I started out my day rather badly - I fell down the stairs. They are narrow and rather slippery and I went upstairs stocking-footed. As I came down, I apparently stepped too far out on a step and my foot slipped. I only fell about 4 steps - didn’t bump my head. Roger was standing quite near the stairs and was able to help keep me from sliding or falling all the way down. I ripped my left pinkie open, wrenched my left hip and my right knee and generally banged myself up. Sigh. This happened just before we were planning to leave the apartment, so we delayed that by half an hour while I collected myself and put a bandage on the pinkie.
Yesterday when Roger returned from chess, there was a notice on the interior door of our building telling us that the building tenants should pick up their badges from the building manager by May 13. So this morning after hitting up the grocery store, we stopped into the real estate management office which manages our building. We entered and I told them in French that we live at 13 boulevard du Jeu de Paume and that we were here for our badges. The clerk checked something in the computer, and another clerk said something about “Stephenson,” who is our landlord., and I replied “oui.” The first clerk then pulled out two small electronic tags, noted the numbers on them - #14 and #15 - and handed them over to us. We thanked them and left. The amazing thing is that we conducted the entire conversation in French, but even more amazing, they did not ask us our names or for any ID. Hm - isn’t that secure!
The upshot of it all is that they are changing our lock from an old-fashioned key-in-the-door to an electronic swipe system, and these “badges” are our electronic keys. We will be gone to Spain on the 13th, and will not return until the 18th. I hope there are no glitches in the system and that we can get in when we return!
The prospective tenants called this morning and made an appointment to come by at 2:00. Roger left a little early to go to chess as he didn’t want to have to deal with trying to get away for chess if they came early. They did not - they arrived right at 2:00 and trudged up the three flights of stairs. I opened our door as I heard them on the stairs - there are two doors on our landing and I wanted them to know which was ours. They were a couple about our age - the guy looked older. He is a professor of Jewish studies and genocide studies - not sure where, but in Israel, I suppose. I gave them a brief tour of the apartment and they seemed happy with it overall except for the street noise. Unfortunately there is a lot in the main living area of the apartment. There is construction ongoing out on the street, and constant traffic. There are double-glazed windows which shut out a lot of noise, but in the summer, it will be necessary to have the windows open, as there is no air conditioning in the flat. I don’t know if they will take it or not.
Unfortunately, right in the middle of their visit, the phone rang, and it was Alicia! Regrettably, I had to tell her I could not talk right now. Why did she have to pick this time to call – one of the few times in our whole stay here that I could not take the time to talk!
By the time evening rolled around, my knee was quite sore and stiff. I took a hot bath and that seemed to help a bit. I will need to get out and walk tomorrow to start working some of the stiffness out. Some modern-day prophets have declared that the world is going to end on May 21. Perhaps they are right - two baths in one week, three in 10 days! Surely the world will end soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment