Backing Up

Speaking of dogs, it is a splendid fact of nature that just as Mr Tabubil adores dogs, they adore him right back.  An evening stroll with Mr Tabubil is like walking with a politician out kissing babies - he advances and coddled moppets and furry monsters of all shapes and sizes smile and drop in their tracks and roll over for a belly rub.

On the rare occasions when the connection isn't one of brotherly hallelujahs, there is still a spark - instantaneous and fierce. 

The other night (all good stories start like this) we passed by a little corner store.  Outside, tied to a lamp-post by a stout leash, was a dog.  It hunkered at the bottom of the post, staring sullenly out at the world, and there was a species of mean, sordid, pissed-off-edness of disposition in his eyes that said his owner was in for a barrel full of trouble when he came back out.

            "Oh look at the poor thing!"  Mr Tabubil said.  "All tied up and abandoned like that!"

             The Poor Thing gave him a black look, and a low rumbling started deep in its throat.

            I backed up. "He looks like a mean one to me."

Mr Tabubil gave me a reproachful look. "What are you talking about?" He said.  "Look at those sad little eyes! Listen to that pitiful little moan!"

The Poor Thing bared a tooth.

            "Er."  I said.  "Er.  I don't think-"

            "Hey buddy." Mr Tabubil coo'd.  "Are we feeling lonely?  Are we all alone out here?"

He hunkered down and stretched out a hand, and the Poor Thing lunged at him with a snap of teeth that came within half an inch of taking Mr Tabubil's hand right off.  He jumped back in a hurry.  The dog shot him a look of pure filth and started shouting:

            "Oooh!  Look!"  It barked. "I've found a bastard!  Bastard, Bastard, Bastard, Bastard, Bastard!  Call the Carabineros!  I've caught a bastard!"

            People were starting to stare.  Me - I stepped smartly around the lamppost and left  them to it.  Half a block later, Mr Tabubil caught up with me at a run.  Behind us, the dog was still barking - loud and self-righteous, and all of it lies.  If he'd been human he'd have been the sort of sod who starts fights in bars with bottles, and afterwards, sits in the gutter with a nasty expression on his face saying "Who, me?  He was the one that said-" while they cart everyone else away in an ambulance.

            "I knew I shouldn't have touched him."  Mr Tabubil panted. "That dog had crazy eyes."

            "Yep." 

            "I think we should move a little faster now.  He's still barking."

            "Yep."

            We ran.  

             Three city blocks later, the dog was still going:

            "And your Daddy is a bastard, and his Daddy as well - !  Bastards all of them!  And you, mate - you come back here and try that thing with your hand again!  Oooh, yes!  I'll show you-!"  

            Three blocks after THAT, he was still shouting at the top of his range, telling the whole damned evening world all about Mr Tabubil and all his antecedents, going back all the way to the flood, and before that as well - as far as that dog was telling it, there was a Bastard in the Garden of Eden alongside the Snake, and he looked just like my husband. 

            We were walking more slowly now.  Slowly and just a touch ostentatiously, with the faces of those whom butter never melts in the mouth and of those who would never stoop touch somebody elses' doggie, no matter how it begged and wheedled.

            "Crazy eyes."  Mr Tabubil sighed, shaking his head.  "Tabubilgirl, a memo: Never touch the crazy eyes."

            In the far distance, we could still hear the Poor Thing shouting. "Bastards all!"

A Very Short Afternoon at a Hot Spring

Mr Tabubil and I, along with Mr Tabubil's parents, sister and brother-in-law, have come south to spend the week between Christmas and the New Year  at a parcela just outside the small village of Llifen on Lago Ranco (Lake Ranco), deep in Chile's southern Alpine Region.  
Enjoy!

On our third day, we drove up the Llifen Valley into the mountains to spend an afternoon soaking at the Termas de Chilliuo (the Chilliuo Hot Springs.)

The Road up to the top of the valley and into the mountains was mostly an unpaved one-lane mountain track:  picturesque as postcards, but  hell on the suspension of our small rental cars - low suspensions and  two wheel drives on a mountain track do NOT a return-on-rental-car- deposit make.

It was terribly dusty - thick road dust mixed with a soup of volcanic ash.  Our little Toyota Yarises (Toyota Yari?) had no air-conditioning and we had to leave the windows open, and before we'd left the valley we were breathing soup and scooping it out of our noses and our ears.

Hot, dusty, tasting of ashes and increasingly car-sick, we bounced higher and higher into the mountains.  Stopping at little wooden bridges over bouncing mountain tarns we smelled fresh, cold air and pricked up our dusty noses and dreamed Mountain Hot-Spring dreams.

We bounced through tiny villages that clung to knife-sharp ridgelines, rode switchbacks and hairpin bends around hanging valleys and empty precipices, we jounced past herds of dairy cows in fields dotted with daisies, slowed to choking halts behind gauchos on tall sauntering horses and blasted through bosky, shadowed pine woods . Beyond our personal travelling dust clouds, the world was a paradise.

On a blessedly smooth stretch of road in a long valley at the top of the world we saw a sign for the Termas de Chilliuo.  Swinging our car off the gravel road, we bounced up a grassy lane and rattle gently to a stop in a grassy clearing in front of a row of simple wooden changing cabins.  

Volcanic dust-cloud incoming!

Water gurgled.  Birds chirped. White daisies nodded their heads in the grass.

Steaming gently and hooting happily, we tumbled out of our cars into the mountain silence - and heard a noise.

            Lots of noise.

            And we were bombarded by legions of biting black and orange horseflies the size of light fixed-wing aircraft.  Grabbing our bags, we threw our towels over our heads and ran like hell toward the change rooms.

            The Termas were somewhat anti-climactic, under the circumstances.  The weather had come around and the sun was high and flat and hot.  The Springs were a flat, shallow concrete pan filled with scalding water and the only way to avoid a massed aerial assault was to sit in the steaming stuff up to our necks.  I risked a sprint to an outdoor ice-water shower, and I only made it by whirling a wet-t-shirt around my head like a helicopter propeller the whole way.

            We lasted barely ten minutes.  My father-in-law cracked first.  He rose from the water like a steaming leviathan at a starting post and  made a mad dash to the changing sheds - cursing viciously and flailing away at the flies with his arms above his head.  He didn't have a wet t-shirt to extend his reach.  Poor soul.

            The rest of us badly wanted a photo of us sitting in the spring - ten minutes in that water under that sun was hero stuff, but he refused to come out, and we nearly expired.

            When he did emerge, under the weight of our pleas (and imprecations), he was fully clothed and deeply paranoid and in the three seconds that it took him to raise the camera to his eye and press the shutter, he was bomb dived by six enormous horseflies in a synchronized attack that came right out of the sun and aimed for the vulnerable patch of skin on the back of his neck.

          He broke and ran.

          Clearly, our plans for a picnic lunch on the lawn were right out, so hungry and heat struck and rather worse for wear, we bolted for the cars and tore back down the mountain until we found a meadow where the horseflies were merely an annoyance instead of the country's dominant predator.

But I still ate my sandwich from underneath a beach towel.

And on the way home my father-in-law dented his oil pan.

How to Make a Public Spectacle of Yourself in Seven Easy Steps

1) Locate a nice sunny day and go for a walk through it.

2) Wearing a comfortable t-shirt and a tight, knee-length skirt, sit down on a patch of grass underneath a shady tree overlooking a river.

3) While listening to the rotary flopping sounds of a duck trying to take off from a mud wallow, idly brush away the the large black ants that appear to be crawling over your skirt and t-shirt.

4) The ants may be biting, so swat briskly.  Avoid howling; this indicates to the ants that you are impressed.

5)  Sharp, sudden pain will draw your attention to the ants that are now marching, in formal ranks, up the insides of your thighs, biting as they go.  Remove them without drawing the attention of every jogger and sunbather on the riverbank.  Remember that your skirt is long and tight and you will really have to reach.

6) With solemn dignity (insofar as possible), rise to your feet and indicate to the ants that the lawn is now entirely theirs.  Walk away slowly.

7) Wait until you are bracketed by three gentlemen with briefcases and a pack of cyclists, and discover that one of the ants made it past your defenses and has just bitten you right between your legs.

Almost exactly right betwee- 

Attempt to resolve the situation without drawing undue attention to your discomfort.



He's not letting go, is he?



(redacted)




(redacted)




7a) Walk away as briskly as politeness allows, reflecting with gratitude upon the charity of those who have chosen not to make a citizen's arrest for public indecency.

Logistical Hazards

It's tricky taking the car out of the garage at my aunt's place.
            "Er.... Auntie H.  There's a technical issue in the garage."
            "Oh dear."
            "Can't you just pick him off for me?"
            "Um.  Usually your cousin does the job with a broomstick..."
            And some sort of moral suasion, clearly.  Ollie the cat didn't do squat when Auntie H prodded at him with the swiffer mop.  Yawned merely.  And eventually moved to the other end of the car and went back to sleep.  And then, eventually, back to the front of the car.  And with amazing self-control, completely refused to get upset about it.
            Eventually he accidentally shimmied just a little too close to my uncle's side and the jig was up.  He was carried (cantankerously) into their bedroom and the door was shut in his face.  Aunt H said goodbye to me with some speed- "because there's a cat in there deciding what to shred right now!"

Amen.