Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Despite getting up twice during the night, I finally woke/got up at 7:45.

Laura sent me photos of her bed (with 4 pillows) from 11:40pm last night.  She said the room looks good.

The next text was from 6:20am with a crying emoji and she says “I just wake up”.  Also, “we need to go to eat breakfast from 7:00 until 8:00 and after orientation until 5”.

The next text at 7:45 reported her room is warm but it’s horribly cold outside.

I responded right away with “hope you enjoy your American breakfast.”

She responded with “The eggs is horrible.  The fruits is good” with a photo of 3 other au pairs sitting at her breakfast table (2 of them, typically, on their cellphones).

I responded “typical hotel food” and she said “yes, I don’t like it”.

I read an internet article titled “Woman famous for hiking in her bikini freezes to death after tragic fall.”  This was during a solo trek in Taiwan.  Sounds like a good candidate for a Darwin award to me.

At 12:15 Laura sent me a photo of her lunch and said it looks better than breakfast.  I couldn’t really tell what it was – quesadillas?  Nachos?  Later she said they are quesadillas.

I left the apt about 1:30 and next door in Exito I found some real butter but I wasn’t sure it was the type I needed because it was without salt.  I walked to the mall and in Exito I found butter with and without salt.  I asked a young lady working in that aisle and she didn’t understand what I was asking but a young lady standing nearby spoke English and she helped me.  Even though there is salt in the recipe I understand butter without salt is preferred for making cookies.

I bought the butter, a bottle of Hunts BBQ sauce and a large bottle of Smuckers strawberry/grape preserves.  I went into the mall where I had a café con leche for 3,600 pesos at Habia Una Vez.  Laura texted that she’s bored with the orientation and very tired (no more going to bed at 1am and sleeping until 10am for her).  I told her the orientation is important so stay awake and pay attention.

On the way back to the apt I stopped at the next door Exito where I bought 2 bags of milk and a loaf of bread.

My outside thermometer shows 116 degrees F.  I know it’s in the bright sun but that can’t be right.

At 4:15 Teresa and I started making oatmeal cookies.  She keeps wanting to change the recipe – use less sugar or add milk.  She added more oats than the recipe called for and aren’t holding together right but we’ll see how they turn out.  Next time she wants to make cookies for herself with artificial sugar – ugh!

The oven is very small so we can only make 9 cookies at a time. 

We finally finished at 6:45; three batches +5 extra = 32 oatmeal cookies.  Most importantly, they taste good.

About 8pm I started to get photos of New York.  The skating rink at Rockefeller Center, a tall building looking down on the Empire State Building, Laura sitting on a (cold) sidewalk outside some store, the inside of a Starbucks.

I read some from my new Nook book and went to bed at 11pm.

Joke of the day

A man and a woman were having dinner in a fine restaurant.

Their waitress, taking another order at a table a few paces away noticed that the man was slowly sliding down his chair and under the table, with the woman acting unconcerned.  The waitress watched as the man slid all the way down his chair and out of sight under the table.

Still, the woman dining across from him appeared calm and unruffled, apparently unaware that her dining companion had disappeared.  After the waitress finished taking the order, she came over to the table and said to the woman, “Pardon me, ma’am, but I think your husband just slid under the table.”

The woman calmly looked up at her and replied firmly, “No, he didn’t.  He just walked in the door.”