They finished!

Will O'Wisp at the (new) kitchen window

Wisp's a happy kitty again, back at her look-out.

I'm just kidding, but they did come and bring the two windows that are ready to be installed. Both were supposed to go in today, but only the kitchen window that required no more than each panel being set on its hinges once the plywood was taken down is in. The stair window is sitting out in the smaller of the so-called guest rooms. Who knows why it couldn't go in. I can see that they opened the horrendous decorative (selon les goûts) stained glass window in plastic and at least looked at where it is supposed to go. Maybe they forgot that it needed a frame for the masonry opening?

I was running out when they arrived, just closing the gate on the way back in from a walk with the dogs and heading in to get my work-out stuff for a torture session (I'm just kidding, again, it's so much fun to push myself to my limits!) with Bruno, and there was the cab of the truck pulling up, José smiling at me.

I just can't be stern with them. They're nice guys.

I ran in, stowed the dogs, grabbed my stuff and the keys, and raced back out in time to greet them both, José standing behind Georges with the kitchen window in his hands.

"Ca va, Madame de Floris? C'est comme vous l'avez voulu?"

"Oui, Georges. Ca a l'aire très bien."

"L'autre, pour l'escalier, est dans le camion. Venez que je vous la montre." I followed him out to the truck, parked out in front of France Telecom's utility building, to look at the window with the double-glazing. It had a cremone bolt just like the others in the house, but not like the quite original one on the kitchen window that we asked them to reuse. What's more, the kitchen window doesn't have the same small panels as the other two windows in the room. It used to be in an old room that was off to the side, so it was only visible from the outside. Now that someone took the wall down, it's in the same room, but it never bothered Audouin, and since he likes it that way, well, I let i be and had the new one made just like it.

I know some architects with whom I have worked who would be rolling in their graves -- if they were actually dead, which they are not -- if they knew. I don't think they read this, so I am safe for now.

"Mais, Madame de Floris, ça serait tellement mieux si toutes les fenêtres étaient comme ça, toute neuves, non?" He was pleading with me again to make new windows for the whole house.

"Georges, alors, faites-moi un devis et on vera! Je dois y aller -- merci!"

Mais, Madame de Floris... it's actually kind of cute.

Wait! I am going to see if they loaded up the metal shutters and took them to be sandblasted and painted. That was supposed to happen today.

What was I thinking? Of course not. If they say Wednesday, then it certainly won't be Wednesday. They're all out there, lining the walls like tipsy, chilly soldiers.

On the dumb side, the window guy put a light base coat on the exterior of the windows, as well as the interior. I told Joaquim that I was leaning toward leaving them unpainted outside, just stained so that they all have the slightly reddish color of the wood of those that were painted in the dark, liverish-red color before.

Now, they will have to strip them, too.

They also unloaded a new pile of sand out by the garage door for the lower part of the walls, with which it is too cold to proceed right now.

I am getting depressed from the lack of progress and the lenteur. I thought we'd be living in our finished house, inside and out, by now. Sam told me that Xavier's father sued their contractor, who whined that he had had to sell his BMW and declare bankruptcy. At least we're not quite there.

As for the miracle fish, I saw two swimming around under the ice. They are obviously social beings because they are rarely one by one. More like two by twenty or so, in clans.
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