Hindsight is 20/20....

Forgive me……for not bowing at the feet of our builder and thanking him profusely for paying for the place we are staying while we wait for the house that should have been ready when he promised it, back in January.  I understand he does not control the weather, but I foolishly expected to get a response to a text message that was sent a while ago.  So I texted him a message that told him that he could have at least let me know he got the message, since his big mantra has been "Actions speak louder than words, so he choses to act and not talk".  I texted him that I didn't appreciate his inaction on my prior text message, and it was common courtesy to at least acknowledge that he'd gotten it.   Instead, I got an email that basically bitched me out for "daring to expect such a thing, 'cause he's a busy guy" and "he's done anything and everything we've asked of him" and "how dare I text him with such an ungrateful attitude, I need to just back up".  WRONG THING TO SAY TO ME!!!!!    So I texted him back saying that I'm sure he was only attentive to us while we still owed him money, but now that he's been paid, he could care less.  Then he texts me back and says that, in fact, the house is NOT paid for, and he's mentioned it to Robert several times.  So then I texted him back saying, give me an itemized bill if he is still owed money.  Then when I ask Robert about still owing for the house, he mumbles some shit about the cistern, but basically shuts down..That's his modus operandi, just says nothing.  Classic passive-aggressive.  Meanwhile, the builder doesn't respond back to me, but instead calls Robert, who (of course) listens to whatever the builder says, hangs up, and proceeds to bitch at me, that I'm "jeopardizing our living here for free while we wait for the house".  I then proceeded to tell Robert that I do NOT give a shit how the builder feels, nor do I particularly care how he feels, either, since I am the sole breadwinner in this family right now.  I also told him he's crazy in the first place for dealing with a builder without having a written contract and that he's the ONLY person in the world who would do such a crazy thing and that the builder will never find anyone else to put up with the delays, etc, that we've put up with on this house.  Robert then gets all huffy and loud, telling me I should be grateful the builder is paying for this place to stay while the house is being done, because other builders who are late on the project do not pay for the owners to stay somewhere.  He also tells me that he has supported me for the 31 years we've been married, etc, etc. etc.  He seems to overlook the fact that I had 3 kids for him, I also worked while having those kids, moved from some place I loved (Florida) because he lost his job in 1995, and (as much as it pains my feminist soul to say this) it is the guy's job to take care of his family, etc.  Right now, if I left Ecuador, he would starve while he sat in his unfinished house that he still may owe money for, and I have no doubt whatsoever that Sarah would want to stay here with him, starving.  But I'm still supposed to believe that he "built the house I always wanted on the beach" and should be thankful for it.  Meanwhile, I'm working my ass off for WAY less than $1000/month, teaching spoiled kids who don't want to learn, who think plagiarism is "no big deal", who talk back, and who are upset because I DARE to request that they “speak English only while in English class”.  These are 8/9^th graders and Segundo bach (approx.. a HS junior)-aged kids.   I'm sure they talk in Spanish about the crazy gringa who stupidly took the job, living someplace that DEFINITELY sees a North American and thinks that they are rich (sorry guys, we're here because we have NO MONEY and it's much cheaper to live here, sorry to disappoint you!).  Living here has definitely taught me what a minority feels like, having just been given "the gringo price" (read: overpriced)  for a car battery and installation (don't EVEN ask me why Robert couldn't install a damn car battery, I'm liable to...well, never mind....at this point).

Meanwhile, last Sunday, Mother's Day night (of all nights), Peter sends me an email with the subject line COME HOME, although I didn't open it until the next day; he sent it to Robert, too, but he'll never respond to it.  It broke my heart and made me feel like shit for doing what I thought was the right thing, at the time.  Happy Mother's Day, indeed.  So somebody please tell me why I'm still here???  Because I really, really, really, really am wondering what the hell is wrong with me to have left the U.S...Oh yeah, our house in IL is in foreclosure, so it's not like I could move back there, my oldest son can't pay his bills on his minimum wage job and my middle kid is living with his girlfriend's family out of the goodness of their hearts. The only upside to us leaving the U.S. is that now Peter is considered a 'homeless youth' since he lives with someone he's not related to, and he gets all the financial aid that is allowed for college.

Now, with the thought of leaving Ecuador, I’m faced with the fact that evidently I have to have a censo card to be allowed to LEAVE, since we’ve been here over 90 days.  We tried to get a censo card last month in Manta, and I previously wrote about the fiasco that was….we were told to “come back next month, they might have the supplies to make censo cards by then”.  So all we got was a 6-month extension of our tourist visas.

Then my other question is, why hasn’t the attorney gotten the papers filed yet that show that Robert does own this unfinished house????  The residency visa is based on the fact of owning property of over 26,500.00, but if the deed is not filed, Robert does not own the house and cannot get a residency visa.  But Robert does not feel the urge to get this straightened out, other than to send a few emails to the attorney.  I guess this is my main problem…..I’ve gone along with his attitude of non-action in hopes that everything will work out.  Well, I don’t think I can put up with it any longer, and I’m tired of being the only person trying to get things accomplished here, with no success.  It’s like “shoveling shit against the tide”, to quote one of my Dad’s famous expressions. 

Actually, it’s probably a “folie a deux”, defined here:

fo·lie à deux  (fô-l ä d, fl)

n.

A condition in which symptoms of a mental disorder, such as the same delusional beliefs or ideas, occur simultaneously in two individuals who share a close relationship or association.

---

[French : folie, madness + à, between + deux, two.]

Please don't read this and get the wrong impression.   My parents and brother would let me live with them until I could get my shit together, my sister would too (I'm pretty sure), and my long-lost cousin in Iowa has even offered me a place to stay.  I do have a little bit of money put away 'in case Sarah & I need to get back to the States’, (even though I doubt she would leave "her Daddy" behind), I'm approaching 50 in October and feel like the stupidest, most gullible Loser in the world for jumping onto the Crazy Train that has become my life.  I'm sure many people will be telling me to "Just put on my Big-Girl Panties and suck it up" or, better yet, "You made your bed, now you can lie in it".  But I just don't know if I can hear that right now.  I feel broken, and I don't know what to do, other than to get some catharsis by trying to type out the pain I'm feeling.  I know others will think badly of me for "airing my dirty laundry", but again, I can't keep acting like everything is peachy-keen when it isn't.  If you're offended, I'm sorry for it, but I cannot change my feelings.

New pictures of the house....

So I'm putting the link to pictures of the house taken today here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.421026324574945.105730.100000027424577&type=1  Robert has been uploading the pictures to facebook, and even if you aren't on facebook, you can see the pictures....they're public.  The roof is finished, some painting has been done, the lava rock for the base of the foundation is being applied, and the window frames are in (no glass yet, though).  Some of the doors are hung, but not the front door or sliders on the back of the house.  We've quit asking for a move-in date....it's too frustrating to pass by any date that is told to us.  I just believe it's complete when we finally move in...whenever that is.

Other news...Sarah did attend the school I'm teaching at for about a week or so, then decided it wasn't for her.  The language barrier is too great at this stage, with all of the classes being taught in Spanish except for my English class, and she is too shy to approach other students, and they do not want to speak English to her.  She is now taking internet school (homeschooling) in English from home, at her own pace, however fast or slow that may be.  The main thing is that all of the lessons, books, materials needed are available over the internet, which is convenient since Ecuador's mail system is expensive and leaves much to be desired, and it's an American School.  It's Global Student Network, at http://www.globalstudentnetwork.com, and she's in 7th grade, like she was in the States.  She was in 8th grade here in Ecuador. Sarah is still being tutored an hour per day in Spanish M-F by one of the teachers at my school, but she is also taking Spanish as one of her electives in the internet school.

Well, my oldest "baby" turned 25 on April 21st, and I really wished we were together for it, but that's life.  It sounds like he had a good day, so as long as he's happy, then I'm okay.


School for me, now that the kids are back in school, has been very interesting these past 2 weeks.  I teach English as a Second Language (ESL) to 8th & 9th grade, Level A (the higher of 2 levels) in a combined class, and I also teach Segundo Bachillerato, which is 12th grade here (equivalent to 11th grade in the US).  I teach 12 hrs/week per grade, so I teach 24 hours/week with 12 hrs "free" for planning/week.

Watching Mamma Mia again.....love Abba's music!!!  Enjoy the pictures.

OMG, another fall, WTF??!!!

Last week we went to our attorney's office on Thursday to get our 90 day tourist visas extended to 6 months, but the attorney's office did not have our papers translated into Spanish...even though they've had well over a month to do the translation.  They also did not have the builder's signature on the transfer papers, so it was a wasted trip, and I was EXTREMELY pissed off about it.  So today was our second trip this week to Manta to get the extension of our tourist visas.  We first went to our attorney's office on Wednesday (with our builder with us this time) to get have our property deed signed by us and the builder, then notarized.  We then had to wait for the deed to be entered into the computer system, had to have our pictures taken, and then they confiscated our passports to add the extension to them.  We had to come back today to pick up the passports and we each had to be here to accept our own passport.  But first we had to go to San Vicente this morning to have the deed transferred into our names, which was a whole other problem in itself (and expensive!!), in order to bring it to the attorney to get the process for our "investment visas" started (allegedly it will take about 4 months), which is why we needed the 6-month extension.  We brought it to the attorney, then went with his assistant to retrieve our passports.  We get out of the taxi and go up the stairs to the immigration office, when I tripped on the stairs, ripping open my big toe and gushing blood all over my flip-flop.  WTF is wrong with me????!!!??? I had a roll of toilet paper in my purse (always have some here in EC!!), so I just slapped some on my big toe, which resulted in it immediately sticking to my foot and making me look even stupider, but at least I wasn't trailing blood all over immigration!!!  We were given our passports back with  a page pasted into it with the photos they took on Wednesday in black & white.  We went to lunch  (where I very skillfully applied two band-aids on my big toe), then wanted to see about getting our censo cards....these are the national id cards that one needs to do anything here in EC, including leaving the country, after 90 days.  We took another taxi trip with the attorney's assistant, this time to the police dept. to see about getting our censo cards.  I have no idea why the attorney's office did not CALL THE POLICE OFFICE FIRST TO SEE IF THEY HAD THE MATERIALS BEFORE WE LEFT (maybe because that would be the smart thing to do???), but they didn't, and we were told after arriving at the police office that they wouldn't have the materials to make the censo cards until "probably May".  So we schlepped back in another taxi to get our car parked at the attorney's office and left to go back home to Bahia. I am just soooo sick of driving to Manta!!!  So that was our attorney-related, travel to Manta fun this week.  School starts on Monday, and I'm looking forward to it (so far).  We'll see how it goes!!

Also, today was Friday the 13th, and according to Nicholas Crowder's book Culture Shock! Ecuador, Ecuadoreans do not believe that Friday the 13th is unlucky, however, they do think that the 13th that falls on a Tuesday is bad luck....go figure!!!

Pictures taken today of house, etc.

So it's been a little while....

Since I last posted.  Sarah turned 13 on March 30th.  I was going to make a birthday cake for her, but there isn't any pre-made/canned frosting here in Ecuador.  I was going to bake a cake and put some pudding-type covering on it, but I couldn't get the oven lit.  The stovetop has electronic ignition for the lp gas, but there isn't an electronic ignition for the oven to work, and I was just afraid the condo would explode.  Also, we didn't have matches and the lighter we had did not fit into the hole that a match was supposed to go into (I believe).  I was reading the back of the cake mix box, which (because it was Duncan Hines) was in English.  The directions said to preheat the oven to 325 degrees, so I look at the knob for the oven temp and it says "maximum 250 degrees" and I freak out and ask out loud to Robert & Sarah, "How the hell am I supposed to cook a cake when the dial says max 250 degrees...cook it for 4 hours or what"?  I was extremely frustrated and told Robert and Sarah to just go to the bakery and buy a cake, I didn't care what kind.  While they were gone, I laid down to try and calm down some, and it then struck me....the stove is in Celsius and the directions on the cake were Farenheit.....DUH!!!!  Anyway, by then Robert and Sarah had brought back a white cake with coconut flaked frosting and strawberries on top, with strawberry creme filling between the 3 layers.  We had a very (forced) singing of Happy Birthday, took a picture or two, then cut into the cake.  Sarah didn't like it, but by then, I didn't care...I was determined to have her birthday, even if it KILLED ME!!!  Just FYI, 350 F is equivalent to a little past the 170 C mark on the temperature dial on the oven.   The weekend before Sarah's birthday, we had driven to Manta, and she got a volleyball at the mall, as well as a pair of purple kicks that she'd wanted from Payless shoes, but they were outrageously priced at $43.00 the first time we saw them.  Thankfully, they were a little bit on sale, so we got them as part of her b'day gift.  Lemme tell you.....Payless shoes here in Ecuador are NOT the inexpensive shoe store like they are in the States....they should be called Paymore here in EC!!!  While we were in Manta, we also got Sarah's school supplies, because school goes back from summer break on April 16th.  At first it was going to be April 2, then April 9, then this week the Ministry of Education announced it would be April 16th.

Sarah had been coming to the school for a while being tutored in Spanish for about an hour a day and an hour in math.  On the last day of tutoring (March 29th), the principal approached me and my manager (the head of the English dept.) was there to translate to me that the principal felt like Sarah really needed to be tutored in Spanish because all of her classes would be in Spanish, and he was afraid she wouldn't be able to keep up and/or she would slow the class down too much.  So starting on Monday, she'll be getting tutored by one of the other English teaches who is bilingual, and that teacher will also help her get her homework deciphered from Spanish.  If worse comes to worse and Sarah is too overwhelmed by the language barrier, we can always put her in Internet online classes, which would be exclusively in English.  It would also be less expensive than going to my school, even with the tuition discount I'm getting for being a teacher there.

So last weekend I sent our attorney an email asking what was going on with our investment visas since our 90 days is fast approaching, and was told on Monday that we would need to come to Manta to fill out more paperwork to get an extension to our 90-day tourist visa.  So we arranged to come today (Thursday) since I would be off work today and tomorrow for Holy week holiday.  We got up at 6a and left around 7:15a because our appt. was at 9:30a.  Finally, after the attorney got in, he took the 3 of us and his assistant to the immigration.  He allegedly went to park the car, so we went with the attorney's assistant and were taken almost immediately.  The guy behind the desk looked at our papers and said our papers were not in order.  We told the assistant that they had all of the apostilled originals, which we'd given them at our 1st visit. The immigration guy told the assistant everything that needed to be changed and said we could come back once it was corrected.  He said all of our documents  had to be notarized and translated into Spanish.  Meanwhile the attorney was missing in action, off doing whatever.  He never came in to be with us, so the assistant paid for a taxi to take us back to the office and get started on the paperwork changes.  When the attorney finally came back to the office, he told us to go get lunch and meet him back in the office at 3pm and we'd go back to the immigration office.  When we returned at 3pm, the office girls told us that 1) the immigration office closed at 3pm, so we couldn't go back today and we'd have to come back next week sometime and 2) the attorney "wasn't there because he had to go to a meeting somewhere in Manta that wasn't there".  Needless to say, I was ready to kill some people.  I asked the assistant why the immigration guy told us to come back if he knew they were closing at 3p, and she reluctantly admitted that it took them "longer than expected" to get the papers translated, etc, and he didn't tell her they were closing at 3p because he assumed that just the request for extension letter would be corrected and we'd come straight back.  And to add insult to injury, evidently the deed information that Xavier scanned & emailed to us and to the attorney is basically useless because the papers have not been notarized and the deed has NOT been transferred from his ownership to our ownershp STILL.  So basically, we went to Manta (90 minute trip each way) for NOTHING, and we still are no closer to getting the necessary paperwork done.  NOTE TO ANYONE DOING ANY PAPERWORK IN ECUADOR TO GET A PROPERTY OR GET AN INVESTMENT VISA OR GETTING AN EXTENSION OF A TOURIST VISA......EVERYTHING TAKES AT LEAST 4X LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HERE!!!!!!   Robert has sent an email to the attorney advising him that we are displeased with their performance today, esp. since they've had the paperwork for over a month and never got it translated before today.  He also sent Xavier an email telling him the paperwork needs to be notarized and properly processed because it is holding up applying for resident visa status for us.  Probably neither email will produce any results, but one can hope.

Well, now that I've vented, hopefully I'll be able to sleep.  Cars and motorcycles and people have been going up & down the malecon all night, being noisy, but that's Bahia on a holiday.  Many out-of-towners come to 'la playa' for any holiday that involves a long weekend.

 

Call me Profesora Debbie....

So check me out....I'm listed on our school's website as Profesor

Deborah Brookhart in the English department:  http://www.interamericano.edu.ec/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=135.  Take a look around the website...Sarah is awaiting the school supply list for 8th grade.  School starts in 2 weeks, April 2nd.

On other news, Robert took Dillon to get groomed today.  Instead of the Petco charge of $56.00, it was a whopping $15.00.  He wasn't trimmed as low as usual, but this was the 1st trim here in Ecuador, and we weren't sure what to expect.  He smells fresh and clean, they trimmed his nails and cleaned out his ears.

Oh yeah, fell down AGAIN at work, this time in the dirt, onto my right knee, right in front of Sarah, who laughed like crazy.  She was bringing me a bottled water when she came to school for tutoring.  Some other student, a boy who spoke English, asked me if I was okay.  I felt like a giant doofus.  This is why I am worrying about a progressive neurological disorder!!!!  To add insult to injury, when I told my co-workers, one of them said they would now call falling down "pulling a Debbie".  Thanks, co-workers!!

Still no Direct TV, but did get a car.....

For reasons which are really....pure Ecuador....we still do not have Direct TV.  I'm not even going to go into the various reasons we've been told, but it's all a crock of you-know-what.  Honest to God, I am just soooooo over this place right at the moment.

Over the weekend, Robert looked at a car that an expat couple was looking to sell...they've only had it a few months, but they are going back to the States because they are not thrilled with living here (what a surprise!).  It's a 2007 foreign car that I've never heard of (Zoyte Nomada 1.3), it's a 5-speed manual, 5-door with a/c and a radio that takes a usb cord or an SD card input, so I could use my ipod in it if I wanted.  Robert wired the money into the couple's US bank account, and he got the car today.  Getting it registered, etc. was not completed today since there were complications, like the rain caused the computer system to be down....a totally VALID and common occurrence here.  NOTHING is easy here.

Tomorrow, Sarah will be going to my school to take her placement tests to see what areas she may need tutoring.  I'm hoping she can get tutoring in Spanish, but I don't know.   Found out today that we still need the books for the curriculum at school.....and school is supposed to start on April 2nd.  Once again, a problem that seems to be very common here....being told what you want to hear instead of the truth, which is NOT what you want to hear.  So you're just told something to keep you quiet for now, when it's going to be trouble later.  SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!  Since the grades here go to 13, Sarah will be in grade 8 here (which is equivalent to our grade 7).  I found out today that I'll be teaching English for grades 8, 9 AND 12, which is news to me.  I thought I'd only be teaching 8 & 9th grades, but whatever.

Hasta luego!

T.G.I.F.....and waiting for DirecTV...

For only working 4 days this week, I'm super glad it's Friday!  If it wasn't, I'm not sure what I would've done, except perhaps cry.  Getting back into the swing of working (and not even full-time yet) has been hard, but I'm working with pretty nice people so far.   Let's see....Tuesday I started back to work, Wednesday at work was a tutorial on Excel, yesterday we had International Women's Day, which the women at the school celebrated by going to an event/"field trip" at the Museo Bahia de Caraquez....which was basically a few speeches by various officials about the value of women, a performance by a female singer of some importance, a film about the first woman voting in Ecuador, and some food was served (finger sandwich, 2 other local things that I couldn't identify, and some flan)...of course, all in Spanish.  Then our "field trip" ended and we went back to the school, only to get back on the bus to go home.  After work, Robert, Sarah & I had to go to a local store to see if they had a printer to purchase.  My new job needed a copy of my resume for my personnel file, Robert needed to print out a copy of the DirecTV contract, etc, so we purchased a Canon Pixma MP280 printer/scanner for $95.00 here, which I do think was a good price for the choices available.  This is the weird thing....copy paper that I got is a different size than in the States....it is slightly longer and a little less wide, at 8.3 x 11.7 inches.  Kinda freaky at first, but it seems to print nicely.  We decided to stop at my new co-worker, Edyta's house, since it is directly across from the printer store.  She is the other English teacher that is not fluent in Spanish, like me, so we've become fast friends.  She and her husband are from Poland, but her husband also has lived in TX and FL and IL, same as us.....how weird, huh??  Anyhoo, I'm walking to her door to ring the buzzer, and I fell down on the step....there are uneven steps EVERYWHERE here, with no uniform size for steps or anything.  Of course, Sarah laughed at me, but then when we were leaving Edyta's house, Robert fell down a different, still uneven, step!!  There are also broken sidewalks, potholes, and all kinds of uneven sidewalks, everywhere, and it's very easy to not watch where you are going and fall.

Now we get to today at work, which is another Excel class...and I thank God the computer lab is air conditioned.  I went to the front of the room to get some room-temp water since I'd forgotten my water bottle.  I was too busy hoping the whole time that it's "agua purificado" in the pitcher, since you cannot drink the tap water here because it is not safe...even our Ecuadorean builder told us way in advance to only drink bottled water here, and never get ice unless you made it yourself.  All of a sudden, I didn't notice the step in front of me and I went down like a sack of potatoes, in front of all of the other teachers!!  I mean, I fell HARD, and went SPRAWLING.  The other English teachers were like, "Are you okay?  Are you badly hurt?" but I was too embarrassed to say what my 'inside voice' was saying, which was, "OH MY GOD, I THINK MY KNEES ARE BLEEDING UNDER THESE HOT JEANS BUT I DON'T WANT ANYONE TO SEE MY SCABBY, MOSQUITO-BITTEN LEGS!!" (For the record, after I got home I took the jeans off and my knees were skinned under the jeans but not bleeding...but now hours later, my left knee is swollen and hurting.)  Well, you all probably know how much of a hypochondriac I am, and immediately I start to think--all the way home, "Maybe I have something bad, like Multiple Sclerosis, since I read in one of my many medical books that frequent falls could be a sign of MS!!"  Now before anyone says something snarky, I'm not making fun of people with MS, or people that fall a lot; obviously, I am now one of those people, because I  live in Ecuador, where no walkway can be free of fall-inducing hazards...at least, that's what I tell myself to ease my worrying, wandering mind.

Our other adventure today was 'Robert waits for DirecTV'.  On Tuesday evening, fresh with the thought that, "Dammit, I'm working during the day now, so I deserve to get satellite tv since we've been without tv since we arrived on Jan 16."  I sent a terse email to our builder asking him if he'd be able to help us call DirecTV, or would we have to ask one of our other bilingual friends to help us instead, since we've asked and asked and he's never gotten around to call for us.  When I got home from my 2nd day at work, Wednesday, Robert told me that DirecTV said they'd be out "Friday or Saturday of this week (2 or 3 days after the call) to install for us".  I was pleasantly surprised, but told him, "That's great, did they give a time frame, like a noon-5p slot, like in the States?"  Robert said no, just 'Friday or Saturday'.  Robert stayed home all day, not leaving the house once, waiting for DirecTV to come to the condo.  At 6:30p, we left to go eat dinner at our favorite place, Pepito's, and were pleasantly surprised to find our friend Barbara from The Blue Parrot, also there for dinner.  She'd wondered why Robert & Sarah weren't there for breakfast as usual this morning, and Robert told her he had been "waiting for DirecTV".  Around 8:45p our builder called to ask if DirecTV installed for us today.  Robert advised him no, and the builder asked if we wanted to go out tomorrow to see the house....Robert said, "Yes, but not until DirecTV comes."  Then the builder said, "Well, let me know if they don't come out tomorrow", and Robert (knowing exactly how I feel about this) says, "Oh, I will!"  So I guess we will see what tomorrow will bring.  I hate to be pessimistic, but let's just say I will be really surprised & happy if it actually happens tomorrow.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention....yesterday, after a few failed attempts, the builder took Robert to pick out appliances for the house.  I did not go with Robert to do this....he knows what I like.  He chose a side-by-side stainless steel fridge, a stainless 4-burner gas stove with a cookie-sheet-size small oven and the main big oven, and a matching white front-loading washer and electric dryer, which will be in the separate laundry room.  The sales woman "threw in" a "free" stainless microwave and a propane gas tank for the oven, since gas is not piped in from the street like in the States.  The builder at first was a little surprised that I did not require the middle of the stove to have a grill-type burner, but I told him cooking was not high on my list of activities that I LOVED.  He also was happy that we didn't want a dishwasher, since it wastes more water, which is a precious commodity here, and paper/foam plates are also very expensive ...most people do not use them in Ecuador.  I will be most happy to be able to wash/dry my own clothes instead of taking them to the Lavanderia and picking them up a day or two later, all the while paying .60/lb. for someone else to do the job.  I realized shorts and tank tops do not weigh much, but jeans can weigh 3 lbs./pair and towels can be heavy, and it's no fun to schlep your laundry around in the heat, whether it's clean or dirty!

Hasta luego, amigas & amigos!