Day 82: More Painting

It's Friday, the day usually earmarked for cleaning the apartment (temporary housing) but I'm going to the new apartment today to do more painting. To say that I'm not looking forward to it is an understatement. Going up and down that ladder is not something I want to do but it has to get done.

As the hours go by, I get as much done as I can and I fret over that I'm not getting enough done for tomorrow when the interns come to help paint. I will have to work ahead of them. So, what’s left to do in terms of trim? The color in the second bedroom and the white trim in the kitchen are what are left along with part of the color in the smallest of three bedrooms.

It’s been a long day of painting, up and down off the ladder, filling the paint trays but like other days, I start doing the white in the morning and graduate to the color in the afternoon. I’m hopeful that it will all be done tomorrow.

I clean up the paint trays, paint brushes and small rollers in anticipation of tomorrow’s work. I wish this part of the work was over since I’m chomping at the bit to get the cleaning done.

Ted is supposed to come to the apartment as soon as he's done with work because we are to go over to the base to get some supplies and to OBI to pick up another 5-10 liters of white paint. There are other things that I need to get as well but I can’t remember what they are off hand. I write them down in my little notebook so I don’t have to remember.

I sit on the “bar hocker” and wait. It’s boring so I take the bar hocker outside on the balcony and watch for him. The traffic goes by and at least there’s something to look at. I’m amazed that I’m watching people walk and ride their bicycles past our apartment and no one looks up. Not one person! Even the people parking their cars in the three spaces directly below our balcony don’t look up. I look all around wherever I go, I guess it’s just me.

Ted finally gets to the apartment but unfortunately it’s almost 6:30 and he’s hungry. Apparently, his boss called a last minute all hands meeting at 4:30 that lasted to nearly 6pm!. We decide to walk over to Mama Maria’s for dinner. By the time we ate, it was after 7 and now it was too late to go to PX/BX to get the supplies and it’s too late to hit OBI since they close at 8. We’re just going to have to go first thing in the morning. There’s no other way around it.

I ask Michelle (the proprietor of Mama Maria’s), what their hours are on Saturday. It appears they are closed on Saturday! A Pizza place closed on Saturday?? Unbelievable. OK. So now what? We have the beer for the guys, where are we going to get the Pizza? I tell Michele what we need and ask him if we can order the Pizza and we’ll just heat it up tomorrow. We get a large square pizza and a smaller square pizza. Although Michele was born in Germany, he is Italian through and through. His wife’s name is Anna and they hail from the Puglia Province in Italy.

We walk across the street to our apartment and go down into the garage and go back to the other apartment. When we get to the apartment, it occurred to me that I can’t fit that huge box of pizza along with the smaller box into the Fridge. OK. So, I’ll have to package it up and put it the Fridge. That done, it’s really time for bed. Tomorrow is going to be another REALLY long day!




Friday 6/12/09