Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Happy birthday Laura!  Today she turns 22 years old.

Last night I went to bed at 10:30, fell asleep quickly, and didn’t wake/get up until 6am.

I took another Advil this morning and it seems to be enough to take the edge off the pain of my osteoarthritis.

I left the apt at 7:30 walked up to the corner and it was just a 5 minute wait for a Sabeneta bus.  I arrived at the bank at 7:45 and waited 15 minutes outside for it to open.  There was a line of a couple dozen people by the time it opened.

I took my number, saw that Carolina was there, I made sure she saw me, and took a seat.  It was only a 5 minute wait and I went to her cashier’s booth.  I had to fill out the Personal Information and Personal Contact Information portions of a form and sign and fingerprint the back.

It took about 15 minutes and I had my apt rental, health insurance, and gym receipts.  I also got 344,200 pesos back in change, surprisingly almost all in 20s.

Outside the bank the Clara office was still closed so I walked to Carbon de Leña where I had my usual breakfast with coffee.

I didn’t want to “waste” all those nice little 20s to pay for our cellphones so I stopped at Caja Banco Social where I withdrew 700mil almost all in 50s.

At the bus stop I got on an Envigado bus and thought my timing was perfect as another bus came around the corner as I was taking my seat and my bus left.  Halfway to my destination I realized I had forgotten to pay the cellphone bills.  I quickly got off and walked the 4 blocks or so back to Claro.

I paid 108,855 for Teresa’s cellphone plan but I guess it was too early to pay mine – it’s supposed to be paid between the 4^th and the 10^th. 

I walked to Parva where I had a vanilla milkshake and checked my cellphone.

Back at the apt I emailed a photo of my receipts and filed them in my storage box.

Teresa called me from Bello.  She’s finishing her ecografia soon and will return to the apt for lunch and start cooking pasta for dinner tonight.

I watched the first 20 minutes of the 1pm rebroadcast of the Today show then left for the mall.

I had a café con leche in Todo Fresa and started reading my new American Chess Magazine.  At 4pm I left and walked outside and quickly caught a taxi to the Medellin airport.  I figured I would have enough time to arrive before the arrival of the ladies flight just before 5pm.  Despite some heavy traffic I was there by 4:30.  As I walked inside a worker asked if he could help.  I showed him the flight information and he told me that this flight is landing at the Rionegro airport.  I couldn’t believe I could have made such a mistake.  I checked the arrival screens and he was right.  Outside I quickly caught a taxi back to the apt.  In the meantime I received a Whatsapp message that they had arrived at the Rionegro airport.  I told them to take a taxi to Envigado and I repeated our address.

They arrived by 6pm.

Despite the heat they had a great time in Santa Marta.  They stayed at Marriott and it felt like they were the only ones there.  They went on a 2 ½ guided hike through the jungle of Tayrona National Park and saw a lot of inquisitive monkeys.  At their destination they arrived at a nice beach and they returned by horseback in an hour.

We had a nice supper of spaghetti and garlic bread.

We left the apt at 7:30 and I walked them through La Buena Mesa.  We stopped at Percimmon where we had yogurt.  I tried the Greek yogurt but it wasn’t as good as the ice cream yogurt.  Next door is a small café called Andre’s Bakery that was full with a line outside waiting to be seated.  The most popular item appeared to be a small chocolate volcano.  I’ll have to bring Teresa here.

We walked down the street to an Italian ice cream place similar to one in the mall and the owner spoke English.  He gave each of us a taste of the flavor of our choice.  I’ll have to come back with Teresa.

11,686 steps today.

Joke of the day

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House in DC.

One from New Jersey, another from Tennessee and the third, Florida. They go with a White House official to examine the fence. 

The Florida contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. "Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me." 

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me." 

The New Jersey contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700."

The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?" 

The New Jersey contractor whispers back, "$1,000 for me, $1,000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."