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Four-legged, very small and brownish-grey, unfortunately. We’d much rather have the two-legged kind, as they generally don’t gnaw on electrical cords. They’ve been hanging around the kitchen since about November. Our landlady has been very responsive and is actively trying to rid the place of them. The exterminator put down some poison & a few glue traps, one of the results of which was a stuck, shrieking mouse. I simply couldn’t imagine what the noise coming from the pantry was and when I found out, I was horrified. Call me wimp if you like, but I couldn’t bear the thought of a freaked-out mouse ripping itself from the glue trap and running up my arm just as I was about to pick up the trap. So I closed the pantry door and the kitchen door and hid out in the living room until Christian came home. ...

I’m glad I was able to find a clinic that specializes in doing the exam. The doctor at Uromed, Ltd was friendly and business-like. I got jabbed a lot but really, adults are pretty good at ignoring what they don’t want to see. There’s very little pain involved—I think it’s just looking at the needle that has upset me in the past. Last night we had dinner with friends. It was low key and relaxed, a good way to end the working week.

Today I have an appointment to have a medical examination required as part of the process of getting the paperwork I need to stay in the country. The whole thing is pretty odd. On the one hand, there are several so-called diseases of public health significance (I’ll call them DOPHS). They are active tuberculosis, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, infectious syphilis, chancroid, gonorrhea, granuloma inguinale, lymphogranuloma venereum, and Hansen’s disease (leprosy). ...

Now, I knew that the Atacama Desert was one of the driest in the world; so why was I surprised when on the flight north from Santiago the landscape gradually became nothing but sand, sand, sand? My only excuse is that I had just spent a week in the green, wet south where plants extrude from every and any crevice and it seems to rain nearly every day. Kind of like the Pacific Northwest, but more so. ...

Halfway through the honeymoon and we are making it up as we go along. Came in on the overnight bus from Arica this morning. Have just had breakfast at the Café Étnico and I’m using their internet access while Susan looks for a place to stay the night. It beats dragging our luggage around. The bus journey was quite an experience. Twice we were woken in the middle of the night in order to get out of the bus and have our bags inspected by customs. ...

The latest Chicago Consumers’ Checkbook Update has a section on long distance. Three comparison websites they mention are: www.phonedog.com www.calling-plans.com (very important to keep that dash) www.telebright.com Of course, no one website is going to give you the best rate. (They get kickbacks (a.k.a. referral fees) from the phone companies. You always need to check more than one site to get real comparisons. I’m saving these for future reference.

I read it in Die Welt, so it must be true. Well, they’re quoting a study in Nature. It turns out that the real finding was that certain parts of the brain grow bigger in people who have learned another language, particularly if they learned it as children. Reuters has the same story in English : “It reinforces the idea that it is better to learn early rather than late because the brain is more capable of adjusting or accommodating new languages by changing structurally,” Mechelli said. ...

Christian has installed a new toy for us – DSL! Yes, it’s a techie toy, but what do you expect from a software engineer? I will freely admit to liking it. A lot. Shoot, I’m not complaining about being able to get into my Yahoo account in 10 seconds instead 30+ with dial-up. Furthermore, it’s a luxury to have someone else – someone whom I trust – who has the skills and knowledge to research, purchase and install it; and then provide free and instantaneous tech support when it doesn’t work. :-) ...

For anyone who doesn’t want to click through all the links from photos.evidencetech.com to get there, a direct link. I’ve only had a chance to take a quick look but I like what I see.

We got our marriage license yesterday. It turned out to be fairly simple. About the hardest part of it was finding the office. (For the record, it’s in the Cook County building at Clark and Randolph, but you enter at the Randolph Street entrance and go down the stairs immediately on the left.) We needed to get the license in order to get married. It’s valid from today for 60 days. ...