Aaannnnnddddddddddddd February!

The renovation is still going strong. Day 2 (yesterday) revealed that, although the landlady (well, her mom really. Wanna know something? The actual for-real landlady uhhh doesn't know about this little new room. Yup. I had a call the other day from Anya- the lady who originally rented this place to us. Unbeknownst to us at the time, the apt is in her adult dau's name. All our business was with Anya until a certain point last year when the dau stepped in and said- I'm the owner you know. Your dealings will be with me now. I think she thought her mom was too soft with us. heh. teehee. I wonder why. So anyway- Anya calls- Uhhh You're meeting with my dau later today? Yes, I say. Uhhh. Well. Do you mind not telling her about that work we're going to be doing on that room at the apt? She uhhhh doesn't know about it. She uhhhh doesn't think we have enough money for it right now. I thought for a minute. And then said Well I can just keep quiet about it. I had no intention of lying about it but I also couldn't see why it should even come up since Darling Dau had no reason to suspect, apparently. And sure enough, not a word was said. If I hadn't had so many frustrations with Darling Dau, I would feel a bit sorry for her but... so anyway- back to the proverbial ranch. Day 2 revealed that, although the landlady's MOM said they were going to redo the walls, it is, in fact, the whole room that's getting a new do. There is laminate flooring in that collection up there. And the walls and ceiling will be drywall. And Mr Renovator Man is one hard working dude. He works from 9 am to 6 or 7 pm with no breaks for anything- food, drink, toilet, nothing. He goes outside (ahem) about twice in that stretch for a smoke. And. That. Is. It. After a previous experience* with some handymen-types here, that is impressive, to say the least.  

So yeah- it's February and real winter has finally set in. It's so cold and windy that I had to put a sleeping bag on the windowsill in my room to keep the plants from freezing. And I'm wearing everything I can get on and still move. And I'm just in the apartment. Looking through the window at the few people out there trying to navigate cured me of the urge to go anywhere.

So- babble much? I guess.

*Little T and I once were called by a frantic (sort of) male from our little team- Get over here as fast as you can. These clowns who are supposed to be doing the painting aren't working fast enough. We need to use this place for GUESTS next week and they're slow as molasses. So off we went. To paint. And sure enough, there were 2 handymen. Painting. Sort of. Reality was they took a 20 min smoking and tea break once an hour. I kid you not. We worked circles around them and they laughed at us. What do you want to get this done for so fast, they asked. There'll just be more to do after that. One of our team said to me He doesn't want to hurry up because he's out of the house and away from his wife while he's here. Well haha. We gotter done, thanks. And they got fired.