UNAS COSAS DE METAL

I learned the word "garrafón" when I was reading our rental contract and noticed that we were responsible for two of them. "What's a garrafón?" I asked the dueña (in Spanish). Here is one, a 20-liter plastic water container. (That it was in our contract gives you an insight into the dueña's character.) Note the label, Ciel, a Coca-cola product.

Because a 20-liter bottle is somewhat unwieldy, we went in search of a holding device, called, of course, a "portagarrafón." We looked high and low for one because we wanted something el sr J wouldn't have to turn the bottle upside down on. Finally we found a little shop on calle Juarez that sold only industrial-looking metal objects mostly used for store displays. See how it tips over easily?

El sr J was not happy with buying Ciel, a Coca-Cola product, so, one day when we were on our way to the gym, we spotted a van delivering this kind of water:

We are now getting one bottle of Junghanns water delivered on Monday mornings. El sr J está contento, but I figure we're now drinking fascist water instead of capitalist/imperialist water. El sr J prefers to think that the name refers to Trotskyite political refugees from Nazi Germany.

Since we've been going to Costco, we've accumulated some rather large supplies of various comestibles. We were running short on storage space, and we thought again of our metal man on Juarez St. El sr J got his metro (measuring tape) and off we went. We found just the right-sized shelves. We bought the shelves, the uprights, and nuts and bolts, and el sr J put it all together.

The 8 kilos of sugar on the bottom shelf are for the two hummingbirds.