Thursday, March 21st, 2013

Happy Spring!  According to Google “spring is the moment that the Sun crosses directly across the Earth's equator.”  So today should be the first (full) day of spring.  It feels like spring as the temperature right now (7:40am) is 68 degrees and we had about an inch of rain overnight and we are expecting a high today of only 72 degrees with a 40% chance of rain.  (But we should be into the upper 70s by tomorrow.)

I compared my hair to my tape measure and the best I can figure out is it’s about a constant ¼” long over my entire head.  Reina took a picture of me with her cell phone so I’ll post that if I can figure out how to upload it to my computer.  (For now I wear my baseball cap whenever I go out.)  I have a bet with Reina it will take 3 months to grow out; she thinks it will only take 2 months.  We’ll see!  In the meantime my hair brush certainly gets a rest.

The toilets are back to the way they were before the blockage problem.  Sometimes I get a nice strong noisy flush and sometimes it just takes its time and swirls down.  I don’t trust the latter so then I take the plunger to it flushing multiple times until I get the strong noisy flush.  It uses more water that way but I’m more confident the next time someone goes #2 it will go down.  (That practice might change once I’ve received my first water bill.) 

We received the bill for water and electricity for 1 month and it is 135,115 pesos.  The problem is I don’t see where it says when they consider that month to be.  Reina says February & March but that’s more than 1 month.  We also received the TV bill and it is 22,115 pesos.

I checked the Internet for Sears Pensions and found the URL for an Alumni website and a telephone number for the Retiree Service Center.  At the Alumni website they gave a telephone number for their Financial Benefits Service Center which is the same number I was in a loop for yesterday.  I asked Reina if it would be more expensive were I to call from home instead of downtown.  She said our phone only allows us to call within Medellin.  I picked up the phone and tried the number and sure enough I got some recording in Spanish.  I guess we’ll be making another trip downtown in the near future.

We took a walk north towards Calle 44 and stopped at a little store that also had Internet access and telephones to call out of Medellin.  I called Sears at the Retiree Service Center (800) 762-7327 and finally got to a live person.  It took some time but eventually I verified my identity, changed my address (they apparently had Reina’s address), and ordered a new 1099R to be sent to me (in 4-10 weeks).  I also asked what phone number I should use to contact them in the future and they gave me (888) 875-0498, the one that put me in a loop yesterday.

I told him of the problem I had with that number and he said he would make a note of it.  He also said I could print off my own copy of the 1099R (if I can get access to a printer) at SHCPension.INGPlans.com and then use my Password.  It cost me a little over 8mil for 23 minutes.  Reina says it would costs a lot less to call from downtown.  Yesterday it cost me 6mil for a much longer call.

I saw the “restaurant” with the word “chess” in Spanish that I saw yesterday.  It’s a billiard parlor; not sure where chess comes in here.  (BTW, in a park the other day I saw several permanent concrete tables with chess boards embedded in them.  The men sit around them and play cards or dominoes.  Lol.  That reminds me of all the basketball courts I see here - all the kids play soccer on them.  Only once have I seen a basketball here.  And I guess I shouldn’t be surprise I haven’t seen an American football.)

We stopped at Exito and bought milk (17.5mil), popping corn (2.9mil), and 2 packages of arepas (@1.35mil) for a total of 23.4mil.  The milk comes in 1 big bag containing 6 individual 1100millileter bags for a total of about 1¾ gallons.  (I did the math for you.)  Sometimes, as a promotion, you get an extra small bag for free.  You cut out a small corner of the bag and put it upright in a small plastic pitcher that’s kept on the refrigerator shelf.

When we got home Reina popped some popcorn for me with butter and salt; way too much of both but in time she’ll get it right.  She also made a batch for herself with sugar added.  That was nice and a lot cheaper than buying Act II microwave popcorn.

I logged into SHCPension.INGPlans.com using my social security number and their password.  I chose the Sears Holdings Pension Plan option, My Mailbox, Tax Forms, and found my 1099R named 2012-1099-R.  I opened it with Adobe Reader and finally figured out how to save it as a PDF file.       Now I have all of my 1099Rs saved in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format or as a JPEG file.  I sent an email to my lawyer in the states asking her if these formats are acceptable.  If so, then I can email them to her as attachments.

There’s quite a storm going through this afternoon.  A lot of rain, thunder and lightning – glad we’re not out in it.  Storm is over – only lasted about 30 minutes.  I have yet to see a storm lasting for many hours.  6:45pm and the rain started again, pretty heavy, no thunder or lightning, just a heavy constant rain.  It actually feels a little cool inside.  If I didn’t have flip flops on, and was walking on this tile floor, I would probably feel cold.