Saturday, October 18th, 2014

I got up once during the night and again had a difficult time getting back to sleep.  I woke/got up at 8:20 and Teresa followed soon after.

I had a bowl of granola for breakfast.  

At 10:15 it started raining lightly but at least it wasn’t a thunderstorm so we still had television.  It got so cold though that I put a sweater on over my warm up suit.

I watched the 1990 movie classic Mujer Bonita aka Pretty Woman.

 

Teresa surprised me when she called the man who will build the closet.  I thought we were out of minutes but she explained that we would run out of minutes soon if we called Une because, just like in the US, you spend so much time on hold.  After she hung up with the closet guy she asked me if I’d rather have 5 columns of shelves only and I answered no.

Teresa made lunch of soup, breaded chicken, rice, and Chinese salad.  I also had a glass of milk.  It took me 30 minutes to finish it and I told her next time I would be happy with the same thing but without the chicken.

Teresa, with Laura’s help, spent most of the day housecleaning.

At 5:30 Laura left for Envigado and I gave her 20mil to recharge my cell phone and 10mil to recharge hers.

Teresa made popcorn and we watched Sleepless in Seattle starring Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan.

At 8:40pm I received the text message confirming that Laura recharged my cell phone with 20mil.

We went to bed at 10:15pm.

Friday, October 17th, 2014

I got up 2 or 3 times during the night and had difficulty getting back to sleep after the last time.  I woke up about 6am when I first heard the dogs barking and saw a little light coming through the edge of the shutters.  I fell back asleep and we both didn’t wake/get up until 8:45am.

At 9:15 we received a call from Une.  Teresa told me they would be here soon but right now they are still in downtown Medellin so that puts them at least an hour away. 

We moved Teresa’s armoire to the side of the bedroom and removed a clothes rack to make room for the new closet.  We had a difference of opinion as to what it would look like.  I wanted shelves on each side with clothes rods between them and 2 sliding doors to enclose everything.  What I understand I’m going to get are 5 compartments alternating between shelves and clothes rods with a separate door enclosing each. 

I received a call at 12:15 but we didn’t get to the phone in time and I guess I don’t have any minutes left in order to call them back.  I don’t recognize the number but maybe it was Une.

At 1pm I had a nice lunch of soup, chicken, rice, Chinese salad and juice.

At 2pm it started raining again so we had to turn off the TV and disconnect it, the Direct TV box and the DVD player.  October is the rainiest month in Medellin, both with the most days of rain and the total amount of rain.

While I was doing a Rosetta Stone lesson on my computer, Luna was under the table resting her head in my lap.  I didn’t really care for it too much because she smells; all the dogs are badly in need of a bath.  Tony came over and attacked Luna.  Teresa said it’s because he was jealous.

Une never showed up; maybe tomorrow.

We made popcorn and watched more movies and the Helix TV series.

We went to bed at 10pm but for some reason it took me a long time to get to sleep.

Thursday, October 16th, 2014

I slept through the night, woke/got up at 6:10am, took my shower, and Teresa made me a breakfast of a cheese sandwich, arepa de chocolo and hot chocolate.  About 8am we walked past the neighbor’s house without incident.  After about a 15 minute wait we caught a bus to Caldas.  We stopped at an ATM machine across from the park where I took out 400mil.  Then we stopped at the same panaderia as last time (Industria de Alimentos Aymara) where Teresa had an arepa de chocolo, a pastel pollo frito and a café con leche for 6,500.  Because I was still stuffed from breakfast I only had a glass of water.

We walked a few more blocks where we shopped in the same grocery store and we bought 136,450 worth of groceries.  We had everything put in a taxi and then stopped a few blocks away where Teresa went into a store and came out with a large (25kg) bag of dog food.  

The side street from the road to her finca is in 3 sections most of which are concrete paved but only where the tires should meet the road.  On the last section the driver mistakenly turned off the road at the first finca – the wrong one.  When he backed up he drove too far and the left wheels were off the road.  He tried to back up further to back onto the road, but probably made things worse because his tires fell into a tight rut between the road and the hill.  He got the jack out of his trunk, put it on the rear axle and raised the back end.  Then we all pushed the car off the jack to the side and back onto the road.  Then he put rocks under the front end and drove over them back onto the road.  It was pretty impressive; I’m sure in the states we would have called a tow truck.  He drove up the last section, helped unload the car, and with the help of a young man we carried everything down to the finca.  This time the Doberman seemed to be waiting for us in the middle of the path while the other dog was further ahead like they were trying to surround us.  Teresa used a branch to keep the other dog away and I had to continually threaten the Doberman with my spray to keep it away.

For lunch I had soup, 4 ribs with rice, salad and what Teresa called tomato tree juice.

The roofing guy finally finished at 4pm and it cost 182mil to fix the roof.

Teresa told me that Une called and they will be here tomorrow between 8am and noon.

I have 3 new mosquito bites: 1 on my left hand and 1 on each upper arm.

At 4:45 it started to rain and then hailed the size of the tip of my little finger.  That lasted about 5 minutes but still surprised me that we would get ice in this part of the world.  Whenever there is lightning we turn off the TV and unplug it.  I also unplug my laptop although it will continue working for about 2 ½ hours on its battery.   Unfortunately the roof leaked again only this time in a different place.

With my Claro Sim card I occasionally get text messages with some type of deals but now with the MoviStar Sim card I also get phone calls with offers.   I gave the phone to Teresa and told her she can carry my phone now to screen these calls.  A few minutes later Teresa tried calling someone from my phone but told me I’m out of minutes.  That was a bit of a surprise but I guess Teresa probably spent a lot of time “on hold” with Direct TV and then Une.  (Later I found out that I still have a lot of minutes left; it's just that Teresa doesn't want to use them up on hold with Une.)

We went to bed at 10pm.

T-shirt of the day: Vintage gas station

Wednesday, October 15th, 2014

I got up twice during the night before Teresa got up at 4:30.  She woke me up at 6:50 and I got up, had a cheese sandwich, arepa de chocolo and hot chocolate.  I took my shower and dressed ready to leave for Caldas to buy dog food with Teresa.

At 7:55 the roofing guy called and told her he wants to come today instead of tomorrow.  She told me he will be here all day but he would stop in Caldas to buy some dog food for us.

Laura slept in a little as she has a fever.

The roofing guy arrived at 8:50, gave Teresa the dog food and started working on the roof.  I understand there are a lot of wasp nests up there.  Teresa gave him the remainder of my bottle of paint thinner and I guess he used that to kill them.

At 11am I had a bowl of granola.  Teresa tells me we are almost out of milk so I guess we’ll soon be taking a trip into town to buy milk and dog food.

Teresa showed me her armoire in the bedroom and told me she wants to move it into the kitchen.  When she told me it would still have clothes in it I told her we’ll just put it at the side of the bed and move the bed over.  I think about a foot should be enough.

About 1:15 Laura reported that there is a lot of rain in Caldas.  The sky is darkening here but of course we hope it doesn’t rain so they roofing guy can finish his work.   1:30 and there is lightning and a light rain.

Teresa complimented me on my soft hair and asked me what I use.  I told her that every Monday and Friday morning I wash it with Pantene shampoo and follow that with Pantene conditioner.  Wednesday mornings I use Biolage Normalizing Shampoo and the other mornings I just rinse it real good with water because too much shampooing dries the hair.  Then I usually put a dab of Generic Volume Boost Gel that I bought at Sally’s Beauty Supply.

Laura came back at 5pm.

Teresa made a delicious Chinese stir fry salad although it was a little heavy on the soy sauce.  

We made popcorn and watched M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village and then went to bed at 10pm.

T-shirt of the day: Osaka.

Tuesday, October 14th, 2014

I got up once during the night, again at 6:30am, woke up at 8:30 and got up at 9:30.

Teresa made a little breakfast of an arepa with calentao (frijoles & rice) and hot chocolate.

We hope to hear from Une today regarding a Wi-Fi connection but after lunch we plan to go into Caldas to buy a large bag of dog food so we don’t have to worry about replenishing it every 2-3 days.

I had a minor problem with my computer setup.  The table cloth covering my chess table wasn’t completely flat so the fan under my laptop would scrape it slightly making a little noise.  I was thinking of buying a small piece of plastic to put under it but when I explained my problem to Teresa she put a shawl over the tablecloth which fixed the problem.

At 1pm I had lunch of homemade chicken vegetable soup, rice, a slice of avocado and a glass of milk.  I put the rice into the soup a spoonful at a time making chicken rice soup.

About 1:30 Teresa finally reached Une and I understand they are working on the box down by the street and we should get 5mg Wi-Fi on Friday.  

She looked outside and said something about rain and as soon as I said “what rain” I heard thunder.  I went outside with her and first she shut Luna in the shed (she’s afraid of thunder) and then I helped her take most of the laundry off the clothesline.  I’ll bet that’s something you haven’t done in a while!

We took a nap from 2:30 to 3:30 until the thunderstorm passed then we made popcorn and watched a couple episodes of CSI.  The rain finally stopped about 4pm.

Teresa told me we’ll go to Caldas early tomorrow and buy dog food.

Laura came home at 5:45pm and we watched more episodes of CSI.

Teresa tells me that when she calls Laura in class and later when Laura calls her back she doesn’t hear it because the ringer on her phone doesn’t work.  So we will be going to Mayorca soon to buy her a new, but not expensive, cell phone.  Laura took the Movistar Sim card out of Teresa’s cell phone and put it in my phone.

I had a sandwich and glass of milk for a late dinner and then we watched Seth Rogan and Barbara Streisand in The Guilt Trip.

We went to bed at 10pm.

T-shirt of the day: Design is everything.

Monday, October 13th, 2014

I got up once during the night – about 3am.  I woke up at 8:30 and got up at 9am.  Its 10:30 and Laura still hasn’t surfaced but then again today is a holiday and tomorrow she probably starts back at school.

I had a bowl of granola and a hot chocolate for breakfast.

Today is the coolest day since I got here.  I put a sweater on over my t-shirt.

I watched an old episode of Bonanza.

Teresa brought me an apple for a snack.

I took a nap with Teresa from about 3:45 to 4:45 although she snuck out after a few minutes to clean the house.

When I got up they were eating popcorn and watching the movie, 3^rd person, that we watched in English the other day.  They made another batch of popcorn that Teresa and I shared.  After the movie they thought it was just as complicated as I thought it was.

Teresa heated some bread and I had a couple slices with butter and a cup of coffee.

Teresa went up to the loft and retrieved the seat cushion I had used in my apartment when I was working with my computer.  I measured it for Laura - 43 x 43 cm - and I understood she wants to use it for some meetings in school.  She asked me where I bought it and after a few seconds I told her I bought it for 10mil from a man on Calle 10.  I told her she could have/use it.

Laura brought me an exercise paper in English and I gave her the answers.  A couple choices were even wrong, being in present tense instead of past tense, but I gave her the correct answers.

At 7:30 I checked for the Monday night football game and saw it is on ESP3 (probably ESPN3) channel 626.

We started watching a movie or series with zombies but she found it too gory so I switched to Cowboys and Aliens on FX (217) even though it was only in English.  Interestingly, besides starring Harrison Ford it also starred Daniel Craig who we recently saw in Casino Royale and the dark haired blue-eyed beauty from House we just saw in 3^rd Person.  When I get an internet connection I can look up the name of the actress.

We went to bed at 10:15pm.

T-shirt of the day: Always lovely.

Sunday, October 12th, 2014

I got up once during the night at 2am.  I took the Passion Flower drops but still had difficulty getting back to sleep.  While lying there I was thinking about a cheaper way to get my Chicago Bears games on TV.  Maybe I can hook the HDMI cable from my laptop to the TV, use an IP changer to change my location to Chicago, access Chicago TV using something – is there a Comcast Online – so I can get just my Bears games.  I remember Patrick at his bar mentioning something about having Slingbox in his home in Arizona so that is something else I can explore.  After quite some time I finally fell back asleep and woke up at 7:20.  Teresa got up right away and I got up 30 minutes later.  I had a quick breakfast of arepa de chocolo, arepa with butter and hot chocolate.

I understood she wanted to go to mass in Amaga and if there was time available we would buy some groceries.  She wanted me to look nice so she picked out a long sleeve shirt.  I went along with it because the last few days have been quite cool and we aren’t going into the warmer weather of Medellin.

We left the finca at 9:05, I contributed 4 sprays to the killer dogs, and we waited 5 minutes for the bus to Amaga.  The fare was only 2mil each.  It is a small town a 20 minute bus ride away including one stop at a toll booth.  Amaga is on the side of the hill and has a smaller than usual town square but it has the usual church at one end with small stores surrounding it.

As soon as we hit the steps of the church Teresa asked someone about mass.  I understood something about a children’s mass.  We looked down the steps and saw a hearse so I guess there was also a funeral planned.  

We walked to the other end of the town square where we found a vegetable store where we bought 2 bags of vegetables for 14mil.  By 9:50 we carried them back to the church and sat on the steps just inside the door.  It was nice and cool sitting on the stone steps.  The church was pretty packed and I understood this was a mass for children.  We could easily hear one little girl singing louder than the others and she made up for her lack of skill with her enthusiasm.  We left at 10:45 and stopped at a grocery store where we bought 2 more bags of groceries for about 40mil.  Teresa told me that food is even cheaper in Amaga than in Caldas.  She promised me that we weren’t going to have to lug bags of food around all the time; once a month we will go to Caldas to buy most of our food and bring it back in a taxi.

We walked to the bus stop where at first we got on the wrong bus.  When we got on the right one it felt as hot as an oven.  With help from another man we managed to open a couple of windows where we were sitting in the back.  After about a 10-15 minute wait we were finally under way.

I only needed 1 spray this time to deter the Doberman.

We got to the finca right at game time and I was happy to finally get out of my long sleeved shirt.  I went through the Direct TV NFL channels (687-696) and there were 8 games (2 channels not available) but not my Bears game.  I checked through all the sports channels and found one more game on FXS2 (channel 608) which is probably Fox Sports 2 but it still wasn’t the Bears game.  Teresa started making calls to Direct TV as I went through the channels again.  I tried doing the arithmetic: 36 teams, 18 games, 1 (or is it 2 now) on Monday night, 1 (or is it 2 now) on Thursday night, 1 (or 2) on Sunday night, and maybe there aren’t enough channels for all the games.  I was watching the scores at the bottom of the screen and I never saw one for the Bears at Atlanta game.  I started thinking maybe this game got changed due to Flexible Scheduling but I didn’t think it started this early in the season.  Not having an internet connection I couldn’t check online.  I checked the schedule I had printed out and laminated and I saw that FS started last week.  Someone called Teresa back and I understood the game was on later on the same channel as the Packers game.  I checked the guide and scrolled to the right where I saw the Bears game starts at 3:30.

Teresa made a nice lunch of chicken leg & wing with rice, cole slaw (although I wasn’t crazy about her choice of “dressing”) and juice.

She then took a nap from 2:15 to 3:00.

The game started at 3:25 but there was no sound.  Nothing.  About 20 minutes later the sound returned but it only lasted for about a minute.  Teresa made popcorn and she took the bottle of Pepsi I bought earlier out of the freezer and it was partially frozen.  Finally, 30 minutes into the game the sound came on for good.  

Since this is my first Direct TV game I’ll mention some unusual things.  The play by play and commentary is sometimes in Spanish and sometimes in English and whenever there is a stoppage of play, where you would normally see a commercial, instead there are just the words NFL Sunday Ticket displayed on a blue background with some obnoxious “music”.  I’d much rather see the American commercials.

At halftime the Bears were ahead 13-3.

Teresa made more popcorn only this time she said it was all for me.

The final was Chicago Bears 27 Atlanta Falcons 13.

There must be some way I can get a more American broadcast of Bears games.

We went to bed at 10pm.

T-shirt of the day: Zumba – join the party.