Tuesday, December 23rd, 2014

This is the last day remaining on my visa.

I hope I’m not getting too personal here.  I usually sleep in just my undershorts with a sheet and my thin blanket.  Teresa sleeps in pajamas with a sheet and two blankets, one pretty thick.  She can’t believe that I can sleep without pajamas.  

I got up once at 1:30am.  After I opened the bedroom door I saw light coming from Laura’s open bedroom door so I stepped back inside and put my robe on.  When I tried to open the bathroom door I found it locked.  Immediately Laura opened it and stepped out and I went in and took care of business.

I fell back asleep quickly and didn’t wake up until 6am when the dogs were going nuts once again.   After my trip to the bathroom I opened the little window on the door and they looked at me and I said “Tch” which, as far as I know, is Spanish for “sh” and they were surprisingly quiet for at least an hour after that.

I got up at 8:45 and at breakfast Teresa told me that some 10 year old girl is having her first communion this Friday and we are invited so we need to buy her a present.

Uh-oh.  Teresa talked to Martha, my lawyer, and I need to come to her office in Belen to sign some documents for my visa.  I also need to bring some documents but Teresa didn’t have any other details.  I told Teresa, since Ramiro is coming this morning, I could go alone and come back on a Tratam bus.  She didn’t like that idea so she needed to call Ramiro to cancel him from coming today but we ran out of minutes on my cell because we forgot to recharge it yesterday.

I was expecting to use the morning to send gift cards to my kids for Christmas but now I’ll have to put that off until tomorrow.

I got to see a little of Teresa’s temper when she was trying to communicate what needed to be done and I didn’t understand.  Laura seemed to be reluctant to serve as translator and type what Teresa said into the computer.  I understood Teresa is under a lot of pressure with taking care of the house, arranging visits by the carpenter and electrician, not being able to call anyone due to lack of minutes on my cell phone, pressure to get my visa renewed, etc.

I researched the things I needed last year for renewing my visa and then I got my Social Security letter “Your Benefit Amount”, my photos, my SS card and my current Cedula together to take with me.

While waiting for Teresa I checked the MBE website and saw that I have “documents” in Bogota, which is probably my official Benefits Letter, and my new magicJack Go is in Miami.

We left at 11:15 and got past the killer dogs undetected.  We only had to wait 5 minutes before we caught a bus to Aguacatala.  On the way we received a call from Martha the lawyer and she told Teresa that my visa has been approved.  Yay!

After a quick exchange of congratulations, since we were already on the road, we decided to try to find some cheap bluejeans for Teresa.  We got off at the Envigado station, took a taxi downtown, and stopped at an ATM so I could get some cash.  We stopped at a corner Gana booth and added 20mil to my cell phone.  We had lunch at Carbon de Leña for about 28mil.  I had a typical Colombian meal and Teresa had 2 orders of fish.  She loves their breaded fish.  

We took a bus to San Diego and walked around a number of stores.  In Falabella she found a cute pair of pajamas for the girl but when Teresa saw the long line to pay she decided we could find something in Exito.  In another store she found a striped short sleeved shirt she wanted to buy for me but again we saw the long line to pay and I got her to change her mind.

We took a bus to Envigado, walked down the hill and spent an hour or so at Wilson’s bar with him and his girlfriend Martha.  We walked across the street to Exito where Teresa found some pajamas for the girl, I found the 9-volt battery I needed and we picked up some other groceries for a total of 138,364.

We took a taxi to the highway to wait for a bus.  After only 2-minutes we got a cash ride (con effectivo) with a private car.  It cost us double (8mil) but we got to the side road before dark.

As we were approaching the top of the hill we saw one of the killer dogs like he was waiting for us but he turned around and walked away.  We got past the neighbor’s house unchallenged.  I think the other dog doesn’t want to confront us without the Doberman.

We were back at the finca by 6:15 and for what seemed like the first time I wasn’t overheated.

Teresa was eager to see if and how the Dog Repeller worked so I put in the battery and we stepped outside.  All 4 Terriers were there and since Luna was closest I pointed it at her and pushed the button.  She shrunk down with her tail between her legs and slowly crawled away.  We got a similar reaction from the others only a little less so.  Peter seemed to be the least affected by the sound.  Of course we couldn’t hear anything.  After we had tried it on the rest of them we saw Luna up the path and Teresa tried to coax her back down.

I checked the MBE website and saw that my “documents” and my new magicJack Go are “in transit” so I guess they are both “on the road”.

We decided to go to Belen on Friday to pick up my new visa.

Teresa and I started watching Everything you Wanted to Know about Sex but Were Afraid to Ask but she didn’t care for it.  She said she doesn’t like comedies.  I put on Disturbia which she really liked.  I understand her favorite type of movies are dramas.

I took my sleeping pill at 9:50 and we went to bed at 10:30.

T-shirt of the day: Sweet.