Sometime in the afternoon, Julio walked into my room and told me Chiroco, the town alcoholic (which says a lot in Tambo) was trying to rip the iron grating off his front window in order to sell it for alcohol. Every bit as pathetic and bored as the rest of the neighborhood, I went out on the front porch to watch him. Chiroco, I'm told, has always been the best friend a bottle of cane liquor could hope for, but his steadily worsening alcohol problem has fallen completely off the deep end only in recent years. The death of his wife in that time probably contributed. Chiroco's appearance fluctuates wildly. He looks like different person almost every time I see him. Sometimes he looks very ill and maybe only a week or 2 away from death, and at other times he stops the whole neighborhood dead in their tracks by passing through it straight-backed and sober- practically bright-eyed - and carrying some tool or work implement as if it was merely another day of his work-a-day existence. Of course, he has no job, but sometimes people kick him a meal or a few bucks for doing odd chores. This is how he has managed to survive for years and I have no doubts that he would long be dead were it not for townsfolk taking pity on him. He has been staggeringly drunk 97% of the times I have seen him around town in the past year and being a friendly, but wildly incoherent man without even a speck of dignity during these episodes, he has become something of a town fool. Even more enigmatic to the locals is that Chiroco is light-skinned with light eyes, which is automatically assumed in these parts to make you a fundamentally superior being. Julio once remarked that it was a travesty that someone so white should be such an alcoholic. Perhaps this partly accounts for why he is so readily given charity. Perhaps, but it may have as much to do with his temperament as a sober man, which is childlike and meek.

      The whole neighborhood knew what was up the very moment they saw Chiroco chipping away at the cement front of his house where the iron window grating is supported and on a festive occasion such as today's holiday when everyone was already gathered together for merriment-making, it quickly became a spectacle. Everyone took up seats where they could watch him and sent each other rolling on the ground with various Chiroco based wisecracks and one-liners. Chiroco was half drunk but fully disheveled. He looked moderately ill with his recent excesses and banged away at the grating with his mouth fully agape and panting like a dog. At one point, a tight cluster of about 12 people gathered behind him to stare, looking very much like a group of Christmas carolers not 10 feet from the action, which for a few glorious moments was the ultimate parody of Tambo- as a raging alcoholic served as entertainment for bored people. Eventually, 2 teenage smart-asses wandered up and began helping him rip his grating off the house, more as a mischievous gesture for the benefit of onlookers than to be genuinely helpful. The whole time he worked, Julio and I speculated as to who he was going to sell the grate to- who was going to disgrace themselves by profiting from an alcoholic's desperation. We entertained to notion of following him to see where he finds a buyer, but the moment the grating broke free, the boys carried it into the house next door with Chiroco staggering in tow. After a few moments, the voices inside began rising and we could tell they were negotiating the sale. Chiroco then exited the house somewhat slump-shouldered from exhaustion and drunkenness, but with evident elation in his stride and a single dollar bill dangling from the end of one arm. Julio and I found ourselves sputtering with laughter at how overtly thrilled Chiroco was to have successfully generated a single dollar.

      "Is that all he got for the grating" I asked Julio

      "It… kinda looks that way", he reluctantly answered

      "What would that have been worth new at a store?"

      "About $30 dollars."

      We responded appropriately to the shameful spectacle by shaking our heads and exchanging disapproving glances, but then returned to elbowing each other and chortling as Chiroco strode off happily in the direction of a tienda. However, to everyone's shock, he returned with a bag of rice and a smaller bag of cooking oil and not a bottle of cane liquor. He headed directly back over to the house where he had sold the grate and found the woman of the house, a very somber woman who always wears all black (in accordance with some rarely practiced custom of "mourning" for 2 years after someone's death) sitting in front of her house. The woman, known to most by the unusually formal moniker Señora Marta, never sits in front of her house, but was probably feeling the need to sit publicly so as to downplay the unscrupulousness of her purchase with nonchalance. Chiroco further surprised us then by taunting the woman with the declaration that he had not in fact bought alcohol, as she supposed- a bet that we all would have lost our shirts on. He held the bags of rice and oil out to Señora Marta, but eventually just stuffed them into her hand when she didn't voluntarily except them along with the loud, but barely intelligible demand that she cook up the rice for him which he would be back later to eat. This was high quality entertainment for the scattered audience of the sandy street theater. Chiroco had not only twice surprised us by putting food before alcohol and engaging Señora Marta in an uncharacteristic pissing match, but the histrionically stoic and vaguely cruel Señora Marta had now doubly lost face. The porches full of underemployed neighbors reeled at this turn of events as Chiroco triumphantly strutted off in the direction of the park, where his hard-core drunk buddies, as well as half of Tambo, were certainly gettin' their booze on at that hour.

      By the time one has arrived at the point of dismantling their house to feed their addiction, the loose equipment with which one might have cooked up their own 25 cent bag of rice has long since been pawned. Julio tells me Chiroco had a nice home at one time, including such local extravagances as a paint job on the exterior and even a moderate application of decorative trim. He was thought to be on the upper end of the backyard furniture making class. He stayed busy with work and did well for himself. But that was back when even a fool could do well in the furniture business. Now only the biggest and best-organized workshops are not wondering where their next meal will come from. Sure, Chiroco is killing himself with dangerous levels of prolonged drinking, but who isn't going to die? Living in a gutted out house may seem like the end of the world to people who obsess over which hardwoods go best with their carpet, but here even the lack of true walls in or outside of the house is hardly a cause for concern. In fact, how would the average middle to upper class American infuse meaning into their lives were it not for trivial fixations such as decorations and color coordination or the pursuit of the latest upgrade to the myriad of things in their home, now that their survival is no longer a serious concern? The beings that spring from human DNA are 100% human whether wrapped in a suit on the 99th floor or whether they know no world beyond the rows of ramshackle huts in their neighborhood. You can make 'em dirty, you can dress 'em funny, you can put 20 chairs in their home or perhaps only 2, but you cant change the basic fact of their humanity. Putting a wad of cash in someone's pocket cannot insulate them from the need for companionship or to be treated fairly and feel safe. In spite of their best efforts to sterilize their environment of all inconveniences, the "well-off" have only succeeded in switching their preoccupations from finding a way to make $3 to feed the family today, to getting that oil change on the way home from work or paying down that credit card or a million other scattered concerns. Wealth does nothing reduce the loads of concerns and petty harassments of life, it just makes them more frivolous. And since they cant take away the thoughts from your head or the color from your vision if you have no money, there's not a whole lot one can necessarily gain from a highfalutin 1st world professional life unless they possess an irrational fear of dying for lack of health insurance or if they judge personal worth by bank statements. I'm not saying that living poor makes your teeth any prettier or your food any tastier, but it does put the grand importance of such things out of the equation.

      Chiroco is going to die an alcohol related death, but he will not die 2 of them, in spite of his lack of HMO. He lives in a bombed out skeleton of a house, but he doesn't notice that fact (perhaps because he's never seen Trading Spaces). He sometimes doesn't eat, but that is not such a big deal as someone whose stomach has always been full might think. He's never gotten caught in a traffic jam on the way to something important nor has he ever spent a month sucking up to his boss prior to a performance review. And what's more, he's got friends that welcome his company all day long, albeit a group of fellow park alcoholics. Their social standing is irrelevant if they've got a shared history and common interests. They make each other laugh and laugh and the bellowing conversations rage all night and into the next morning. I bet they enjoy each other's company more than a group of doctors and bankers would. And you bet your ass a banker notices every inconvenience in his environment. Thus my point: Is Chiroco's experience on this planet really lacking for anything? Would his life be improved were it filled up with appointments and obligations? In the most objective sense, is his life fundamentally less worth living from his own perspective than Donald Trump's is to him?

      We stayed standing in silence on the porch long after Chiroco had gone, for lack of anything else to do. Then I left to go check my email in Santa Elena, but Hotmail was acting up as usual and I couldn't access my account. I returned yet again to Tambo. Upon my return, I regrettably found that now the big Tambo dance to take place later in the evening was all anyone could talk about. Everyone was driven literally to distraction by the anticipation. When they weren't talking about the dance itself, they could not talk about anything at all, just fidget in nervous silence. I was greatly annoyed by everyone's sudden unavailability in spite of their not being in anyway occupied. I retreated to my room to do stuff on my computer but still could not escape the annoying pre-dance vibe.

      Around 7:30pm, when members of the house headed out in the direction of the excessively amplified music of questionable taste, I decided I had no reason not to leave town again and go see if Hotmail had started working yet. The bus I caught drove right alongside the big cement soccer court in the center of town where the dance was taking place. A few hundred people were already there on the dance floor doing what was basically just a low energy version of a 1980's step touch while looking around blankly at each other. I couldn't believe my eyes. Why are they obsessed with this? "The Dance" is such a bizarre facet of the culture here. Its talked about like it's an encounter with God, but its hype seems to stand in wild contrast to the actual excitement experienced its participants. I once asked Lorena that if dancing is so absolutely sublime, why do you never see people here dancing except for when someone organizes a big town wide dancing event. Her answer was simply, if not inanely, that an event is necessary; you cant legitimately just up and start dancing without some kind of an occasion. So it appears that the true focus is perhaps not the dancing, but the event itself, for which the dancing just provides the avenue for participation. But why isn't it something they can do without being so annoying? Man, I love a good a pizza, but I don't run around for hours beforehand initiating pizza related conversations out of the blue and insisting everyone get on board for this pizza thing going down later that they absolutely cannot miss out on. Pretty much every culture in the world parties down at one time or another and many tear up a dance floor harder than Ecuadorians, but does anyone else carry on and on and on like this about it?

      Internet was not at all working in Santa Elena, so I continued on the Libertad, where I was at least able to check my mail finally. When I returned to Tambo again, I spotted Julio and co. sitting in front of a relative's house which sort of borders the dance floor. I walked over to them to see what was going on. The dance had not progressed to any greater levels of excitement and the large group of sitting family members (mostly from Susanna's side) were doing little more than just watching the dance floor blankly. I was offered a seat which I didn't really want but knew I was better off just taking for the time being rather than risk stirring up any festive hornets' nests by saying I didn't intend to stay long. I told Julio that after the endless talking and jitters and obsessing, I was stunned to see that this was all they had going on. I told him that I thought Ecuador (and who knows how much more of Latin America) is unique in that they are so totally obsessed with the concept of dancing. I told him that I think other cultures might simply dance at their dances without feeling the need to invest their every waking thought in the act throughout the entire week preceding. Of course Julio could not understand my point. He could not view this facet of his culture any more objectively than I could see a Tambo dance as the pinnacle of all existence. I was not indoctrinated to this culture and they were and try as we might to understand each other, we are perhaps irrevocably separated by a chasm. At a seemingly random moment after an extended period of silent, blank staring, Julio and Susanna rose and headed off to the dance floor. I seized the opportunity to take my leave of the event, heading home the long way so as to avoid passing by Lorena's house where she was having a birthday party I didn't not want to attend.

      The weird ass female dog with an undersized head, Chiquita, that had moved to Julio's house one fine day a few months back, spontaneously made herself a nest behind Ineva's toilet in the afternoon. She had been steadily swelling with babies since the wild week long party in the backyard during her last heat in late March. We have no idea how long a dog's gestation period is supposed to be, but it's apparently about 2 months. From 8 to 11pm, Julio sat in my room talking. He spoke at length about how Tambo had come to be a comuna (literally a "commune", although without all the fun stuff like weapons stockpiles and poison Kool-Aid), which was almost an interesting story, I thought. In turn, I told him that the comuna's shortcomings are due in part to "too many chefs" being unable to get on the same page. Every action the comuna tries to take is bogged down and made impossible by an insanely bloated and disorganized bureaucracy. In a sense, it's democracy run amok, with every last person demanding to be heard on every issue and putting a check on everyone else's so-called power. I could go on for an hour about that, but it's beside the point. My point to Julio was that small, independent, streamlined operations are the only way to go in a place where no one can get on the same page as anyone else. Julio thought this a very novel idea. Yes, efficiency and independence are very unEcuadorian concepts. He also was stoked about a plan I unveiled in which he could become a local supplier of animal feeds, once his own animal operations reach the point of buying feeds in mass quantities.

      Got up at 8am and wrote a little bit. Left to get my mail in Santa Elena at 9:30am. Arrived at Lorena's work by 10:30am. Left for Tambo around 1pm. Studied some vocabulary in the afternoon. Around 4pm, Chiquita suddenly gave birth to a puppy while she was literally running across the yard to a new nest she had made behind some boards in Julio's workshop. I waited by her nest with my camera for a long time, hoping to get a picture of a puppy as it was being born, but no more puppies arrived. I continued with vocabulary until 8pm, then switched to reading my book about the Khmer Rouge.

      After lunch, I went to check my email but with my mailbox stuffed and the computers horrendously slow, I got little accomplished outside of skyrocketing my blood pressure. At 2:45pm, I left internet for Lorena's work. I had been harassing Lorena to go with me to a movie for months since discovering that she had never been inside a movie theater to see one. She had remained steadfastly opposed to the idea during that time, saying she thought movie theaters were dumb, since for less than half of 1 ticket price, you could own the bootleg version and show it to everyone. I told her that bootleg movies are often of horrible quality even by in-house movie standards, let alone by movie theater standards. She remained unconvinced, but had no convictions so strong as to resist my insistence forever.

      I arrived at Lorena's work a little later than I intended to and even then she was not ready to leave. I waited about 10 minutes and then told her we had to go, since we didn't really know when the movie was supposed to begin, though I had strong suspicions it was at 3:30pm. We arrived at 3:20pm to find that the movie had begun at 3:00pm. We bought tickets anyway to the movie that I had pre-selected weeks before it arrived in Ecuador, Troy, based on its trailers because I wanted her first movie to be a very visual special effect loaded feature to drive home my point as to why theaters are better. I insisted we get a large popcorn and large drink, which was cheating, really, because I was deliberately skewing the experience with yummy snacks so as to exaggerate the supremacy of theaters.

      The movie was already in progress when we entered. The scene on the screen was very dark and the rest of the theater was totally blackened. There was nothing at all to indicate where the aisles or steps were. We had just come in from the ample light of the outer theater and skylit mall and now found ourselves standing mere inches inside the theater itself completely blinded. We saw absolutely nothing for what turned out to be a surprisingly long time and just stood there stupidly in the blackness, finally cracking up at the totality of our helplessness. The dark scene continued, but our eyes finally began making out a dim shine where the tops of each seatback were. Straining our eyes and pooling the information we could gather, we determined that every last seat in the theater was empty. The movie was playing and no one was in it. This furthered the absurdity of the moment and prompted yet another round of cracking up. We carefully inched towards the stairs and descended a few rows. I heard Lorena fall off a step my disembodied voice had cautioned her to watch out for and a moment after I sat myself down, asked if she too was sitting. She wasn't. She was standing there baffled in the darkness with something in each hand trying to figure out how she was supposed to sit down on the folded up theater seats, which she had never encountered before. I pulled down her seat for her and pounded it several times audibly with my open palm. I felt the seat cushion compress as her bulk tentatively surrendered itself to the chair.

      The scene on the screen soon changed to a bright, airborne coastline shot that prompted Lorena to lean over and make a perfunctory, possibly less than spontaneous admission about the theater being impressive. Then she reached over and began playing with the seat bottom next to her, pulling it down and letting it retract again. She asked me if all the seats in the theater were this way. I said that they were. A few minutes later she asked me what was on the popcorn, was it butter? I said that it was.

      I could feel Lorena staring at me in the dim light. "You put butter on popcorn?"

      "Yeah. Was that ok?"

      "Butter? Like, I mean BUTTER. That's what this is?"

      "Butter, yes. You don't like it?"

      There was a lengthy pause before she answered unconvincingly that it was fine. I laughed accusingly at her and bumped her with my shoulder. I told her the butter never gets far down the bag and to just let me eat the top few inches and there would likely be nothing of it left. I notified her when the popcorn became fully dry and our hands then began alternately to shovel out greedy heaps.

      After the movie, we left the mall and I walked Lorena back to her nannying house. A small girl we had inadvertently been following for a few blocks along our route stopped abruptly after a few minutes of otherwise casual strolling, turned in our general direction and screamed "LORENAAAA !!" We jolted to attention and stopped in our tracks. Then we glanced at each other and laughed, because it was now obvious the little girl had spotted some other Lorena down the cross street she had just arrived at and was yelling to her. We continued walking and Lorena resumed the sentence she had had interrupted, when a small dog ran out and flanked the little girl who had begun heading back from whence she had come. Lorena and I simultaneously exploded in laughter and nearly stumbled to the ground at the brisk emergence of the other Lorena, who we had both, well… pictured differently.

      Back in Tambo, I hit up the post dinner portion of the day with my holy trinity of time killing in the Peace Corps, reading, writing and studying vocabulary. When Julio wandered in for his nightly dose of conversation, we discussed how the Miss Universe pageant, now going on in Ecuador and all anyone on TV here can talk about, is stupid. Or maybe it was just my side of the conversation that took such a hard line. Ecuadorians are rather pleased with the fact that they think the whole world is watching them right now, but it's just their own media trumpeting every choreographed media stunt of the Miss Universe Pageant. This isn't 1950, why do "beauty" pageants still exist? What are we supposed to presume about these women? That they are the worlds most beautiful? Clearly they are not. Are they supposed to be some kind of "ultimate package" of talent, drive, intellect, political awareness, etiquette and of course "beauty"? Please. I wont deny that if nothing else, these aren't your average sweat pants wearin' homebodies (which I am not criticizing and would personally prefer any day of the week), but the only thing freakishly outstanding about the Miss Universe contestants is how much time, energy and resources they exhaust competing in these idiot farces. Doesn't anyone else find their desperate appeal for popularity and to be deemed 'better than all other women' abhorrent? People actually sit there and pay attention as some schmuck emcee poses questions to these contestants and then sticks a microphone in their faces, as if the vacuous drivel about to fall out of their mouths isn't going to be a retread of the upbeat, non-controversial, calculated-to-have-popular-appeal response that these prostitutes have always given. They're worse than politicians. They take selling-out to the ultimate level by spending the time they have on this planet neurotically absorbed in trying to become the status quo's plastic icon. Yo, I quit. You shaven apes can keep your planet.

      I explained to Julio what Communism is supposed to be in theory, but that it never works out how it is supposed to because the only way to make people equal is to force them into a fairly mediocre common denominator. Then to maintain this mediocrity, individual thinking and the ripples of self empowerment it may produce must be suppressed. This requires a lot of centralized heavy-handedness which is not the way any human wants to live. Moreover, communist movements typically begin with a handful of intellectuals who see no hypocrisy in the individualism and excellence of their own background vs. the bland, faceless masses they preach the perfect world consist of, nor do they see any contradiction in replacing the abuses of the bourgeoisie (the supposed reason communism has any legitimacy) with their own abuses. Well, whatever, that wasn't even the interesting part of the conversation. That came when we started taking swings at the true motivation behind the things governments do, calling to the stand such things as the whole world rushing to the aid of Yugoslavia as it imploded but standing idly by while the Tutsis and Hutus hacked each other to death by the 100's of thousands. Why the differences in policies? Hmmm?

      The rest of the day, save for a bit of news I'm not sure I believe, was rather uneventful. The news involved the supposed discovery of 2 corpses in Santa Elena of 15 year old females with all their organs removed. The reason I don't believe it is because that's a fairly played out urban legend. I did not see the story mentioned in the news, but found several people who claim that they did. I then watched the news religiously in the days that followed to see if there would be any further mention of this event. There wasn't. On American news channels, at least at the local level, this story would be rehashed forever afterward because it would not just be a random mutilation, but one involving organ smuggling rings and unscrupulous medical facilities of the caliber that can perform organ transplants. Of course, in Ecuador, there would have been no subsequent investigation to report on, pretty much because the police force is a joke and anything you aren't caught in the act of you have gotten away scott free with. Actually, it's surprising there's not more crime considering that. But now, writing from the perspective of someone who is way, way behind on their website, I can say that in the weeks that followed this supposed event, nearly every day people were passing around breaking news about the successful and daylight abduction of more children, a boy here, a girl there, sometimes a pair. Twice the word of mouth tales involved unsuccessful abductions. And I'm thinking it was all imagined. I don't think any of it happened. No more tales of organless kids turned up after the initial one, but the supposed "abductions" went on for a good while afterward. This is sort of an important missing link in this portrait of Ecuador. Is this a fairly uneventful place with occasional veins of extreme lawlessness, or is it just a typically ignorant place prone to hysteria? My vote goes to the latter.

      I had brought a knife along in case we encountered a wild tree type cactus in the campo in such impressive condition that we would decide we couldn't live without it, and be led to slice off a spiky green segment to plant in Julio's yard. The only 2 cacti we found growing on the ridge were growing almost on top of each other and were as ugly as every other wild cactus of this kind I've ever seen in the area. For some reason, this particular species of cactus does not seem to have a good foothold in this climate. They are always tattered and broken and seemingly ailing from past attacks of fungus. Julio asked me if I intended to take a segment. Something about his question seemed hopeful, so rather than simply say "no" while he was still deferring to me on the matter, I said I didn't want to take a segment unless for some reason he did. And he did. I opened my knife and began carefully letting myself through the tangled bramble of the crumbly incline where the cactus was located.

      Just then, something like a towel snapped above our heads. We ducked and then spent a confused moment trying to figure out what had just happened. Almost over the ridge behind us about 30 yards away we spotted a buzzard, seemingly frozen in the air where it had cornered into a stiff breeze. The buzzard then rocketed sideways on that same breeze and landed on the ridge parallel to us. I hadn't thought the act deliberate and returned to inching towards the cactus. A moment later, a forceful sound like someone trying to dislodge a cottonwood fuzz from their nostril with sharply exhaled puffs caught my attention and set my pivoting head in search of the curiosity. There on the ridge parallel to us about 40 feet away danced and hopped the buzzard with his wings held aloft in a sort of shrug. Julio, standing there otherwise unoccupied, decided to add narration to the scene by remarking that the bird was angry. For some reason, I didn't put it all together until Julio told me to see if the buzzard had some kind of nest stashed somewhere near by. I leaned as far forward beyond the cacti as balance would allow and found, in a small cove formed by 2 boulders in the slope, 2 light brown fluffy balls of down blinking back at me and cocking their heads severally.

      I called back to Julio that there were in fact 2 buzzard babies in my view, a revelation which apparently set off several impulses in him at once. He twitched down the slope towards where I had penetrated the briar wearing a wild, astonished look upon his face. "There is?" he squawked, "I… move! Let me look!" Julio continued an uncoordinated scramble towards me as far as he could without obstructing my exit, then breathlessly he continued "Are they white?"

      "No, they're light brown" I said.

      Julio listened to that with his mouth forming an "o" and eyebrows raised. "They're supposed to be white!" he insisted with a sudden uncontrolled twitch, continuing then to impatiently shift his weight in anticipation of shimmying out on the ledge once I vacated it. Then he eeked past me and with extreme trepidation and picked his way carefully through the briar towards the baby buzzards. I started tossing rocks at the hopping buzzard still huffing at us and dancing around. It's not that I didn't understand it's concern, it's that it was pissing me off for some reason.

      "There are babies in here!" came the muffled shriek from a headless Julio doubled over the edge of the boulder. Everything he said following that exclamation was lost, as it was muffled and I was now distracted by my rock throwing. The hopping buzzard tried many times to repeat its earlier performance of swooping over our heads, but I had the area too well covered by flying rocks. Julio then came carefully back through the briar, telling a story he was apparently halfway through about his dead brother's wife before she was married having taken a baby buzzard from its nest and raised it by hand. Julio stopped by the cactus and cut a segment from it which we carried it back home.

      Once back in Tambo, I headed for the bus stop to Santa Elena. En route, I encountered Lorena and her sister on their way to see me. They told me to come over to their house when I got back from Santa Elena. In Santa Elena, I took out money from the ATM and bought coffee, which I had gone all day without. Returning home, I made said coffee, then headed over to Lorena's. They were in the middle of generalized house cleaning and had their stove pulled out and a huge pile of rat turds swept up in front of it.

      We made popcorn and put in a DVD that was supposed to be a bootleg version of the movie Troy, which we had just watched in the theater days earlier, but it turned out to be a different movie altogether inside the Troy case. Oddly enough, it was an older movie that included Troy and all the squabbling of the Greek city states of that time, but it was not the Brad Pitt version as the box indicated. I wondered what the story behind the mix up was. Was this an outright scam, albeit a flimsy one, on the part of some bootlegger who assumed people wouldn't notice it was the wrong movie or at least wouldn't be so put out since the movie was, after all, about Troy (kinda), or was this some really strange honest mistake? The fake Troy movie was really stupid, but Lorena's popcorn was good.

      A guy from a local tienda came by Lorena's house to return a counterfeit 1 dollar bill Lorena's sister had accidentally passed off on him. The sister, in turn, ran off to find the person who had passed off the bill on her. You know you're talkin' micro budgets when you can remember who gave you a dollar bill. I went home at 7pm to eat, with the never-ending fake Troy movie still playing. It turned out to be a very cold night; border line heavy jacket weather.