Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Last night I took my sleeping pills and went to bed at 11:45.  I fell asleep after a short wait.  I got up twice during the night finally waking up at 7am and getting up at 7:30.

Teresa is meeting with her mother this morning to organize her medical records.  Later she’s going to the gym, coming home and taking a shower, and going with her mother for another doctor’s appointment.  So, I’m pretty much on my own today.

I watched the first hour of the Today show.  I left the apt just after 10am and walked to $efecty where I paid the Une (wifi) bill for August of 82,000 pesos.

I stopped at Exito on the way back (short lines) and picked up 3 more packages of the Cuban bread that appears to work so well for making hot toasted sandwiches.

Teresa came back at 11:30.

I solved puzzles on Chess Magnet School for 30 minutes and I’m now 58% towards my next promotion to Captain.

I signed up for a 4 week trial period of the Washington Post for 99 cents.

I received a WhatsApp message from Laura and we’re going to meet at the restaurant at 1:30.

Teresa and I left the apt at 1:15.  We went separate ways when we got near the army military police building.  At Deli Hoy I explained I was waiting for Laura, got myself a cup of juice and sat down.  She arrived 5 minutes later.  For 11,000 pesos (about $3.75) I had soup (carrot), salad, French fries, mixed vegetables, beef, chicken breast, a small slab of ribs, and a little chocolate bar for dessert.

We walked back to the apt, I picked up a few things and headed out the door by 2:20.  In downtown Envigado I quickly was on a bus to El Poblado.  I got off when I saw Calle 23 and quickly found the MBE office.  The young lady working there didn’t speak English.  I told her they have a package and document for me.  She explained it’s at the old office.  Sigh!  She told me they won’t make the switchover until next Monday.  (It would have been nice had they told me that before.)  She gave me her business card and I understood her name is on the card – Sandra Patricia Mejia.  Interesting, another Sandra, another Patricia and another Mejia.

I walked across the street and quickly caught a Sabaneta bus.  I got off 14 blocks later in front of the old MBE office.  The old Mail Boxes Etc sign is covered over but they don’t have a new one yet for Envios Market.

I found Nobraska inside and I told her I just came from the new MBE location and they didn’t have my package and document.  She gave me my package and I removed the little box that was inside and left the packaging behind.  I paid 7,500 pesos for the extra shipping cost.  They also gave me my August issue of Chess Life magazine.  She explained they won’t switch sites until tomorrow.  (Notice that’s a different story than I got from Sandra at the new MBE location.)  I also gave her the self addressed stamped letter I have to return to one of my pension companies and she charged me 32,500 pesos (about $11) to get it to Miami (a month at the cheapest rate).  I complained I’ll have to change all my MBE addresses to their Envios Market address and because of who knows what time delay there might be I’ll have to have both accounts open for awhile.  Nobraska told me she’ll give me a month free so I asked for September.  (Later I recalled that Citibank will only do a change of address if I have a letter from the US embassy.  Sigh!)

Outside I walked across the street and quickly caught a taxi to El Tesoro mall.  I arrived at the dentist’s office 20 minutes early for my 4pm appointment.  Dr. Rendon was with another patient and he finally took me at 4:30.  I got 2 procedures done in the next hour for 220,000 pesos (about $75).  I don’t recall what the procedures are called but I have large spaces between the usually visible part of the tooth and my gums.  I’m going to have 6 more done.  My next appointment is Wednesday, August 30^th at 4pm.

I waited in line for 5-10 minutes for a taxi and quickly (traffic was pretty light) was back at the apt by 6:15.

I received an email from Alex – he has my resupply of Cannabis drops.  Yay!  We’re making plans to meet tomorrow afternoon in El Poblado.

I finally was successful at attacking my iPod (loose plug) to my laptop and it downloaded my 287 oldies in a couple minutes.  Now I just have to wait a few hours for my iPod to fully charge.

I watched the movie Drive (7.8), from beginning to end, on Direct TV.  It ended just after 11:30 and the light on my iPod still was yellow.  It’s supposed to turn to green when fully, or close to fully, charged.  The instructions said it could take at least 3 hours and it had been just a few minutes short of that so I left it connected to my turned on laptop and went to bed.

T-shirt of the day: I’m not the type of person that you should put on speaker phone.