Not too much time, but I promised an English translation of the previous post…I’ll begin with the cats, and write another one later about the pool, and maybe add some in about Rock En Seine.
So, I had some trouble with my landlord. The saga begins months ago, when I first leased the apartment; I had an idea that he was going to be way less laid-back than my landlord in Seattle (not hard, Carl is pretty much the most easy going guy ever – great for parties, not so great for getting a ceiling leak fixed). He was worried about the floors, the walls, etc, said I couldn’t put anything on them, gave me some other instructions as well. I chose to ignore the bit about the walls (I really needed a coat rack, for one) and went about my daily living.
My staircase, aka "service stairs"
His apartment is on the floor beneath me and beautiful. It takes up the whole floor, in a typical Haussmannian arrangement – each floor is a flat, except the top floor, which is divided up into apartments. Back in the day, these served as maid’s chambers. Thus, there is a big front staircase for the first five floors, and an elevator that fits between the spirals, but it only goes to the front doors of each of the five flats. Moreover, my landlord is wealthy enough to have bought another apartment on the sixth floor and built an internal staircase from his flat to this other space; a fine mother-in-law suite, if you will. There was a funny moment early in this story when he called to let me know Bird had escaped “down the service stairs”…I ran home, worried, wondering where on earth the service stairs were, and then I realized that what he thought of as service stairs were just my regular staircase. No other way for me to get to the apartment. (And of course Bird had gotten nowhere. I doubt he even went down all the flights of stairs. Thus far, the amount of stairs has really confused both cats. There are also two big heavy doors that automatically lock in between him and the street, and I can’t imagine anyone deliberately letting a cat out onto the street. I got home and Bird was at the top of the “service” stairs, yowling.)
In any event, since I live above him, I’ve weathered the occasional complaint about noise from him. Now, keep in mind, I’m never home, and the place is tiny; it’s not as though I’m throwing parties or playing music into the wee hours. The noise is from things like, oh, me making the sofa into a bed every night, or the fan’s vibration through the floor. But I did my best to address his concerns.
Meanwhile, the cats would enter and exit as they pleased by my window, though there wasn’t anywhere for them to go. For a while, Bird was visiting with the neighbor, but that stopped at some point. In any case, I figured that after three months, Bird would not be able to get anywhere else and would be content with sitting in the gutter, surveying his kingdom.
I figured wrong.
Somehow, Bird managed to jump from the sixth to the fifth floor. This is really a mystery to me, as the leap is quite substantial and there’s not a whole lot of room to land. He did this three times, entering into my landlord’s apartment each time, with a subsequent phone call to me about the issue. He might have menaced the landlord’s cat; he certainly jumped on the beds, which really shocked my landlord (who doesn’t allow his cat to sleep on the beds. But why even have a cat then?) The fourth and final time was 4 am, as I had mistakenly believed that Bird wouldn’t leave my apartment if I were in it. He called and yelled at me; I spent the next hours restlessly tossing and turning, trying to figure out how I could prevent Bird from escaping and not tempt him into endangering his life.
Sorry buddy
I built a fence the next day with Nodira’s help, and I believe I have now fixed the problem. It’s chicken wire and he hates it. He sort of tries to climb up it, but he can’t get a good grip on anything. At first we had just blocked off everything open, but Bird immediately went for the climb-up-the-side-of-the-building-and-get-a-claw-on-the-railing method, so I put chicken wire on the sides as well. Nodira was very impressed with his intelligence. He immediately tested its defenses and every day he reassesses. He studies the top and contemplates if he can leap up. He attacks the weak points where the different sections of wire fence meet. I still don’t leave the windows open when he’s alone or I’m sleeping; I’m afraid he’ll escape again, or worse, hurt himself in an attempt.
My landlord would prefer me to leave, and I would prefer to live with French people in shared housing, but moving is expensive and I do not have the time to search. I don’t have time for anything right now except frisbee and work (sound familiar, Seattle?) Last weekend was a double practice; this week went Monday practice, Tuesday team meeting, Wednesday practice, Friday Jess’s friend Marie in town, and this weekend is another double practice. I’m glad I have some track workouts under my belt because all day practices are quite tiring. So, more later…
The news just hasn’t been very good lately, what with Flotsam and other losses (which I’ll have more to say about later). And even before this weekend, I had been obsessively listening to The Antlers and The xx, not exactly upbeat stuff. So those of you who prefer my more pop/electro mixes, be forewarned: this is definitely in the slow/sweet/sad category. As usual, mix is linked in comments section on facebook, or email me.
