In the middle of the night, our doorbell rang. And rang. And rang some more. By "the middle of the night" I mean at least 11:00 and we were still awake and chatting, but still. We both got very quiet and waited for the intruder to go away. Neither of us made a move to answer the door. I decided it was probably someone who was expecting the landlord or another renter to be staying in our room, and I went to sleep after the ringing finally stopped. Still, the visitor was very persistent, and didn't give up easily, so I understood when Paulina informed me the next morning that she hadn't been able to fall asleep for hours afterwards. I suggested that we pack up our things and move to the other apartment. They had extra beds, anyway, and we didn't like being isolated, so really it was perfect.
In the other apartment, we meet a new cast of characters. Tom is a retired cosmetics marketer who now works as the EMT for his town in Connecticut. He gets to use the siren. He's in his mid-70s and has legs to rival Jimmy's new muscular ones. He also has nearly no hearing in the upper registers.
Denise is a competitive swimmer from California on a sabbatical from her real job to do this sort of thing. I'm not sure what the real job is. She claims to want to be a competitor on Survivor. I can't tell whether she's joking.
We now live together in the 9th floor penthouse, which has slightly nicer Soviet-era details than that last place, including some really outstanding light fixtures. These will be our digs for the next two weeks. The best part is that Tom likes to get up early and make coffee - although not quite as early as I do. As a I wrote these words, I was the only one up, and I was writing by the light of my headlamp. The worst part is the ticking clock in my bedroom/the living room. I decided that the clock will hereafter sleep in the bathroom.
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