So mad I could spit

In mid-January, I hosted the most tragic asado of all time.  And today I got slapped with a $2,600 peso fine for it (about $650 U.S.).

Here's how it all went down.

I reserved the party room through the porteros at my building for the Sunday of Martin Luther King weekend.  I sent out invites to 20 people.

Two days later, the portero on duty tells me that they started tearing apart the parilla that day to work on its chimney, which reaches to the 15th floor from the ground floor where the party room is located.  Building management hadn't bothered to notify the porteros and it seemed unlikely that the work would be complete by the weekend.

So I consulted my girls and we decided to bring a Weber grill to the building and continue as planned.  We asked the porteros if this would be okay and if we could still use the kitchen, the tables, et. al. as reserved.  They said yes.  We said GREAT!

Day of asado arrives.  We load up the mini chimney with charcoals to burn them down to embers and, since the party room is entirely enclosed in glass, we take the mini chimney outside so it can smoke in the free air.  The porteros tell us to take it inside.  So we do.

When we try to set up the grill outside of the party room, but not inside the pool area - just outside where the smoke can escape in the free air - the porteros once again tell us to set it up inside the party room.  We think this is nuts, since the party room immediately fills up with smoke, but we soldier on.

The guests who have arrived at this point are now congregating in the pool area, to keep out of the smoke, and my friend Katie goes into the kiddie pool with her 8-month-old son, Ethan (a.k.a. FROGMAN!). Her mom and sister hang out by her side, chatting away and keeping her company.  I continue to play hostess and move from the grilling group to the arriving guests to make sure everyone is comfortable.

I go upstairs for a minute to pick something up - I don't remember what - and when I come back downstairs, there are three Argentines completely unknown to me who are in the midst of screaming at Fran (our Argentine asador), Petra, and Monica.  I have no idea what is going on, so I stand there for a minute, taking it all in. 

Quickly I realize that these three people live in the building and they seem to think that our asado is going to set the whole building on fire.  We listen to them, without talking back, and try to move the grill to a more acceptable location.  They scream even louder, seeming to think that by moving the grill, death and destruction are imminent.

So they scream and they scream and they scream, as Petra and Fran quietly put the fire out.  The grill is still smoking so one of the men (there were two men and one women) starts walking toward the grill with a full 2-liter bottle of water and tells us he is going to put out the fire, apparently by pouring his water all over our steaks and chorizos.  This, of course, is the straw that broke the camel's back.  This is when Petra stands her ground, gets in his way, puts her face within inches of his and says, very calmly, very evenly, but very, very pointedly, "Basta.  BASTA.  Ya se apago."  Which is the equivalent of, "Dammit, enough!  Back the fuck off!" 

Didn't seem to phase him at all.  He continued advancing with the water bottle.  Petra said, one last time, "BASTA," and so totally got in his way that he couldn't but listen to her.

Meanwhile, the other man is screaming at me that my guests are not allowed in the pool.  Which, by the way, is completely untrue. 

And the woman is still screaming about god-knows-what and whipping out her cell phone to take pictures of the RAGING FIRE.  Which at this point is a sad little Weber grill, smoking a little around the edges, with no spark whatsoever to speak of.

To make the best of a bad situation, Petra and Fran then took all the meat up to my kitchen and finished preparing the meat there.  All our guests arrived in the meantime, each bringing a side dish lovingly prepared, and we feasted.  And feasted.  And feasted some more.

Meanwhile, a thunderstorm raged outside.  Which, to my line of thinking, made it so that, had our building really caught on fire, I couldn't imagine that the fire would've lasted long.  Moreover, it made it so that the man's argument about my guests using the pool quickly became a moot point.

So, we ended up having a great time, eating, chatting, eating some more.

When the last few guests dwindled down, we cleaned up like the party room had never been cleaned before.  It was SPOTLESS.

Nevertheless, that crazy, rude woman had submitted an official complaint.  Turns out she's also a member of the building's version of a condo association board - which I didn't know existed.  She and the two gentlemen, who clearly don't know a damn thing about being civil and have nothing better to do than to find fault with the tenants, are all on the condo association board.

So they complained.  And now I have been fined - and my party room privileges have been docked for 6 months.

There are many things I find wrong with this situation, first and foremost being that they also fined and punished Vanna, another embassy employee resident of the building.  The letter claims she was hosting the party, which isn't even remotely true.  She arrived long after the incident with the grill and was just another invitee.

I am also pretty pissed off about the way they treated me and my guests.  They never introduced themselves, never calmly asked us to do what they wanted us to do.  They just screamed at us and cited some list of building rules that I've never seen nor heard of.  It seems to me that this whole situation could have been dealt with calmly and rationally, like adults, with none of the fuss, or tension, or screaming.  Life would have been so much easier had they just said, "Hey, I happen to be a condo association board member and my name is... Did you know that you are not allowed to use an outside grill in here?  Would you please put out the fire on your grill?"

But no.  They were all, to a "t", assholes.  And it pisses me off that now I have to go into the embassy tomorrow and explain to our General Services Officer why I've been slapped with a $2,600 peso fine.  Their attitude and behavior really taints my affinity for this building and my other neighbors.  And, well, it just plain sucks.