Saturday, June 20th, 2015

I got up once at 3:30am and had some difficulty getting back to sleep.  I finally woke/got up at 9:30.

Laura left for her English class at 11:15.

Teresa and I left the finca at 2:45.  The killer dogs were waiting for us but we got past without much difficulty.

We had to wait 15 minutes in the hot sun for a bus and then there weren’t any seats until a mother and daughter got off at the side road to Caldas.

In Aguacatala we took a “con effectivo (cash)” private driver a short distance to a Ragged outlet store.  It reminded me of Burlington Coat Factory with its racks of clothes and signs saying “from 19,900; from 29,900; from 39,900”.

After about an hour searching Teresa finally settled on a pair of shorts for 54,000 pesos ($21.60).

We took a Circular Sur 303 bus to Viva CC where we met Laura a few minutes later after she finished her English class with Jhon.

I took a little cash out of the Servibanca ATM machine downstairs and then we had lunch at Frisby for 48,400.

We picked up a few things from Exito and I found a plastic bottle of Heinz sweet relish for my hamburgers and hotdogs.

While waiting in line, I told Teresa that some Saturday I want to come back and while Laura is in English class I want to buy some American things just for me.  She said she would come with me.

One of two ladies in front of us asked me, in English, where I’m from.  I learned her name is Lee Ann; she is from San Ramon, CA; she’s visiting her father who fell and broke his shoulder and wrist.  The other lady with her had a name that I couldn’t pronounce let alone remember.

When it was finally our turn to check out I understood that the Heinz Sweet Relish wasn’t in their system.  Finally, the checker gave it to another man who went back to the shelf where I picked it up.  I followed him and I observed him moving the other 8 or so bottles to the rear and moving other products in front of it.  (That’s one way to take care of the problem.)  He didn’t speak any English but I did point out that the word “sweet” on the bottle matched the word “dulce” that was on a price sticker on the shelf.  I told him I would buy it some other time but I understood he wanted me to wait and he went off somewhere.

Back at the checkout, the checker had checked all our other products and there was a long line behind us.  I told him not to worry and we paid 99,500 for everything and left.   I had Teresa put all the groceries on my Exito card and I see that I still have 57,307 points.  (Someone had told me that the points are set back to zero at the end of the year, so I guess that didn’t happen.)

We took a Circular Sur 302 bus to Aguacatala and after a short wait were on a direct bus to the finca.

The killer dogs seemed to waiting for us and gave us a hard time but didn’t really enter the path.

I found the end of the movie Misery on TV but with about 15 minutes remaining the screen froze even though the audio continued in the background.

I took my prostate pill at 9:30, my sleeping pills at 11pm, set the alarm for 6am and went to bed.