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Friday November 26, 2016
Today it got another new, sinister meaning as just an awful day where I should have stayed in bed and hid under the covers for 24 hours.
First, there was no internet for over 2 hours,... then I had to fight with the calefon to get the hot water to fire up.
One thing that did go right was an early morning meeting with my new real estate agent, Isaac, who will do his best to sell the house.
I called Multimotos to see if my Matricula and licence plate were ready (was supposed to be there yesterday), and I was told to come at 5pm.. Well I have heard this song & dance before, so I will call again tomorrow.
I uploaded my photo artworks to 3 sites for sale for many years, but discontinued on Zazzle a couple of years ago because they were just too complicated and not worth the time and effort. Regardless, very occasionally I would get notice that I had sold something. I checked to see if they had ever paid me, and no, there was $73.50 sitting in my account. So I amended my details and asked them to send me the money. They came back and said I had to fill out some IRS tax forms first and they were not giving any advice other than to supply links to IRS documents and suggest that we hire a qualified accountant for help to fill out the forms properly to refer to the proper Articles. Otherwise, they would withhold a flat 30% for the friggin' IRS. I filled out the forms as best I could and they said it wasn't good enough, they were withholding 30%... I said fine, I am removing all my work (which I did), and told them that I would warn everyone to stay away from Zazzle, and cost them a lot more than the stupid 30%, .... so consider yourselves warned.. Paying income tax to a foreign Government, which has a reciprocal agreement with our country, is idiotic in the first place. Secondly, this hobby is a big expense, certainly not an income producer.
I took Cristina on Buzzer to Mall de Rio to do some shopping. We were particularly interested in electric dog clippers at La Victoria, specifically an Oster for $55 and were hoping they had a big discount today.. Honestly, there were not many bargains and almost none at the advertised "up to" 60% off, anywhere. None of the clippers were at BF discounts but they were allowing 10% off, a nice guy discount. Then the saleman said that we should go for the much superior Wahl pet clippers at $75, less 10%, so that is what we did. Then my debit card would not work in any of their 3 machines so I had to dig out cash.
Then we wandered across the Mall, checking out a few things and I tried to get Cristina to go on her own while I did my own thing. I didn't want to look at earrings and clothes, and she wouldn't enjoy bike accessories, but she wanted to make us both miserable and stay together. Then I lost her for almost an hour, called her 10 times, walked the whole mall and Coral 5 times over before finally spotting her. She had left her phone at home (which did not register any of my calls!).
We had a nice lunch at McDonalds (I need a Big M fix once in a while, ... love their fries..) before heading back home.
Our next order of business was to walk to Coral at Monay to get supplies for another Thanksgiving celebration Saturday. We picked up some wine and a couple of large pies. We went to pay and, again, my Debit card would not work so I had to pay in cash. Note that I have not had any problems with the card previously... I note that Ecuadorians go for the 90mph swipe rather than a slow swipe and i wonder if that is part of the problem..??
The pies were in plastic containers then put in flimsy, fold-together cardboard carry cases. I had one and Cristina the other when I heard a crash beside me. The handle had broken on Cristina's, the cardboard opened, and the plastic container hit the floor at an angle, split open, with the pie upside down. Almost every checkout was open and full of customers sympathizing with out plight. It was up to me to bend and try to get the pie back in the plastic container to hand to a supervisor. She was very nice and took both the cardboard and the destroyed pie back to the bakery to exchange it for a new one. These were all put in a large plastic grocery bag which Cristina immediately noticed that the corner of the cardboard was ripping through. So it meant cradling the whole thing in my arms to the taxi and home.
I was so exhausted from all of this BS that I crawled into bed at 8pm for a fitful sleep.
Belated Happy Birthday to friends Jessenia and Oswaldo.
Sorry, no photos. That was the day's excitement. Cheers, Al
