went to a Quaker boarding school in Iowa (to learn English), lived for a bit in New Hampshire, and then cooked on a boat serving the South American cruise industry before opening his restaurant, Amaranta.

There were two seatings, one at 6:00 pm and one at 9:15 p.m. We, of course, chose the 6:00 pm seating, and were delighted to be in a restaurant that wasn’t empty while eating our meal at a normal hour!

Unfortunately, “we gotta get outta this place” has become a frequent refrain from the three adults living in this apartment. (The girls love it here — there is no accounting for taste.)

HIGHLIGHTS:

• The refrigerator has two settings: “not cold enough” and “freeze everything in your refrigerator.” I can’t find a spot in between, though I keep trying! (We inadvertently froze a perfectly good pineapple the other day. Fruit doesn’t really respond well to being frozen.)
• The under-the-cabinet fluorescent lights in the kitchen, which we need to be able to see in the morning, cause a rain of dead bugs to fall along the counter top every time we turn it on.
• The dishes and utensils in the kitchen are icky, and it’s not just a girl thing. The spatula was so irretrievably gross, Tom wouldn’t use it while making hamburgers. (He used a fork instead!)
• The toilet in our bathroom doesn’t really flush, so we can’t use it. Instead, we use the one in the girls’ bathroom that isn’t bolted to the floor, so we have to be careful that we don’t tip the whole toilet over while reaching for the toilet paper! (I never realized going to the bathroom could be such an adventure.)
• The air conditioner in our room doesn’t work well (relevant when it’s in the 90s).
• The water doesn’t get very hot in the kitchen, so hand washing dishes is a challenge.
• The overhead light in the girls’ room has blown out twice with new bulbs, so the housekeeper and I agree that something is wrong with the wiring. I’ve asked that they deal with it after we leave.
• The lights just burned out in Ian’s room, and the fixture makes a weird sparky noise when he flips the switch, just like the girls’ room.
• The light back by the washing machine also has burned out, so we take a flashlight back to do laundry after dark. (At this point, with the faulty electrical system, we don’t want any part of these fixtures, even to change a bulb.)

Let’s just hope the place doesn’t burn down in an electrical fire before the 10th of December!

Tonight we had our entire meal delivered.

First, we called a local hole-in-the-wall takeout joint called La Rotiseria. They brought us a rotisserie chicken with lemon wedges, mashed potatoes, mashed squash, and a salad (shredded carrots, lettuce, rice, thinly sliced onion and tomatoes). We put some of our homemade salad dressing on the latter and called it a night. Dinner!

For dessert, we dialed Persicco, which has the best dark chocolate gelato I have ever eaten in my life. They are arguably the most popular, and therefore one of the most expensive, of the heladerías here in Buenos Aires. Their fleet of delivery scooters, and it is a fleet, is quite impressive.

The store was so busy when we called, they couldn’t deliver our gelato for an hour (the nerve).

Pictured above is the kilo that we ordered, still rock hard (coffee, dark chocolate, and dulce de leche), which we had open on the table waiting for it to soften. (Persicco delivers it with chips of dry ice — amazing really.)

“So what was so hard about lifting up the phone to order our dinner and dessert?”

Well, Tom went down with a 50 peso note to pay for the 46 peso gelato, expecting to get two, 2-peso notes back in return. Instead, he got four single peso coins, which are like gold doubloons around here. (You know this if you have been following my obsession with the coin shortage.) He didn’t want to tip, he wanted to hoard his coins and run back upstairs, chortling over his ill-gotten gains.

But, being the big man that he is, Tom took a deep breath and did the right thing, returning two of the peso coins to the delivery driver. “That was hard,” he said to us when he returned to the bamboo decompression chamber. We observed a moment of silence for his strength.