He Moved On Over

You need to be mindful of indulgent weekends.  That’s the time I usually save write, to edit.   That’s the time to post.  This weekend I read and read.   I just wanted to.  A Saturday of leisure turned into Sunday rather quickly.  Ever since I had flown off to India I was playing catch up on getting a pile of blogs posted.  They were all written.  But two weeks’-plus of entries, all needed to be edited and pictures chosen and postings physically made, titles quipped.  None of this all got finished until today.  Per below, its’ Tuesday.   And I was anxious, ill at ease, until it was all up and done.

The door rang a lot. I didn’t engage.  My wife talked to someone.  I kept working.  Soon there was another man who was working, right outside in the yard.  He walked in front of my window.  Then he walked back.  I went into the kitchen to make some lunch.  He migrated to that corner of the house, as well, working diligently, while I prepared my lunch.  And while I know he didn’t mean to, per se, when I went to the table to eat my lunch, he moved on over to that window, as if on cue.  “Hi there.”  And of course, when it was time to return to my office, it was also time for him to clean that window.  Would you like some tea?  I asked.  He suggested he was fine.  Right. 

At the end of the day the doorbell rang again.  No one else home at this point.  I went outside.  The window man was asking for three-hundred RMB, or approximately US$50.00.  I had no idea if this was accurate or what the deal was that had been struck, though it sounded like less than I’d ask for a day of physical labor.  More to the point I was skint, as Paul Weller might say.  I hadn’t a single digit of the People’s Money in my wallet.  I asked if he took Wechat pay.  He pulled out a feature phone that wouldn’t have allowed a scan.  But he suggested I connect with his boss on Wechat and then I could send it to him.  This all sounded logical but now we were getting into multiple party transactions and the margin for error was not insignificant.  I told him the Mrs. would handle it when she got back.  He considered this and made his way off. 

Before he left, he pointed to the work on the windows sills he’d been cleaning.  I suddenly noticed and indeed they looked clean.  I suppose I might have walked all around the place considering his work in more detail, but frankly I wasn’t sure what it was he’d been tasked to do, and how it would be that I might evaluate it.  He was already on his way home by now, anyway. 

Tuesday, 4/17/18