Monday, October 6th, 2014

Happy Birthday to me; today I turned 69!  I think I still have a lot of years left in me but I understand the good Lord could call me at any time.

I got up once during the night at 3:40am.  We both woke up briefly during the early morning and about 8:30 I was kidding with her, telling her that today Direct TV will come but we won’t have any electricity.  Maybe we’ll have Direct TV by next year because something keeps coming up.

I heard some buzzing-like sound but Teresa told me it’s just the man cutting the garden (garden in this case might just mean plants) but that set the dogs to barking almost nonstop.  (Later I saw him briefly and he was using the usual weedeater.)

I asked her if she had checked the circuit breakers and she told me they are okay.  At 8:50 the radio came back on (she always leaves it on in the bedroom when she leaves the house) so we knew we had electricity again.  I was concerned it might be intermittently on and off but after an hour it’s still on.

I found 2 new mosquito bites on my right arm.

At 10:10 the power went out again as we were trying to reach Direct TV by cellphone.  

Teresa and Laura brought each of the dogs in one at a time and I had a session trying to teach them to “sit” for a dog biscuit.  We were partially successful.

Teresa was a little upset to find out we spent 134mil at Patrick’s yesterday.  We agreed next time we will just have drinks and snacks to hold down the cost.

About 1pm we all sat down to a lunch of spaghetti with chicken and a bowl of lentils with 4 ribs inside.  I ate about half of my spaghetti and a couple ribs and spoonfuls of lentils but I couldn’t eat anymore.  They gave me a hard time about not eating more food.  She finally told me that from now on she would make me less food and if I wanted more I would just ask her for it.  Sounds like a good idea to me!

About 2:45 Teresa and I went into the bedroom for a short nap but a couple minutes later she got a call I understood was from Direct TV.  I understood they would be here soon and we needed to go up the path to protect them from the neighbor’s dogs.  I asked her if they could still install the new system if we didn’t have electricity and she said the lady said yes.  We headed up with 3 of her dogs following us.  As we walked past the neighbor’s house Teresa called to him and he called his dogs off.  When we got to the highest point we saw two guys from Direct TV coming up the road.  As we all walked back down the path the dogs started barking and the doberman and the other dog came out but they put on the brakes when they saw Teresa’s dogs there.  They turned around and we started heading down the path with her dogs now leading us.  I looked back over my shoulder and I saw the Doberman gaining on me.  I called to Teresa and just that fast her 4 dogs were back challenging the neighbor’s dogs.  They turned tail and ran and I gained a lot respect for her Fox Terriers.

It was 3:15 and I understood the guys were only supposed to be here until 4 or 5pm but they could wait that long for the lights to come back on.  Unbelievably the electricity came back exactly at 3:30 but while they were working outside with an electric drill to reposition the satellite dish at 3:50 it started raining and lightning.  It’s always something!

They continued some work under the eaves of the finca but 5 minutes later I was surprised to see one guy drilling holes standing on a metal ladder in the rain.  And in a house that may not have its electricity grounded.  They took the satellite dish that had been sitting in her fireplace and bolted it to a nearby post.

We switched her old kitchen table with the one from my apartment because she liked the glass top even though it was a tad smaller.  I understand she’s going to use the other one as an ironing board in the laundry room.

Then I think he rotated the satellite dish until he had a signal.  They left at 5pm.  I wanted to go with them to protect them from the dogs but they insisted they would be alright although they did borrow Laura’s walking stick.

I guess the only way I’ll know for sure if I can see all the Bears games is to stay here each game day and see.  I did notice the Monday night game was on – Seattle Seahawks vs Washington Redskins.

I put a bag of ACT II popcorn in the microwave and 3 ½ minutes later we all enjoyed a bag of popcorn (with butter, American style) while we watched The Perfect Man starring Chris Noth and Heather Locklear.

About 8pm some thunder and lightning came through and Tony started pushing against the door because he was frightened.  Teresa opened the little “window” on the door and said “No senor”.

Everyone liked the American style popcorn so much I made the other 2 bags and we quickly wolfed them down while we scanned through a number of other movies.

We went to bed at 11pm.

T-shirt of the day: World’s highest bakery