French apartment renovations, Day 670-672: Fancy dinners and too much noise

I haven't skipped two days of journaling since the start of the pandemic. I forgot the first night, and last night we didn't get in until after midnight.

We had a fancy dinner at the Palais de la Méditerranée last night to celebrate Cavigal's 80th anniversary. I didn't realize how many sports are done through Cavigal--they are probably best known for football (soccer) but do lots of other sports, too.

There were about 500 people in attendance and, true to French character, there were MANY MANY speeches. So many speeches. Our invitation said to come at 6:30 pm and we weren't served the first course until 9:45 pm! When we first arrived, there was an aperitif, mostly classic Niçois foods in miniature (pan bagnat, pissaladière, tomato tart, tarte aux blettes, tuna sandwiches, olives, lamb skewers, tapenade, smoked salmon sandwiches, etc.).

The natives were certainly restless by time dinner was served. It was decent, especially given they were serving it to 500 people:

• Appetizer (entrée): roasted eggplant topped with hummus, roasted bell peppers, brussels sprouts, radishes, and olives
• Main dish (plat principal): Loup (sea bass) with roasted vegetables, cherry tomatoes stuffed with tapenade, and olive polenta
• Dessert: Dôme passion (almond cake, passionfruit curd, mango filling, all covered in a coconut mousse)

By 11 pm I was ready to sleep, but we had just barely gotten the main dish. And it was SO LOUD. There was music playing when people weren't speechifying, and then they had an auction and a raffle drawing. The volume kept increasing until it was beyond just loud and into painful levels.

We were one of the first to leave at 11:45 pm. Then I had stress dreams and woke up more than once to dreams of bedbug infestations and huge holes opening up in our US house due to carpenter bees. (My brain is so weird.)

Today was much more relaxed. We all went to the beach to lie in the sun, only it started getting hazy and then overcast when we arrived. Still, we had a good half hour or so. Eric went spear fishing and was disappointed that he didn't catch anything. One of the big elastics on his harpoon broke early on and the remaining elastic didn't have enough power to spear anything.

Yesterday we cleared everything out of the entire downstairs area and put it all into the step-down kitchen. Then we did a light sanding and put one more coat of finish on. There were several spots that had gotten damaged or finish splashed on them, and it was best just to redo the whole thing.

Anyway I'm begging Zari and Dio to go to bed so I can go to bed. So far it's not working.