Vacuums, Victoria, and Volcanoes

February 25, 2008

Two very exciting things happened recently, but I’m not exactly sure you’ll share my enthusiasm. The first cause of jubilance was the receival of a used manual can opener. Oh joy of joys!! I can now open cans with out carrying my can over to the neighbors 5 minutes away and borrowing theirs. An added bonus is the bottle opener. I nearly stabbed myself with the knife the last bottle I tried to open that way. And yes, I did try opening it with my teeth and smashing it against the counter, and no, neither of those tricks worked. You wouldn’t think the lack of a little gadget like that could cause so much grief. Believe it or not I searched 3 towns in a fifty mile radius and nary a can opener did I see. I had to go all the way to Quito to find one.

The second gleeful occasion was the induction of my new housekeeper Victoria. For two dollars an hour she’ll dust, mop, sweep, scrape, and wash anything in her path. She was even hanging out the second story window on top of the sink getting at the cobwebs on the outsides of the windows. Today was the first day in her fifty something year old life that she has ever used a vacuum cleaner. I got to show her how. I showed her how to plug it into the wall outlet. I showed her how to flip the switch to turn it on, and then I showed her how to flip the switch to turn it off. She was suitably impressed. She told me “I will drive it”. I asked her what she thought after. She looked at her assorted brooms, dust pans, and rags and nodded, ”Yes, it is much faster”.

Went on my first run tonight in just about seven weeks. Went past a cat eating a small green snake and saw the sun set on the murky white slopes of Volcan Sangay and Volcan El Altar. As the day sank behind the horizon and the last light was cast across the canopy of the Amazon and the smoking volcanoes, I thought to myself that I certainly wasn’t in California anymore.