Back home again, but only briefly.

We had our mother-daughter teeth-cleanings scheduled yesterday, so off we went to faraway Fort Wayne for a quick visit to the dentist, a Santa run to Kate's friends and the safe winter stowage of one of the kayaks. This took, of course, too much time, and we ended up having dinner at La Margarita, our Mexican local. Leo, the owner, greeted us, the way he always does.

"You missed our Christmas party last night!" he said, before sketching out the evening's festivities. It was held for the children of regular customers, family and friends, and featured games, party favors, toys for all, Pancho Claus and Pancho Claus's magic bag, which was filled with -- gulp -- $500 in change. (Every kid got to stick their hand in, and pull out all they could hold in one handful.) There were elaborate door prizes -- TVs, etc. -- and, of course, chow for all.

I was stunned. La Marg is a successful business, but a small one; if there's more than a handful of modest livings in it, I'd be astonished. And yet Leo, through the generosity of his own big heart, managed to throw a party with a more lavish budget than the last three or four thrown by my own employer (parent company market capitalization: $4 billion). It was probably more fun, too -- I've never seen a Pancho Claus.

As we were leaving, Alan was doing some last water-pipe flushing in the house and I turned on the laptop to play a quick round of Bugdom. The AirPort sensed a weak signal, and I was able to download my e-mail, courtesy of a neighbor -- I'd guessing either Mario or Patrick, but it could be someone else -- with a wireless network.

The iMac is still ailing, but I love my laptop. Since I got the cord that allows it to run off the car's cigarette lighter, Kate can now pass long trips watching movies in the back seat. And I can download my e-mail on Dayton Avenue! Worlds of wonder.

Hosed.

Man. I was so careful. I bought my Panther upgrade last month but decided to wait until the term was over before I installed it. My plan was to upgrade my 4-year-old iMac from OS 9 to Panther, then upgrade the PB, and finally have the Fabulous True Home Network I always wanted.

The good news: I backed up all the data on the iMac before I started.

The bad news: The iMac took the first Panther disk and said the machine would require a firmware update before it could proceed. I hit "eject" and the machine hung. I hit restart and the screen went black. I got the disk out but the screen remains black. My theory is it's stuck in a twilight zone between two the OSs, and doesn't know what its display is. John's is, the monitor perhaps picked a really coincidental moment to curl up and die.

In the meantime, I have my laptop. And my frustration.

Any thoughts? Send them.

In the meantime, two things: Catching up on the news these last few days, I'm not surprised Kathleen "Glamour Shot" Parker came to dear ol' Strom's defense (sort of) on the nation's op-ed pages, but I've been too busy doing laundry and Christmas shopping to do what Greg Beato did, i.e., see if her thoughts about Jesse Jackson's out-of-wedlock fatherhood were any different.

Amazingly -- I mean, who'da thunk? -- they were. Beato's got links.

Second, I don't know who it was that thought the first "Angels in America" was disappointing -- oh yeah, it was James, in the comments -- but I just saw part II last night and it was breathtaking. Breath. Taking. Huge themes, deftly woven, passionately stated. No wonder right-wing critics can't stand it; it's too good.

Make the time to see it on one of its frequent replays. More tomorrow.

Zoli.

While I was gone, Alex wrote a nice recollection (scroll down) of Zoltan Herman, the Hungarian refugee who made his career as a Fort Wayne restaurateur. You might recall I wrote about our visit there last summer, when Zoli told us his dream to sell the place and return to his native land for his twilight years. (One look revealed he didn't have many left.) Well, he didn't make it.

A few snaps.

Lunch, day one. Note the plate of touched -- but not too touched -- sweetbreads. It was a jet-laggy feed that produced the quote of the day: "Pass the medulla oblongata."

Isn't it great to see American culture as such a reliable export? "La venganza."

It's not just violent movies, though.

Evita still has her cult of personality.

From 1976 to 1983, the military waged a "dirty war" against political dissidents. Approximately 30,000 went missing, taken to be tortured and killed and, in the case of the pregnant women, kept as broodmares to supply military families with adoptive children. There's been testimony and hearings, but so far no complete accounting of individuals. Their mothers still march every week, and sometimes there are larger demonstrations.

Not all demonstrations were mournful, though. While we were there, the city's Boca Juniors soccer team won the international championship. Of course there was a loud, joyful and spontaneous party.

Home again.

Whew. Sorry about that. I know I said I'd try to get something written during the week, but everything conspired against me, "everything" being defined as personal exhaustion. (Also, that Spanish keyboard, which reduced my usual brisk writing pace to hunt-and-peck.) The trip was, how you say, packed. We spent most of every day racing from one engagement to another, interspersed with the sort of eating you thought went out with the Romans, but didn't. More on that in a minute.

I rode a horse on an estancia ("dude ranch" in Espanol), and I shook the president's hand in Evita's own Pink House ("Casa Rosada" in Ingles). That was pretty much the range of experiences we had. We met the U.S. ambassador, took a tango lesson, talked to political dissidents and victims of the military junta of the late '70s, had briefings from bankers and economists on the country's current economic problems, went leather shopping, drank many toasts to international friendship and rare beef. I can't say I came away with an incisive understanding of the place, but then again, we heard again and again from Argentines that they haven't figured the place out, either.

It was a wonderful trip. What a fascinating country. Interesting Argentine fact: Did you know this country is one of the last places where old-fashioned Freudian analysis still thrives? Really. There are 40,000 psychoanalysts in Buenos Aires alone. I sat next to one at dinner one night. She specializes in domestic violence and scorned the American method -- Prozac and a few sessions of focused, results-oriented therapy -- as superficial. I wouldn't want to quote her on anything -- her English was spotty, but far superior to my Spanish -- but I think she told me that if one of her clients repeated her pattern of choosing Mr. Wrong, at least she'd understand why she kept doing so.

The country is one of the most European in South America, and shows it in its wedding-cake architecture and the easy-on-the-eyes faces that pass by in the streets. You see Indian bone structure and skin coloring here and there, but far more common the sharp noses and deep-set eyes of Spanish and Italian bloodlines. These are some great-looking people, the women with long, flowing hair and effortlessly chic outfits, the men in shaggy haircuts and nicely cut suits. They give you an air kiss when you meet and say "ciao" when you part, and if you try to speak Spanish to the shopgirls, more often than not they'll answer back in excellent English, even outside the tourist districts. When I tried to ask which way Avenue Santa Fe was, the clerk said, impatiently, "Don't try to tell me in Spanish. Just speak English." Ohh-kaaaaay. I didn't think I was massacring "donde esta" that badly, but I'll take her word for it.

The food: Protein. We had at least four or five meals in parillas, steak houses where the grill is in the front window, a large, open fire surrounded by whole pigs, goats and sides of beef. They're tended by career grill men and the meals they serve are orgies of protein. We generally started with an empanada -- a meat pie, appetizer-size -- followed by sweetbreads and assorted innards, salad and then -- only then! -- do they put a cut of beef the size of a baby's head on its own little brazier next to your plate, along with a side of fried potatoes and whatever else they can stuff down your throat before you get gout. It was an embarrassment of riches, and led to a painful, "Y Tu Mama Tambien" moment our last night, when the last in our group to leave witnessed poor people fighting over the leftovers in the restaurant's trash bags. We were told over and over that Argentina's poverty rate now stands at 50 percent, with half of those in extreme poverty, and a smaller but still disturbingly high number who don't have enough to eat. We saw evidence in the people who come into the city every night, digging through trash for paper and cardboard, which they sell to recyclers. Everyone was optimistic the improving economy might chip these numbers away, but I still spent too much giving to panhandlers and tipping at a 50 percent rate. With prices for nearly all locally made products at about one-third of what they'd fetch here, how can you not?

OK, then. I'm tired, having spent about 18 hours today in transit of some sort (and may I just say, the "trip map" function on the 777 aircraft personal video screen is the coolest thing since cinnamon toast), I'm ready for a Canadian beer, a vegetarian dinner and a long, deep sleep. Pictures later. Comments welcome.