Report from Quito

Over 50 years ago my mother, who worked at one time for the Highpoint (North Carolina) Enterprise, taught me how much contemptuous fun could be derived from reading tiny rural newspapers. She regularly picked up copies of, and regaled us with, the Rim Country News in the hamlet of Pine, Arizona, where she had inherited a cabin and our family spent entirely too many weekends in the mid-to-late 1970s.

Unlike the Highpoint Enterprise, Rim Country News apparently no longer exists, which means that tidbits of local significance no longer appear in columns such as Gems from Gisela (Gisela is a town, population 570 at the 2010 census, whose name my mother pronounced “guy-ZEE-luh”) and Disa and Data by Dot (no clue who Dot was or what her column covered). But for a time all those decades ago, we laughed at the writing of poor shlubs who were just trying to get the stories of the people to the people.

I think of Disa and Data from time to time, and wonder what became of Dot. I offer this post as a sort of tribute to Dot and her ilk – one of my mother’s favorite words – and leave it to my readers, if any, to decide if it passes the mockability test.

Wars ’n’ things

With our country of citizenship practicing escaladio on the Iranians, it’s good to hear it has the bandwidth to collaborate with our country of residence on still more military action, designed in this case to rout Ecuador’s cartels. President Noboa, educated in the U.S., has learned well. Clearly he has found a way to get around the recent resounding vote of NO to the question of whether to allow American military bases in this country.  

At the same time, Ecuador is ousting all Cuban diplomats from the country. What could the matter be? 

Speaking of diplomats, we are honored to live three doors from the Venezuelan embassy, which is vacant and falling to bits. We also live kitty corner from the Japanese ambassador’s residence, which was the white-tented site of a big daytime party last week – perhaps a lunar new year soiree. It’s always reassuring to have the explosives squad and its German shepherds on the block.

For three days, also last week, the skies around our apartment were filled with military aircraft. We’re still not clear why they were buzzing our barrio for hours on end; we’re in a province that is not (yet) part of the joint anti-cartel maneuvers. It was better than being bombed to bits, but it was still damned annoying. Fortunately we had booked the weekend in a fancy hotel, to coincide with the cutoff of hot water in our building. 

At the Dann Carlton, instead of hearing military planes and helicopters, we listened to the marching band of the school opposite the hotel, exquisitely audible even on the twelfth floor. The band consisted of no instruments except drums and xylophones, and they practiced for hours on Friday evening and again on Saturday morning. In another part of the playing field, pompom girls each twirled one pom, on a stick.

Green thumbs ’n’ things

Things grow in Quito. The park where we take the dog every day has a jade plant – nay, a jade shrub – the size of a chest freezer. A couple weeks ago I noticed a small branch had broken off, so I picked it up and brought it home. After letting the broken edge develop a “callous,” I planted it in some potting soil. Damned if it doesn’t seem to be growing. 

Prostates ’n’ things

Bill continues to recover from his prostatectomy and has been off his bike since mid January. We have not received an itemized bill for the procedure and hospitalization, but we were given an amount to pay, to the doctor, for all of it: $6,280. We continue to pursue the itemization, mainly out of curiosity. 

BMI TMI

Meanwhile Ecuadorian stud cardiologist Dr. Egas continues to take my heart disease more seriously than the doctor who diagnosed my 2022 infarction. He insists that my bad cholesterol needs to be still lower, so he put me on a new med and sent me to a nutritionist. I saw Dra. Carolina this week, stood on her fancy scale equipped with sensors on the hand grips, and learned that I need to lose “diez kilos” (22 pounds), in addition to the diez kilos or so I’ve lost since the original heart attack. I also learned that my BMI, which qualifies me as overweight in the U.S., makes me obese in Ecuador. That’s a little hard to swallow in a country where almuerzo, the traditional lunch, invariably includes potatoes, rice, fruit juice and dessert. 

I will likely be spending even more time on what and how I cook. The sourdough starter I crafted from whole wheat flour and water may languish unfed, unloved and uneaten.

Sumfin to do, then, idnit

Doing the wash has ever been the cornerstone of my domestic routine, commemorated in the oft-repeated mantra laundry is my life. Now, with the washer and dryer temptingly located not downstairs but between the kitchen and our bedroom, I answer its siren call nearly every day.

Knitting is a kind of meditation, and it helps mitigate my urge to rip my cuticles into bloody shreds, as I did during the depths of the Minneapolis siege. It also results upon rare occasions in a finished object that someone can actually use. I have a scarf and hat to ship to the kid in the cold country, and I’m making another hat – one of the Melt the Ice variety – for Bill at his request. This is the hat pattern that has enabled a Minneapolis yarn shop to raise more than $700,000 to help people affected by the siege. 

It’s no Gems from Gisela, but it’s what I got. 

If I lose 10 kilos I will be invisible from the side.