Tuesday, July 12th, 2016

This morning was very overcast which I hope will help keep the heat down.

We have a small plant sitting next to the sliding patio door.  I saw a couple leaves lying under it and nonchalantly went to pick them up and one of them started moving.  It turned out it was a katydid.  I picked it up and tossed it out the window but I’m not sure it survived the fall.

I watched The Today Show, an episode of Mayday: Airline Catastrophes and then left the apt at 11:45.  A bus was waiting at the bus stop in downtown Envigado.  As I approached I noticed an attractive woman standing on the sidewalk looking at something in her purse.  I double checked with the bus driver that he was going to Parque Poblado, paid my 1,900 peso fare and took the front seat on the sidewalk side (out of the sun).  I looked out and didn’t see the pretty lady because by then she had paid her own fare and was sitting down next to me.  She got off a few minutes later only about 6 blocks from where she got on – she probably didn’t want to walk that distance in her high heels.  She had a nice figure, a pretty face and was probably in her 40s.

At MBE they gave me my July issue of Chess Life magazine and an unimportant letter from Sears about my pension.  I guess I’ll have to wait a little longer for my chess book.

Instead of my usual Sabaneta bus (that I had just missed) I took another one that had the destination of Parque Envigado on the windshield.  First I sat down but quickly realized I would be in the sun so I switched to the first available seat on the other side a couple rows back.

The young man seated next to me started talking to me in good English.  His name is Julian Griego, he lives in Envigado, he plays chess and he just picked up the card that shows he can practice law in Colombia.  We traded names and email addresses and decided we would arrange to meet in the park sometime to play chess.

A few blocks short of my usual stop the bus turned unexpectedly in a different direction.  I quickly said goodbye to Julian and got off the bus.  Once again I had to walk a few blocks further than anticipated.

Teresa and I left at 2:20 for our 3 and 4pm teeth cleaning appointments.  Our taxi driver was old, shaky, slow and unsure of where he was going.  To go up to El Tesoro I would have driven uphill to get away from heavy traffic but first he drove down to Avenida Las Vegas then up to Avenda Poblado and stayed in the heavy traffic until he got to Calle 10 and then he turned uphill.  I think he only knew one way to get there and even then I had to tell him when to take the turnoff to El Tesoro.  Anyway we got to the dentist’s office about 20 minutes late.  I told him the joke about the woman going to the blood bank and the man going to the sperm bank.  He thought that was great but I couldn’t get him to tell it to Teresa.

He cleaned our teeth and said they looked great.  It cost 145,000 pesos (about $50) for each of us.  First we had to go upstairs where Teresa got an x-ray for 16,000 pesos (about $5.50).  Teresa needs a molar implant followed by a crown and we made an appointment for Tuesday, August 2^nd at 10am.  We still have a 170,000 credit with the dentist.

We had dinner in J&C Delicias – she had her usual surf & turf arepa and I had spaghetti with meat sauce.   We stopped in Carulla where we picked up a few groceries we really needed or wouldn’t otherwise be able to find in Exito.

Our taxi ride back to Envigado went much quicker.

I stayed up until midnight to watch an episode of The Partner (El Socio) that I hadn’t seen before.

T-shirt of the day: You.  Me.  Trouble.