Home again home again, jiggity jog....

First best thing about returning to New York - being able to speak to your cab driver like an adult of average intelligence.

Second best thing about returning to New York - dogs, cats, and husbands I don't have to wash my hands with anti-bacterial soap after touching.

Third best thing about returning to New York - my bartenders!

Least best thing about returning to New York - what the apartment looks like once I'm half done with unpacking.

Found it!

Some illustrations to follow:

What I'll miss.

(My shitty camera seems to have gone missing. So this will have to be a photo-less trip down memory lane.)

1) Steak. Obviously.

2) Stray dogs. Argentinian stray dogs are like the perfect canines. They are well-mannered, look after themselves, don't speak unless spoken to, but speak with calm affection when asked. They make little tours of whatever neighborhood they call home, lying in front of one doorway, then another. I am sad again that my shitty camera has gone missing because I had this picture of a particularly wonderful specimen, regal and shaggy as a wolfhound, lying in the doorway of the church at San Antonio de Alecro.

3) Milanesas. I am really sad that my shitty camera has gone missing because I wanted to show you a picture of a milanesa napolitana, which is a chicken fried steak, typically about twice the size of one's head, topped with ham, cheese, and tomato sauce. Whenever I eat one of these I become momentarily convinced that there is a god, and that he is an Italian stoner.

4) cheek kissing. I've become a huge fan of cheek kissing, so long as it isn't followed up by an attempt to stick a tongue down my throat.

5) My kitchen, which is so small and ill-equiped that there was never even a question that I might try to create my own sustenance even once while I was here.

6) beautiful, beautiful Buenos Aires. My shitty camera never could express how beautiful this city is. I want to come back already.

What I won't miss:

Showers with hot water. The bitch of it is, as soon as I get to New York I will crave crawling under and icy downpour every morning.

I'm dreaming of a white Dia de la Independencia.

Snow! In Buenos Aires! On Independence Day!


Yeah, so it's not a lot of snow. And it's kind of tending toward sleet now. And as usual, my pictures are shity. But snow!


My best picture of it, from my apartment window, is, sadly rotated the wrong way and I don't know how to turn it right:


Really, though, the best part is outside, everyone is walking around with goofy grins on their faces, taking pictures of each other, kissing and giggling and generally behaving as if there's six feet of snow on the ground and they having nothing waiting at home for them but a bottle of wine and/or mug of hot chocolate, a roaring fireplace, and a lover or mom, whichever fits the age and situation, ready to share it.



Well, that's the best part for all of them. The best part for me is this TOTALLY justifies my decision to not go to Uruguay today.

I know what you're thinking.

But it's okay. That red stuff splashed across my muzzle is just the new baby calf's afterbirth.


Pretty cute, huh? So cute that I'm not going to spoil your cute high by telling you...


...what Mama had just finished eating right before I took this picture.

I think maybe she's a Scientologist.

Of course, the fortuitous birth of a calf was not the reason I was at this campo this morning. I was really here to see these guys:


Water buffalo. Cute as the dickens. Dumb as posts. Doomed.

Another terrible picture of me.

This one is taken at Miramar, one of my favorite Buenos Aires restaurants. There was one other woman there this time, which made me feel a tad less special, but that's okay. I had the rabbit.

That's Oscar behind me there. He remembered me from last time, and kissed my cheek when I came in. Turns out he's a photographer. He showed me pictures he took of Marisa Tomei when she ate here.

I'm getting a little sad I'm coming home soon, if only because I'll miss Miramar.

All work, doncha know...

So after an arduous morning of doing laundry, reading Bruce Chatwin, and writing in a cafe whilst eating dulce de leche churros dipped in hot chocolate, I needed a break.

(Seriously - I forgot to get money out for my churros, and I wound up having to go to THREE banks to get out the 20 pesos I needed to pay. Buenos Aires ATM machines were FUCKED UP today. It was brutal.)

So I decided.... to go to the track!


Hipodromo Palermo is a beautiful, and enormous, track. At least as big as Belmont, if not bigger. And their picnic tables totally have ours beat.


If only because they are populated by charming portenos.


The races started at 3, and go until TEN O'CLOCK AT NIGHT. These guys are serious.


As the sun sets, everything looks more beautiful - the horses, the jockeys in their silks, the churned-up track.


But I wimped out. The wind kind of went out of my sails when I bet the trifecta (2 whole pesos!) on 8 1 6, and it came in 1 8 6. The kind of close that just makes you sad.

But I promise, I will be back. And I invite you all to come with me. And women get in free! Buenos Aires is my kind of town.

Okay, okay, I get it...

... you don't want to see any more of my pictures of animals getting carved up. I understand. I'm not hurt at all.

So - for a change of pace I'll do some non-carved-up animal pics. (I swear to god I'll take pictures of something other than animals one of these days....)

So - typical B.A. dog. Well-cared for, lolling in a gorgeous square, seemingly all alone.


After a thoroughly mediocre lunch at a place called Sigi on Plaza Guemes (where the waiter was smarmy and kind of halfway felt me up), I headed over to the zoo where I saw:


The hottest polar bear I've ever seen (what must he do in the summer?);


Begging elephants (the zoo allows the kids to feed most of the animals this kibble stuff. I remember doing the same at the San Antonio zoo as a kid, but now it just seems to make the animals so sadly servile. Though it does make for some nice photos);

A gorgeous, but anxiously pacing tiger;


A very pissed-off looking monkey. Actually lots of pissed-off looking monkeys. And orangutans. And some sad-eyed chimps.

Honestly, these are more depressing that the cows getting cut up.