Inspecting alone

Wednesday morning I headed out alone to do four apartment inspections at 8:45am. With stairs and steps involved at each location, it made no sense for Dee to come along. There were a bunch of things that I had to deliver everywhere, including an office chair, two fans, cereal bowls, knives, mail, a credit card, etc., in addition to my own tools that I bring to fix things. Fortunately I had kept a list of it all and was able to gather everything. The Sorelle below us were wonderful, helping carry everything to the car in one trip, which otherwise would have taken me several trips. They also took Dee's xrays to Sister Knies and brought back the package with the new shower stool.

The night before, I had managed somehow to lose my apartment keys between the outside door and our sixth floor apartment. Dee writes: Not that he had a lot to manage or anything! We have an extra set, but still it was frustrating. I messaged Paolo to ask him to be on the lookout, and he said somebody had already found them and turned them in. Maybe I left them in the outside door, juggling an umbrella and two big bags, but in any case I was delighted to get them back so soon.

The inspections all went pretty quickly, with a couple of issues at each place, some old and some new. I made a notation of everything and emailed my reports in the afternoon. I was able to resolve a couple of things, and tried a plumbing snake on a slow drain to no avail. Overall, everyone was very pleased with the stuff I delivered, including a package of cookies at each location. I came back with Anziano Bellucci's suitcase. He finishes his mission next week and will tour Italy with his family for a couple of weeks, so we will hold it for him at the Institute until he is ready to leave. He put way more than half his stuff in it, including all the heavy things, and was very apologetic that it weighs over 40 kg (85 lbs). I was barely able to lug it up the stairs here. Also, one of the landlords had an issue with our garage access, so I referred them to the mission office who handles all the contracts.

On the way home I stopped at Lidl for some food for home, arriving here by just after 1pm, so it was a pretty quick trip given how far I had to drive. Traffic was good coming home, though it was fairly slow heading out in the morning. Overall I went about 120km for the day.

Meanwhile, Dee received the Amazon package (many thanks to Paolo for carrying it up to her) with her new knee scooter. She also had another home visit from the med tech, who brought her compression hose to wear, plus a smaller boot for sleeping and a big machine to apply a magnetic field to the bone (we are somewhat skeptical of its efficacy, but it doesn't hurt to try). There were boxes everywhere when I arrived home. The scooter seems to work well, though she needs to experiment with extra padding to make it more comfortable. It folds and fits into the trunk of our car. It doesn't help with stairs, but it does allow her to move much faster on flat ground. It should be good for standing up for an extended period to cook at the Institute. The big challenge we will have with the scooter is that it looks like a fun toy, so we have to protect it from the GANS. Their eyes sure lit up when they saw it!

 

In the afternoon, Dee did some baking at home: an apple pie to say thanks to the Sorelle, and some lemon bars (usage TBD). Her chairiot is still the vehicle of choice inside our apartment. It's pretty easy to work in the kitchen as long as I do it at the table instead of the counter, due to height.

 

 

I caught up on a few things (still need some lesson prep time), including purchasing an extended warranty on my new Dell laptop. I generally like to get three years of warranty, which costs more but pays for itself in a single incident, but this one came with only one year. So after some thought I decided it was worth the extra $200 or so, because they told me it would be valid after returning to the US, and the laptop itself was incredibly cheap.

In the evening, our GANS activity was to go to the Roma 2 chapel and wait for Sami to return from his mission in England and be released by President Rondinelli. Most of the kids know him, so we had a good turnout, with pizza ordered from around the corner, cookies, Nutella, and soft drinks. Everyone had a good time, and Dee was able to get around fine on her scooter. A lot of people hadn't yet seen me since the accident, and offered their sympathy and help. It turns out that Doug's seminary student Donatella had the very same injury this year. And all the kids wanted to play with my crutches, which we allowed, and with my scooter, which we didn't.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things took a little longer than we expected, but we were home by just after 9pm. It rained a fair amount in the evening. Parking is a challenge at the chapel, so I had to walk about ten minutes to get the car first, but the rain was light enough by then that I only got a little wet. Then I drove back to pick Dee up right outside the door. The rain basically stopped just as we got home, so Dee was able to wheel herself to the front door without needing an umbrella.