Tuesday, July 15th, 2014

Last night I went to bed at 11pm, got up once during the night, woke up at 5:45 and got up at 6:45. 

I had coffee and croissant at Los Mejores where I observed workers with jackhammers repairing the street.  It did have a few, but not very deep, potholes.  Jhon was already there and I told him there wouldn’t be any Spanish lesson today because my house cleaner was coming.

I found Beatriz at the tinto store helping some man knock small mangos from an overhanging tree.  I thought they wouldn’t be ripe because they are so small but she seemed to think otherwise.  I paid her the 20mil for my clean laundry.  

(One of Teresa’s “vices” she told me last Saturday was that she didn’t like to waste money so she was looking forward to us saving the money I usually pay for someone else to do my laundry and clean my apartment.  Not to mention all the money I spend in restaurants.)

As I was walking toward Avenida 80 I observed the other Beatriz with her manicure kit getting into a taxi.

Then I had my first real surprise of the day.  First I saw Nidia with 2 girlfriends having breakfast at Likke’s.  Then I noticed the display cases were reorganized and I was greeted by a woman I had never seen before.  I asked Nidia if they had new owners and she said “yes”.  Lately all I’ve had to do is say “lunch for 2 at my apartment today at noon” and I knew it would be delivered on time.  I was easily able to order lunch with the Spanish I’ve learned in the last year and by showing her my laminated address I always keep in my fanny pack.  But, we’ll see what happens at noon.  Lol.

Olga was waiting for me as I approached my apartment at 8:45.  Today she took down all the curtains and washed them.  Afterwards she showed me the dirty water.  She also washed my baseball cap again although I haven’t worn it much lately.

I chatted with someone at magicJack.  I offered to pay with a paper check but they don’t allow that nor Paypal payments.  They said they were investigating the problem and I should wait for their email response.

Lunch arrived at noon this time delivered by a pretty girl.  The only thing significantly different was that the drink was much smaller.

I see that Planet of the Apes opens this Thursday but I don’t know yet if there will be any convenient place and time for me to see it.

Olga finished at 1:30, changed clothes and left.

As I left my apartment I found the bills on the stairs only my Une bill was missing.  I knocked on the door of apt. 201 but she said she didn’t have it.  As I was walking out of the building she called to me from the balcony that she did have it.  I went back in and a pretty young lady was with her and she gave me my bill.  I went back to my apartment, picked up my bills with some cash and headed out the door.

At 2pm I walked over to Los Mejores for the first time in the afternoon.  They usually have 2 large horizontal display cases in front of the entrance separating the customers from the rest of the store.  Now they only had 1 and a smaller more vertical one.  The other one I saw on the other side of the normal seating area but its glass was cracked in the front.  I’m guessing it happened since I was here this morning.  I bought a churro and Colombiana for 2,400; this churro was bigger than any I’ve had before.

At Exito I only had a short wait of 5 minutes to pay my Une bill of 72,964 (internet only) and my EPM bill of 77,357.         

I went to LM and studied Spanish for a while.

Back at the apartment I received an email from my ex-wife’s lawyer.  She has a buyer for the townhouse and he sent me the offer to sign and return.  I walked over to the internet café and had the 12 pages printed for 3,600 pesos.  I’ll sign them and have Jhon scan them and send them back in the next couple days.

At 6:45 I took a Simon Bolivar bus to Sport Wings where I watched the 1^st 2 hours of the MLB All Star game.  I tried their nochos (not too bad) and had 3 Cokes for a total of 30,832.  I left at the bottom of the 4^th inning when they changed pitchers.  I only had a 2 minute wait for a bus to take me back to my apartment.

I’ve been taking more buses because I’ve noticed my legs don’t feel as strong as they used to.  I am almost 69 years old so I guess that might be somewhat normal – I’m slowing down.

I finished Tom Clancy’s 982-page The Bear and the Dragon and downloaded his 416-page The Teeth of the Tiger.

T-shirt of the day: C.S.I. - Can’t Stand Idiots.