Monthly Archives: May 2005

Quito Sunrise
Originally uploaded by wiscostorm.

My most recent bout of minor homesickness has been precipitated by three things, I think. Number one, my brother just left, which reminded me of that other time my other brother left after living with me for two or three years. It was right after my wedding; he took off for Seattle of all places. Few places are farther away and still within the US. Anyhow, Will’s recent leaving sparked a similar, though much less intense feeling that a chapter has just ended. And chapters ending is always a nostalgic thing if the book’s good.

Number two: we’re freakily close to returning home. It’s not so much that I’m in a hurry to get out of here. That’s not it at all. It’s just I know that it is fast approaching and it’s gonna be weird, comfortable, uncomfortable, busy — it’s the biggest thing on the horizon. And it’s hard not to look at it, is all.

Number three: my Wisconsin clock is stll ticking. Quito feels warmer these days. Not because it is, but because it’s been imprinted upon my being that the weather should be getting warmer now. I find myself craving things like mowing the lawn, hearing flies buzz, humidity, running outside, making diving catches for frisbees. The concrete views of Quito are getting tiresome. I want green, open spaces.

green grass
Originally uploaded by wiscostorm.

The Seven Gummie Sins: Greed
Originally uploaded by Wiedmaier.

There’s a great gallery on flickr of gummy bears depicting the seven deadly sins. This one here is greed. In more ways than one, it makes me hungry.

breakfast for will

Will leaves tonight for Buenos Aires. It’s been great having him around. He’ll fly back to Quito on June 15th, and then he’ll travel some more — maybe to the beaches of Ecuador, maybe to Peru, maybe to Costa Rica. His return gives us another landmark in time that illuminates how soon we’ll be back in Wisconsin. He comes back here in mid-June; a month later, I’m heading home to move into the house and re-roof.

I’ll start petitioning everyone now: we need a big homecoming party for Eileen, so set aside August 1st or so. We’ll know the exact dates soon. Also, keep some time free after July 20th to help me move into the house. Will’s going to ask a former-roofer friend of his to help us re-roof the house before Eileen gets back. It should be a two or three day project.

The above picture, by the way, is of me giving Will breakfast in bed last week.

bella y cachorros

Last week, the landlord’s dog Bella gave birth to four puppies. They came to get me at 10:00 to say that she was starting to deliver. I really wanted to see it. But when Will and I went over there, she didn’t perform. She was visibly uncomfortable, but it would be another four hours before the first puppy came. I stayed up and went over there a few times, but by 12:30 I had given up hope that it was going to happen soon. In the morning, there were a total of four pups. Two black ones, a white one, and a tan one. The white one is the only male and is the runt.

They’re going to keep one of the pups and sell the others. They’re trying to decide between the oat-colored one (as they call it) or the black one with the beard and tie (she has two patches of white, on her chest and her chin).

Their eyes should open in a week. Their tails have already been chopped. Cute little things. They keep telling us to take one back to “Winsconsin.”

Well, it’s been a slow week in Lake Wobegon. I mean Quito. So this week is picture week. We’re gonna post a new picture every day. How about that?

Below, you will find a picture of the drain in our living room (?). It is covered by a paper towel folded in fourths. It is always covered. If someone accidentally kicks the paper towel off the drain, we usually smell it before we see it. It used to smell bad. In the first months, before we knew what was happening, we mistakenly thought that bathroom odors were somehow drifting down the stairs. We frequently accused each other of “ripping one.”

Now, however, the smell that is occasionally allowed to escape from the fiendish hole is not simply bathroom stench. It is raw sewage meets pickled vomit meets toxic swamp. It is like a dead frog that you find underneath a wet, moldy towel that you left in a plastic bag out in your back yard. It is like a tipped port-a-john at a rowing regatta where at least three teams had gotten food poisoning at Chuck-E-Cheese’s the night before. Indeed, it is a porthole to hell itself.

If only we could blog smells.

the porthole to hell