destination detonation

I almost detonated the house.

Even now, after three months, I forget the hot water system. I am used to turning it on but during my showers in consistently forget what I turned on the hot water exclusively for that purpose. To turn on the water you open the gas line connected to the califont, the water heater. This is the second time that it has been left on all night. I am not sure how dangerous it was, but I sense that lighting the stove this morning could have been a rather hazardous activity. What a gringa mistake this was.

Eating properly, with my left hand on the table and not my lap, continues to alude my subconscious mind. I practice eating this way even when I eat alone at breakfast. Today I tried eating with my left hand, thinking it would be easier to keep my right on the table. Nope, still weird. I also secretly curl up into a ball on the chair while I am eating, but only if I am really tired, as for some reason this makes a sleepy day more bearable. I am certain that is not proper ettiquite though.

As I walked from the Sausalito campus to Libertad for a micro, content after watching Pay it Forward to use as a social responsibility study in my class, two women approached me and asked for directions to the mall. I proudly delivered, feeling useful for once. I wondered if they thought I was Chilean. I when I got to Libertad I waited at a bus stop that I was not going to use in order to talk to them again. They were from Concepción, further south, and they of course knew I was not Chilean, but they did want to know what I was doing in Chile, just like everyone else. I have an odd interest in what Chileans perceive of me, my nationality, how different I look and speak and act and eat. For this reason my curiosity took hold. All the same, what a stupid question.

I will never get tired of the micro culture. A man gave up his seat for a woman who had her hands full. He didn't have to do that, it was nice. People will let you climb over them to get out, will help you drag all of your junk into your seat, will wait for you while you count your fare. No one is impatient, even if the micro is stuck in traffic and there are 20 people standing (with 20 sitting as well.)

Thomas el vecino has returned for once! One of my new lif e goals is to write something in my blog that makes Thomas el vecino laugh so hard that he pees his pants. When Thomas visits our apartment, which is fairly often because he lives about 2 seconds away, everything in the world becomes funnier. We made fun of the maldito maricón Ariel (concha su madre) for a significant amount of time, and I marveled at his new skills as a vendor selling cuchuflis with his friend in calle Condell. "Cien pesos, cien pesos, relleno de manjar!" In case anyone wanted to know, Germans eat with their hands on the table and not in their lap.