Jackson Hurls - Not everything is Less Expensive - Persistent Drips

Yesterday I realized that Jackson is not entirely adjusted to the altitude. We went out for our morning walk and I noticed he was a little winded, but figured everything was OK. Since it was time for him to eat, I fed him and he gulped his food down, as usual. A few minutes later he decided he wanted to play fetch --and again this is not unusual --so we played a little fetch. After one of his last retrievals, he got this dejected look on his face, turned and walked out of the carpeted room we were in, and promptly vomited all of his breakfast! He then laid down and huffed and puffed for a bit longer. I figure it was a combination of the fatigue from the walk and the playing, plus having just eaten. Oh, well. Lesson learned. Guess we both need to be more conscious about adjusting to the altitude.

Jackson's vomitus was an inspiration for me to go shopping ...for cleaning supplies, among other things. I went on a long walk to the mall to get some sundries. It's amazing how many little things you need when you are setting up a house. Little things one takes for granted like toilet paper, hand soap, toilet brush, etc. It all adds up and you have to buy it.

While I was out, I wandered into a drug store and saw some of the dental floss that has an end you can thread through a permanent retainer, like the one I have on my lower teeth. I figured I'd get some. Not that I needed it right away, but I figured there it is. What a mistake! When I went to checkout, the tab was ridiculously high. I inquired what drove the price up and found out the little package of special dental floss was nearly $20. How insane is that. On the heels of that, I priced a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka (750 ml, standard size, not jumbo) and that was $65. Also insane.

The other weird thing about shopping is that the products I'm just used to running down the aisle and picking up are re-packed in unidentifiable ways down here or entirely unavailable. I spend much more time finding the usual stuff or looking for replacements. And the people here just linger in the aisles looking at stuff, so it is shopping cart mayhem in the aisles trying to get through.

While shopping I did meet a mother, father, and son team of missionaries from Oklahoma and chatted with them. The were shocked I spotted them as non-locals!

Last week was consumed diagnosing a couple of water leaks in diverse area of the house --hence the photo of water dripping. The place is brand new, so no one has turned on all the faucets, flushed all the toilets, etc. The plumber who was here last week swore that one leak was behind a shower, but I have figured out over the weekend that cannot possibly be true. I have now diagnosed the true source of the leak, which is the toilet, so it is much easier to repair. Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, now that I have saved the plumber lots of time figuring out where that leak was from, I returned home today to find another leak. This one is beneath my master bathroom sink. Some clean up and emptying of the cabinet awaits me later tonight, since the plumber arrives bright and early tomorrow.

Today was a long day of meetings and I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to grab a beer and pizza... then clean and dry!

More Ecuador adventures to follow tomorrow.

Thanks to all of you who have sent emails and called.