Waiting. And waiting. And waiting. In the cold.
The repair man said he’d be here between 9:30 and 11:30 this morning. I haven’t even gone to the bathroom this whole time so that when he gets here, I’ll be able to let him in. I unpacked, which took forever because every few minutes I thought I heard a car and ran to the window to look. But nothing.
Finally, I had to go get Kaitlyn from school for lunch. After double-checking a verb conjugation, I left a note on the door saying I’d be back by noon. Then I rushed down the hill to the school. Two people offered to have Kaitlyn and I over for lunch. I turned them down, too paranoid to be away from the house for one minute longer than necessary. Besides, my note didn’t say anything about eating lunch. And I am not going to have to wait another day because I missed the guy who was late showing up in the first place.
At home, Kaitlyn and I were arguing about how you cannot wear a skimpy tutu in a house that’s barely above freezing when the phone rang. It was the repairman looking for directions. I struggle with French on the phone, but I have practiced giving directions. Although I don’t know how to say my house is at the top of the street. So I told him Allez haut… haut.. haut… et voila! (Go high… high… high… and voila) In case I’d somehow tricked him into thinking I can speak French, he was sure then that I cannot. I didn’t care… he was on the way.
Moments later when I was trying to pull some tights onto Kaitlyn (who had changed into a party dress, but at least it’s warm) the bell rang. Je suis arrive! That was fast. I led him to the basement where he poked around the water heater. Normally, I’d have stayed to watch and perhaps dechipher what was wrong, but I had to rush back upstairs to feed Kaitlyn lunch before she needs to be back at school. I only had about ten minutes. And that’s pretty much how long it took the guy to fix the problem. He tried to show me what was wrong, but I have no idea what he said or meant. When Bill gets home this weekend, I’ll have to try to re-create the pointing to see if he can figure it out.
I took Kaitlyn back to school with only a small amount of convincing (had to promise playtime in the snow later) and I hit the grocery store.