Thursday, April 13, 2017

Well, last night I took my usual 2mg sleeping pill and fell asleep rather quickly.  I got up once about 3:30 and again about 6am finally waking/getting up at 7:30.  So that wasn’t too bad considering I drank a large class of soda for dinner.

I received an email from Jose that he lost last night - in a winning position.  He informed me that today’s first match begins at 10am not 9am.

I watched the first 10 minutes of the Today show and then headed out to the corner where the bus came after a 10 minute wait.  Wow, the metro was nearly empty so I had no trouble getting a seat.  I arrived at Liga de Ajedrez by 10:15.  I checked the pairings and Jose was to play white on board 34.  I looked and saw his opponent sitting there but no Jose.  Is he late?  Did he take a bye for this round?  A minute later he came up to me and informed me that he’s playing at a separate table against the blind player.  How that works is Jose sits at the regular chess board and the blind player is next to it with a small plastic travel set that he continuously passes his fingers over.  Then he calls out his move and pushes the button on his clock.  Jose makes the actual move on his board and it’s now his turn.  Then Jose makes his move on his board, calls it out to his opponent and presses the button on his clock.

Jose ended up losing on time although he was still in what was most likely a losing position.

We walked to El Viejo y El Pancake just as they were closing.  They told us that they, and for a couple blocks around, have no water.  We walked down Avenida 70 to Opera Pizza at Calle 42 #70-22.  (On the way we passed a girl and on the front of her t-shirt was written “Who needs big boobs?”.  And as I passed her I turned around and read on the back “When you have an ass like this!” and an arrow pointing down.  Lol.  I couldn't wait to share that one.) 

I don’t know how we missed the restaurant last time we were in this area.  We shared a medium pizza; napolitana on my side and mushrooms and ham on his side.  I had a peach flavored Mr. Tea and he had a Coke Light.  The total came to 27,000 pesos (about $10) and I gave him cash and he put it on his charge card.  There were 3 gringos at the next table: 1 from Maryland, 1 from Alaska, and the last from all over, most recently California.  I asked if they knew of an apt in the area that would rent to a gringo without a fiador (cosigner) and they pointed to a building next door.  It looked like it could be for gringos because I saw what looked like window air conditioners on every floor.

We walked back to Estacion Estadio where I wished Jose good luck in his 3pm match and I headed back to Envigado.  When I got off the bus it was starting to sprinkle.  I stopped at Exito where I picked up a package of hamburger buns, 2 bags of milk and a pencil sharpener.  The rain had stopped by the time I came out.

Teresa left about 4pm to visit with her mother returning at 5:30.

I finally entered all of my tournament games into the Shredder 10 database.

I thought I was in for the night but at 8:30 Teresa told me to get dressed.  We walked down to the library where there was a large crowd around 3 religious floats.  They call this the Procesion de Prendimiento (arrest procession); I guess it “commemorates” when Jesus was arrested.  There were about 20 men in black suits, white shirts and ties gathered around each float.  A priest talked for 35 minutes and then a marching band started and it took 25 minutes for them to round the corner and get half a block up the hill.  Teresa told me the procession goes on until midnight or 1 in the morning.  Yikes!

I saw that Jose lost his 6pm game.

T-shirt of the day: Every once in a while someone AMAZING comes along … and here I am.