/life/ireland/Meeting the Neighbours
Yesterday I was just back from a run (actually, I walked a lot of it, and was fairly disappointed at my lack of stamina and hydration -- apparently I'd drunk more than I thought the night before. :-) ) when upon my door there came a knock. Several. More of a bangbangbangbangbangbang, really.
I threw on a shirt, and went to answer it, entering magical movie land. There stood a middle aged woman in a ping bathrobe. Amongst the first things she rambled were "can you fix my shower curtain?" and "he'll kill me if he finds it," and "you've never met me, even after today, okay?" and "I'm a pretty drunk, so I can't put it back together." It was pretty disturbing, she was pretty drunk and seemed fairly worried. The whole situation was not quite "can I borrow a cup of sugar?" but I couldn't do much but go help this desparately drunken lady.
I went up the stairs with her, which she dragged herself, like I remember my grandmother doing -- made thirty years her elder from the booze. She was muttering worried things. When we got to the landing, I asked if it was up further or not. She said "don't worry, he's not home." Well, that's one less thing to worry about. I asked her if she was sure she couldn't fix it herself, selfishly wanting out of the situation. She slurred her way convincingly through the response.
I've met her other, but I'm not sure I've ever seen her before. I fear she might be a shut-in or something. Her husband is a big burly guy, and I don't think I've seen him sober either.
In the end, I clipped the curtain onto the curtainrod and hung it back up all in about 30 seconds, and was unceremoniously ushered out, and reminded that we'd never met.
I've been living here a year, and it's a pretty big apartment block, but the entrance I use is only shared by three flats. I've barely met my neighbours, but that was hardly the way I expected it to happen.
In other news, had a killer couple weeks at work, but very rewarding in the end -- I beat on something until it worked, and built some pretty good working relationships in the process. Getting on well with my new flatmate. Finally about to book flights for a trip home in April. I'm thinking of trying to run a marathon on Hallowe'en weekend, though we're talking about going to India for a few weeks in September as a work + travel gig, which would make it pretty hard to train enough I think. We'll see.
