Thursday, October 1st, 2015

We had a lot of rain early in the morning.  I got up once at 6am, finally waking/getting up at 8:15.

Btw, we are entering the rainiest month in Medellin: an average of 25 rainy days with 8.7 inches total.

At 11:30 it was still a cool 66 degrees.  We left the finca at 11:50, Teresa with a jean jacket and me in my usual short sleeve shirt.  I did bring the large umbrella because it was still very overcast and looked like rain.  I also brought one of my shelf lights to show someone at Home Center.  The killer dogs came out to meet us but a few stones kept them away.

We only had to wait about 5 minutes for a bus.  At the Envigado Station we decided to walk downtown because it was such an unusually cool day.  On our way up the hill Teresa stopped at a store that looked like they were making Tiffany lampshades.  They had other items but you get the idea – things decorated with colored glass.  We walked a couple more blocks where Teresa bought a few pieces of colored glass for 27mil.  I understand she wants to make the mirror herself.

We walked to Carbón de Leña where I had my hamburger for the month and Teresa had Mondongo.  I don’t know what’s so special about that dish - it’s just a bone with some meat on it, half a piece of corn on the cob, all in a meat broth.  Their burger is so difficult to hold and eat that I now order it without bacon, cheese or onions.  The total came to 26mil.  I can see they finished the park across the street.  It started raining while we were there, I put up my umbrella and we walked to an internet store where I printed out some more documents including a color photo of the chess table chairs I’m looking for.  I showed it to the lady working there and she told me she didn’t think I would find chairs like that in Envigado and I would need to have them made special.  I had the documents scanned to my flash drive.  It had stopped raining by the time we left the store.

We walked over to Bancolombia where I took out some cash and then waited about 15 minutes to pay my health insurance for October.  We walked to $efecty where we paid for Direct TV and Une (wi-fi).  Teresa waited there while I walked a couple blocks to Todo Drogas where I bought my Tamsulosin and Isoklon (2) for the month.

We stopped at the hookah store where Teresa bought some blousy thing for 10mil.  We stopped at a nearby store where we each had a glass of fresh juice.

We walked down to Home Center and on the way I remarked to Teresa that my right knee was bothering me.  It was a dull pain not a sharp pain but it was still bothersome.  (When I was young and foolish I ran a few times for exercise and I stopped when my knee started bothering me.  I had a surgeon operate on it and he said it was clean and didn’t see any problem with it.  Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning I do a simple exercise with my right knee which usually helps to alleviate the discomfort.)

In Home Center we showed a salesman my shelf light but he said they don’t have anything like that.  Teresa bought a glass cutter, a can of 3 in 1 oil, and a tube of silicone for 28,200.  We had another ice cream cone at Popsy.

We walked over to Exito where we bought a package of peanuts, 2 packages of arepas, a can of arequipe (caramel?), 3 gala apples, a dozen or so eggs and a few other things I don’t recall for 51,650.  While Teresa waited in line to pay for everything I went into the bathroom and took 2 Excedrin Migraine, hoping they would alleviate the pain in my knee.  10 minutes later it was feeling much better.

Outside we had to wait about 20 minutes for a taxi to the highway.  After a 10 minute wait we were on a bus which unfortunately made a stop in Caldas.

Going up the sideroad I didn’t feel any discomfort in my knee at all.  I used the shelf light to light our way until we approached Guillermo’s house.  Despite my precautions the killer dogs heard us coming and gave us a hard time.

We got back to the finca at 7:45.

Teresa was excited to start working on cutting pieces of glass for the mirror.  We each tried to figure out how to use the glass cutter but it wasn’t as easy as it appeared.  A couple minutes later I thought I saw oil from the glass cutter on one of my fingers but I realized I cut it.  It wasn’t easy to stop because the Excedrin is an anticoagulant so I had to put a bandaid on it.

I gave Laura money to make the exercise cycle payment for the month and pay the electric bill.

I took my sleeping pills at 11pm and went to bed.

T-shirt of the day: Never try, never know.