Monday, January 2, 2017

I woke/got up at 8:40am.

After breakfast Laura left with me about 9:15 for BanColombia.

I managed to complete my monthly payments using the automated machine for my health insurance and apartment rent without her assistance so I’m confident I’ll be able to do it alone in the future.

I said goodbye to her as she needed to get to work.

Inside BanColombia I stopped first at the take-a-number machine and showed the young guy there the Caldas bill I needed to pay.  He keyed in “1234” and gave me a receipt with the number “A293”.  I took the last seat inside, noted they were on “A193”, and waited my turn.  I knew the guard would give me a hard time if I used my Nook so I brought a small book to read.

An old guy next to me had “A189” and I helped him watch for his number.  After he left another man sat down.  He said something to me in Spanish and showed me his number – “A389”.  I showed him my number and told him I’d been waiting for 50 minutes.  In English he told me he wasn’t going to wait and would come back tomorrow.  Buen idea!

At exactly the hour mark it was my turn.  I showed the cashier the Caldas tax bill that I wanted to pay.  She told me that because I’m late (due date was 12/31/16) I had to go to Caldas to pay it.  Sigh!

From there I made a quick trip to the pharmacy for this month’s supply of Tamsulosin for 40,900.

Teresa wanted to take me for lunch to a restaurant that specializes in Tamales.  (Btw, the singular form is Tamal, not Tamale.)  We walked down near Bocados Bar to a place called Tamales Exquisitos (Calle 38 Sur #47-07).  Teresa had a tamal and mazamorra and I had their meatball plate and mango juice.  (For a change the juice came in a bottle instead of being homemade there.)  My meal included white rice, freshly made potato chips and a little salad.  We each had a tiramisu for dessert and the total came to 30,900 (about $10.30).  I tasted her tamal and it was okay but I liked my food better.

Back at the apt, because my leather wallet chess set is coming apart, I ordered a 10” x 10” wood magnetized travel chess set from Amazon for $34.95.  I paid for it with a gift card my son sent me for Christmas.

I finished Michael Connelly’s The Wrong Side of Goodbye and then downloaded his The Black Echo.  The former was #21 in the Harry Bosch series so I decided to start the series from the beginning with #1.  I plan to mix some nonfiction in with the books in the series.

I watched Season 1, Episode 3 of Battlestar Gallactica.

I finished chapter 3 – On Exchanging – in Chess Praxis.

T-shirt of the day: No days off.