Saturday, July 21, 2012

I'll wave my finger if I can't hear you.

Today was productive.  I sat on the steps outside the church and looked over the mountainous city while I waited for Karla and Jose to pick me up.  I spend so much time locked inside my gates, I usually fail to notice what a gorgeous view they have across the street.  I'll have to take a picture of it sometime.  Mountainsides full of houses.  Karla and Jose arrived with homemade Popsicle they bought down the street.  I think they were horchata, frozen in a plastic cup with a Popsicle stick stuck inside.  They tasted delicious!

We took off  for the pet store.  The pet store was not what I expected. I was thinking something like Petsmart or Petco.  This was a little pet store in the mall, big enough to fit about 12 people if they crowded inside, with birds and fish for sale.  They did have a litter box and food dishes.  They had one kind of hard cat food, one kind of litter, and two kinds of soft cat food.  They had no toys, no water fountain, no mat for outside the litter box and no box liners.  But I do have the basic necessities, I guess.

Valery became very attached to the litter box and insisted on carrying it with us as we shopped for the next hour or more.  It has a cover with a handle so she carried it around like a hug purse.  She wouldn't put that thing down no matter how we begged.  She carried the litter box as we went grocery shopping, then to pick up an extension cord which I needed for the washing machine that the Seamans left for me when they moved to Guatemala.

When we got back Jose helped me set up the washer.  It is outside my kitchen window.  When I want to use it I pull the cord through the window and plug it in.  Then I get the garden hose and fill it with water since it is not attached to a water source.  When the wash cycle is done I fill it up again for rinsing.  My mom thinks it's crazy, but it is so nice to have clean clothes.  They dry a lot more quickly too.  I feel blessed to have running water, so a clothes washer feels like sheer extravagance.

I did three loads of wash, ate a good meal with my new groceries, did some yard work and settled in for the night.  Called my mom at 7 pm on Skype.  It was still sunny in Denver.  It had already been dark for an hour here.  I have to get a faster internet connection before I try that again.  I have learned to live with the slow connection because I pirate my neighbor's unsecured line.  However, Mom is not used to it.  I kept explaining that Skype isn't going to work well until I get my own internet connection.  I even wrote her a message explaining it.  But every time my voice faded out she kept wondering why.  Then she decided to use a signal to tell me when she couldn't hear me.  So every time she couldn't hear me she would say, "I can't hear you, I've lost you, What's wrong?  Are you there?" and wave her pointer finger in front of the Skype camera.  It was pretty entertaining from this end.  (Sorry Mom)  Finally the connection would come back and she would act like it hadn't just happened six times already.  Must be it wasn't too frustrating for her though, because she just buzzed in to tell me good night as I was writing this.  She did the finger thing again and left me laughing and loving her more than ever.  Skyping is new to her, so I'm glad she is trying it, even though we still have some fine tuning to do.  When I get my own internet connection she won't have to wave her finger anymore.  But maybe I'll talk softly so she thinks she can't hear me, just for the entertainment value.

"Are you there?  I can't hear you," with a finger wave.  :)  Good night.

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