Happy 1st day of August everyone!
I forgot to mention yesterday that Beatriz and
I walked through Exito as she wanted to buy me some clothes for my upcoming (in
2 months) birthday. I told her I am very
particular about my clothes and I showed her the beautiful long and short
sleeved shirts I have that I almost never wear.
Generally I only wear t-shirts here – in the US I never wore t-shirts – didn’t
even own any. (When I visited here in
June of 2012 Reina gave me a present of a pair of socks but they looked like
something my father would have worn with a suit in the 1940s. Not my style at all, I donated them to
Goodwill.) We walked through the men’s
section and she helped me pick out a couple of nearly white t-shirts for 19,900
($10.47) each that I told her I would buy the next day. I also picked out a 20cm Universal saucepan
(I think that’s what it’s called) for 31,900 ($16.79) and a 3.3Liter (14 cup) Rubbermaid
container (with Easy Find Lids) large enough to hold a fruit salad or popcorn
for 20,900 ($11). The saucepan also
advertised on the box (in Spanish) that it has:
·
Nonstick interior.
·
Heat-resistant accessories.
·
Exterior finish with metallic
paint.
·
Tempered glass lid.
I went to bed at 11pm last night, got up once
at 5am and took a couple Excedrin Migraine to clear my head, went back to bed
and got up at 7:15. After my shower I
had breakfast at Bunuelo Express. I
discovered today I saved about 900 pesos (4900 total; $2.58) by ordering the
eggs without ham or sausage. I also
skipped the bunuelos since I want to be hungry for lunch before walking to
Dario’s apartment at 1:30.
At 9am, when I was relatively certain the
laundry would be open, I walked across the street and dropped off my bedding
and towels to be picked up Saturday at 10am for 15mil. (It rained early this morning and it was
still overcast so I brought my umbrella with me.) I was in the process of removing my umbrella
from my laundry bag when the lady said “Es el sombrilla para lluvia or para
sol?” which means “Is the umbrella for the rain or for the sun?” It took me a little while to translate that
in my mind. The ironic thing is “para
sol” (for the sun) sounded like “parasol” to me (I always thought that was
French) and what a parasol for but to shield yourself from the sun. Lol.
I took some money out of my checking account
and bought the things at Exito I picked out last night with Beatriz. I also bought 3 Glade refills (Harmony
scent) for 15,950 ($8.39) to try to hide those sewer smells. So already I blew about $60 on things I need.
I checked my pension statements more closely and it appears
Sears finally has my address correct here in Medellin.
Lunch was the Chicken Teriyaki special at Sarku’s for 9,900
pesos. I then walked to Dario’s
apartment in the usual 15 minutes. I
bought a cold 600ml bottle of water at the little store across the street for
2mil ($1) and then helped Dario carry tables and chairs to the balcony. We played 3 games. The first was the usual 30 minutes (on each
clock) and I had black. I had been
studying the opening he had been using on me and I had a much better idea of
how to thwart it. This time I was the
one who had both my bishops aimed at his king and I mated him on the 25th
move. (It’s interesting that sometimes
he will do something strange like try to capture one of his own men.)
Another man there, Carlos wanted to play me so I took black
and we played without a clock. He had
only been playing for 3 months so it wasn’t very difficult to defeat him. Then Jorge (George) wanted to play me and he
was a much bigger challenge.
Interestingly he spoke perfect English – why not, he’s a high school
English teacher. That was a good game
but again I prevailed.
Then Dario wanted to play me again but for only 15 minutes
on each clock. Usually the faster the
game the worse I play. The 2nd
game I had white and I’ve figured out how to get him to play my favorite
opening when I have white. He made a
mistake on the 22nd move – I allowed him to take one of my knights
with a pawn and then I took his queen with my bishop forking both of his rooks
and he resigned. The 3rd game
I had black again and I made a mistake in the order of moves and he got a lot
of pressure on me early but I fought my way out of it and after trading down a
lot of pieces to win a pawn I eventually won in the endgame. He told me today was the first time (and the
2nd) that I had beaten him when he was playing the white
pieces. It was also the first time I’ve
beaten him 3 games in one day.
So I ended the day undefeated. Yeah!
About 4:30pm I walked down the hill to Avenida 80 and caught
the Circular 301 bus. Not one of the
usual ones I take but the bus driver told me he was going to Exito Laureles
when I asked him. I got nervous when he
turned off Avenida 80 and headed east but he soon turned north again and I was
able to get off on the east side of the Laureles Mall so that worked out better
than I had imagined.
Dinner was the same as last night – one of the mini chicken
shish kebabs.
Since today is the first of the month I had some extra
things to do besides dropping off the laundry: I sent a check to my brother to
cover this month’s rent, I used CC Cleaner to clean my hard drive, I backed up
my laptop documents and pictures to a flash drive, and I backed up my iPad
Notes to my email account.
Tomorrow should be another interesting day as Reina is going
to be dropping off Angel for me to keep for the weekend.
There is an interesting series of posts to Colombia Expats titled
Black Man and Family Moving to Columbia
that has been going on for some days now.
I’m going to try to make it optional by separating it on my blog. Those that may be interested in all the
different comments (rants, insults, insights, etc.) can select it. (Again I cleaned up some of the misspellings,
etc. I sometimes wonder if these people
are really so illiterate or is it as they learn Spanish they forget English? Lol.)
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