Wednesday
December 1, 2010
|
I'm Rich
Well, sort of. Thanks to
eBay, I bought a few $100,000,000,000,000.00 (That's right, $100
Trillion) Zimbabwe dollars bills. I plan to give some to family so we
can all be multi-trillionaires. You can get some too on eBay (http://www.ebay.com) by searching for
"zimbabwe $100 trillion".
---
When we fired C&W, we had been without full telephone service for 6 months, and the internet connection had crashed more than 10 days earlier. Everything had been reported to them many times, and one adjustment to the bill had been made. Then they sent us a bill for the last month as if everything had been working just fine. I thought we had paid everything up to date on the day we cancelled the service. So now Nora will have to go to C&W offices and fight with them over a bill that should never have been sent.The level of ineptitude and lack of customer service at C&W is stunning. ---
Our Son John - Update I 'm still in Goldsboro, NC. but will be home in time for Mother's Day. John's weird external brace came off Tuesday, November 2, and a week later he started driving again. He now has a flexible brace and can bend his knee about 35 degrees. He started physical therapy on November 8. My plans have changed and I will be in the US a bit longer. I am finally getting my butchered left eye removed and replaced with a prosthetic which will move just like a natural eye. Surgery is scheduled for December 6 and then I have to wait a few weeks to have the glass/plastic overlay fitted. --- Getting in Shape - Part 2 The hardest part of getting in shape is doing things that you don't really like to do, like calesthenics, jogging or using a workout machine. Fortunately for out of shape geezers like me, none of that is necessary, at least not in the beginning. Continued next column... |
Getting in Shape - Part 2 Continued
Some of the best exercise Seniors can get is simply walking. So, I started going to Malls and walking. There's all sorts of interesting stuff to see at a Mall, including people. Then I increased my daily moving around activity. I moved my workbench to a more convenient location, and started making things, mostly slingshots, and I'll write more about that in the next newsletter. Besides increased activity, resistance exercises are good for Seniors. I bought an assortment of Theraband latex tubing from Amazon.com for my slingshot building (more later) and used a few feet of it to make a chest expander. You may remember these from when they were made of steel springs, which were very handy for removing hunks of chest hair and pinching nipples. The latex version is much more comfortable to use. Anyway, I cut two six inch long pieces of 1 inch dowel (DoIt Center) and screwed eye screws into the ends. I attached 2 ft lengths of latex tubes to each piece of wood with a secure "constrictor" knot and had a very inexpensive chest expander. When I first started using it, I was doing good to pull it out to full arms length 10 times. Within a month, I was able to get 70 pulls. I also bought a pair of hand squeeze exercisers from DoIt Center and pick them up and exercise my hands several times a day. I've lost a few pounds, flattened my stomach a lot and generally feel a lot better. When I get back to Panama, I intend to make the homemade chest expanders and Theraband exercise bands available to those who want to use them. Next newsletter I will talk about making and shooting slingshots and how they can add to your getting in shape campaign. ---
Blessing the House Not long after I bought my casa de quinche in Rio San Cocho, I added a patio to the back of the house. As I was putting the final touches on it, Itzel walked up. "Ola senor, como estas?" she asked. "Este mucho bueno", I replied in my broken Spanish. Smiling, she switched to her limited English, which was still better than my Spanish. "You making new patio. Now must ask for protection", she said. Curious, I asked how I would do that. Continued next column... |
Blessing the House Continued
"No worry, I help you. You go buy chicken from Senora Sanchez. No kill. Then need some moneda. Here at corner, you dig hole maybe this big." She held her hands about a foot apart to indicate the size and depth of the hole. "I come tomorrow five o'clock." She smiled and left. The next morning I went to Senora Sanchez's house and bought a young hen for $2.00 and brought it home. Then I rummaged through my dresser drawers and found some coins, about 87 cents. Lastly, I got my shovel and dug a hole about a foot square and deep at the corner of my new patio. Itzel arrived a few minutes after 5:00, amazingly punctual for a rural Panamanian. I noticed she was serious, displaying none of her usual flirtatiousness. She carried a small metal bucket with holes in the sides and a wire handle. There were a few glowing coals in the bucket. Taking my hand, she led me into the house. She placed a small packet of what looked like herbs into the bucket and soon it began to smoke. Still holding my hand she went to each corner of both rooms of the house, swinging the bucket. At each corner she stopped and chanted something, which I did not understand. The whole ritual took about five minutes. Leaving the bucket in the center of the main room, she led me outside. "You have moneda?", she inquired. I showed her the $.87 and she nodded, indicating it was enough. "OK, bring chicken". I brought the chicken. "Now we kill", she said. I had expected something like that, having heard stories about this ceremony, which was a mixure of ancient African, Santeria, and Catholic beliefs with perhaps a dash on indigenous belief thrown in. I won't bore or horrify you with details of the ceremony, but it ended with the chicken and the money buried in the hole, and a prayer asking God to bless the house and its inhabitants. Afterwards, I knew that I was now part of the community. ---
Note: Rio San Cocho is a fictional village in the highlands of Panama. All incidents portrayed as occurring in Rio San Cocho are true, though of course, they happened somewhere else, and perhaps to someone else. |