Tuesday, June 22, 2021

French apartment renovations, Day 183: Comrade and The Beast

12,207 steps

It seems like one of us is constantly having disturbed sleep...last night it was my turn. I woke up at 4:30 am and just couldn't get back to sleep. Summer solstice partiers were still out on their last gasp of revelry, the birds had already started chirping, and it was starting to get light out. Who can sleep through that? Obviously not me.

So when the 7 am alarm went off, I woke Eric up and asked him to take over, and then I fell back asleep until 9 am.

But anyway, enough of that. Not very interesting for you readers, I'm sure!

I went rock-hunting this morning, since we have some large gaps and small cracks to fill in our stone walls. I totally lucked out: down the street there was a crew of workers emptying stones & earth from a demolition project into a dump truck. They were happy to let me take 2 loads of stones home. I scrubbed them free of dirt. Now I have a nice pile of bigger rocks, and I still need to collect small-to-medium ones. I think if I take a few home from the beach every day, I'll be okay.

After lunch, we met up at Comrade's garage to borrow his enormous air compressor. It's about 5 feet long and weighs a ridiculous amount. I have named it The Beast.


Comrade and Eric loaded it into the back of his vehicle, a small delivery car/van that a lot of Europeans use for work vehicles, and brought it to our apartment. Eric and I managed to get it up 2 flights of stairs, one step at a time with a rest between each step.

By this time it was almost 3 pm. I hadn't eaten yet, so I took a well-earned food break.

The air compressor was missing a small reducer, so we went to the local plumbing supply store. We found the right part and it was only 65 cents! But funny thing is, I only had 48 cents in my wallet and they wouldn't take a credit card for such a small amount. The owner (who recognized us) took my 48 cents and said, "Consider it a neighborly good-will gift."

We were so hot by late afternoon that we decided to take the kids for a quick swim after school. Inga went to a friend's house and then met us at the beach. Dio ended up playing with a friend, so he missed out.

At the beach Ivy lost her second mask in a row (she lost one yesterday as well). We had big waves and cloudy water, so Eric was unable to retrieve the masks. He got upset with her because he had JUST told her not to put a mask on, and then she put it on and promptly lost it when a wave hit her. With less than 1 foot of visibility, there was no hope to find it today. Eric is determined to find both of them as soon as the water clears up.

I stayed for a half-hour and brought Ivy back home iwth me. Eric, Inga, and Zari stayed for a while longer. Dinner was 2 fish (caught by Eric a few days ago), salad, and rice.

After dinner, I was still cool enough from my swim that I felt up to working in the Communist apartment. I finished scrubbing the lime residue off the exposed stone wall. The residue isn't completely gone, but it's about as good as I can get for now.

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