New Puppy, A Flood, and Undies

At last: We have a puppy! We found her shivering in the street at 12:45 a.m., New Years Day. So we named her Suma, which is Aymara for “Happy,” as in Happy New Year. She likes a dry house, a warm lap, puppy chow, and ... chewing everything!

Alas, last night, a dry house was not to be had. Torrential rains and three inches of hail pelted down for more than an hour. The din was so loud we had to shout to hear each other. Then the floor drains in the kitchen, powder room and bathroom simultaneously started gushing muddy water. Two good things about that: it wasn’t sewerage; and after lots of squeegeeing and mopping, our floors are now spotless! Hooray!

In our New Years Eve blog post we mentioned being puzzled about why several street vendors were selling only red and yellow women’s underwear on that day only. I asked a friend and learned that this is a popular good-luck tradition in Bolivia. On New Years Eve and New Years Day women wear yellow underwear for money, and red for love. “Why no red and yellow underwear for men?” I asked my friend. He said, “I don’t know. But if she gets lucky ...” he shrugged, smiled, and said no more.