Opening the shutters with the loud groaning, creaking, banging racket that signals the beginning of my day to the neighbors. It’s 6:30 on Saturday morning and I’m sure they don’t appreciate my perkiness when they are trying to have a nice ‘lie in’.
Have been lying in bed wide eyed since 4:30. Ever try to talk yourself back to sleep. Yeah, not real successful is it. ‘Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep’ over and over, not sure if I’m trying to hypnotize myself or bore myself back to sleep, but in either case it doesn’t work. Try counting but while the back of my mind is still counting without missing a single digit, the front of mind has already gotten board and is zooming ahead, tossing thoughts hither and yon, willy nilly.
There’s no point. I get up and want to open all the shutters right then, but waking people up with that racket in the 5 am stillness of a Saturday morning would be rude and unforgivable. Wander aimlessly, turn on the heat, start some laundry, empty the dishwasher and then my stomach says, “Um, excuse me but, where’s my breakfast?” (Only not in exactly those words). Frying some bacon, making coffee it’s now 5:45. Can I open them now? Huh, mom huh, can I please? Like some little kid at Christmas. I just want to peak. No, must wait, still too quiet outside.
Go to pour my coffee and scramble some eggs, when I am charged by a hideously large brown spider. Haven’t seen any of them around for a while, but here it comes right towards me, off the counter onto the floor and scuttling for shelter as if it’s life depends on it. (Obviously he’s heard. It does.) He crawls onto the kitchen rug that I quickly fold over him and begin to stomp and dance on while bad words, ignited by the adrenaline rush the fright of seeing the damn thing gave me, stream out of my mouth. The litany ending with something like “die sucker die”. Then my right knee is sending loud and urgent messages upstairs to the head office suggesting I should stop now. He’s dead. It’s ten after six. Take rug carefully out to laundry.
Finish cooking and set out my breakfast. Got my bacon, got my eggs, got my coffee too. It’s 6:30 and I hear the beginning twitters of bird song. It’s time. I open the window and shove the loudly protesting shutters open to find… Oh, I think you know what I find. It’s raining again.
Later that morning…
Hellooo, thank god I was up early. The landlord, with the garage door repairman in tow, arrives at precisely 9:00 am. First, holy geeze, glad I was up and dressed and the house is something resembling clean. Secondly, the man said they were coming at 9:00 am on Dimanche! Dimanche, that would be SUNDAY. Dimanche not sounding much like Samedi. Specifically remember them saying Sunday because I repeated it back to Monsieur Babec to be sure and the repairman speaks English and he said a week from Sunday. (This was last Friday when the repairman came to look at the garage doors with Monsieur Babec)
I let them in and Monsieur Babec hands me a piece of paper which is to certify that the radiator system had been serviced this year (I can read). Then, lord help me, he goes over and begins to play with the knobs on the control panel to show me what he’s talking about. I nod and smile that I know what he’s talking about. He goes out to annoy the repairman and an hour later I reach for the radiator to warm my hands and it’s stone cold. “Did he turn it off?” I mumble out loud and go check. No, what he has apparently done is turn the pilot off. I think that if I press the little button with the lightning bolt on it, it should turn the pilot back on. Instead, however, I misguidedly decide to go get the landlord, since he’s here he can risk explosions, especially since he’s the one who turned the goofy thing off. I bring him in and show him that the radiators are cold and point to the panel. He goes over and fiddles with knobs and buttons and looks baffled. I’m just beginning to be sorry that I didn’t go ahead and do it myself as he pulls out his cell phone to call a repairman. Good grief. Resist the urge to go over and push the button to turn the pilot back on. Sit down and read my book.
He peeks in and says that the repairman will arrive in 5 minutes. Praying silently for patience. Repairman arrives, an ancient and bent little African man. Smiling hugely, showing glowing white teeth to match his helmet of tight white curls. The man blessedly speaks English. I tell him what I suspect and he winks at me and goes over and pushes the little lightning bolt button and voila! flames spring up and we’re back in business. Monsieur Babec smiles broadly and walks the little old fossil back out to his equally fossilized Citroën. Poor man, to be dragged out in this weather for that. If I’d known what the repairman looked like I would have just done it myself. Oh well.
Everyone is driving away. Heat is on, garage doors both work perfectly and Monsieur Babec is done with his overseeing project for the day. All quiet now on the French front.
