Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Last night I took 2 sleeping pills and went to bed at 10pm.  I fell asleep rather quickly but got up 4-5 times during the night.  (Having a bowl of cereal (lots of milk) for dinner last night wasn’t a good idea.)

After lots of coughing, some sneezing and having almost lost her voice yesterday, Teresa was quiet and slept through the night.

We were out of eggs so I had to make a quick trip to the corner store for half a dozen and a stop at the pharmacy for some cold medicine for Teresa.  On my way out of the apt I found one of those large butterflies but he escaped my capture attempts.  When I got back I saw him again and after a couple more attempts I finally caught him and tossed him out the window.

I received an email reply from Jose Cruz of Miami.  He suffered a major heart attack on August 31^st and had open heart surgery and a triple bypass.  Then hurricane Irma hit.  Yikes!  Otherwise, he’s doing well and slowly recovering.

I received an email from Paul, one of my blog readers.  He’s in Tampa and he survived the hurricane with just minor tree damage.  He gave me another telephone number to call to freeze my credit with Equifax.  I’ll give that a try later.

I did all my exercises at the gym in an hour and 45 minutes.  For some reason it wasn’t very crowded today, especially early on.  As I was leaving the gym my iPod told me “Battery is low” and again as I was turning it off back at the apt.

Teresa talked to MT’s doctor and he said she has an enlarged heart with a 30% blockage in one of her arteries.  He said in time that will probably kill her.  She’s only been back here about a year; that doesn’t give her much of a retirement.

Teresa told me she’s leaving the apt early (6am?) tomorrow to go care for her mother.   Not 15 minutes later she tells me she isn’t going because she doesn’t want to give her cold to her mother.  See how quickly things can change here?

After lunch I made a quick trip to Exito to buy a few things.

I recharged my iPod for 2-3 hours and I finally figured out how to tell when the battery is fully recharged.

I tried calling Equifax several times in the afternoon but always got busy a signal.

I tried to set up a My Social Security account online but to verify my identity they only accept:

·       Credit cards (I only have debit cards)

·       Information from a W-2 tax form within the last 5 years (I haven’t had a W-2 since 2008).

·       Information from a 1040 Schedule SE (self employment) tax form.  (I’m not self employed.)

I guess I’ll have to call them and see if they will accept anything else.

I received an email via my blog account from a Tomas in San Diego.  He expects to visit Medellin soon (for possible future relocation) with his wife Judi and he has a few questions.  Always happy to help out a fellow expat.

Teresa and I finally watched the movie that my friend Alex sent me weeks ago.  It shows peasant life in Colombia in the time of the FARC.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN8zhW4GgjE

T-shirt of the day: It’s never quite the same when you’re sober, is it?

Well, that’s the last of the outrageous t-shirts.  Here’s my source as promised:

http://www.badideatshirts.com/Default.aspx?afid=7&gclid=COH4lsipq9ECFZxXDQodiEwKeQ