Cav's Place

Those people finally came to install those things in the holes in the walls on February 23, so dad woke me at 9:55 AM and they were done less than an hour later, but they installed it in my room over the insulation, which dad tried to start removing just then, and what we were trying to ask them and what they were answering were different things, so we couldn’t understand each other over the matter and I now have a couple of small holes there, not that it makes much of a difference. And they left quite a mess, so I then vacuumed to a fair extent in the three rooms and also in the kitchen and some parts of the hallway, though I didn’t take the opportunity to also clean my room, or even vacuum properly all over my floor. And after installing that thing in my room the guy asked for rags or towels, and then for mine, which was on the back of my chair, but dad brought him another and he stuffed it in the hole, on the outside, since they’ll only install the outer cover after everything’s done, so he’d have done that with my towel if we’d have given it to him! On the other hand, after they left I noticed that my bug net was removed, and I don’t think that the guy removed it when he went out through my window, so the other workers had probably done that two days earlier and I hadn’t even noticed it the day before, when I opened the window for a while before leaving! Either way, at least I caught a nap in the evening, and then I made mamaliga again, took one more of those supplements for immunity that aren’t expired, and caught up on some sleep, waking up to pee plenty of times, and apparently biting my tongue hard on the first such occasion, but always getting right back to sleep until the last time, at 3:55 PM, when workers seemed to be nearby and I just stayed in bed until it got quiet, getting up a few minutes after 5 PM.

Since I’m skipping the runs and a couple of other days that aren’t yet written, I’ll now get to February 26, when dad got up and woke me with some loud noise not long after I had gone to bed, and it’s possible that he woke me again before leaving, but I was so exhausted that I just fell right back to sleep. On the other hand, after getting up to pee a little before 10:25 AM, I decided to finally read some more of the book, doing so until a few minutes after 11 AM and seeing that I was getting through less than one page every two minutes. Either way, I then got back to sleep, and if the noise made by the workers or that dog woke me again, I fell asleep again so quickly that I barely realized it… Until my phone gave a low battery warning, a little after 2:10 PM, and after plugging it in to charge it seemed that I wasn’t quite exhausted enough to still get back to sleep despite the noise. But I was too exhausted to get up, so I just stayed there, maybe briefly drifting off a few times, until the phone beeped to indicate that it was fully charged, a little after 3:15 PM, and I got up.
Otherwise, dad had said that he was going to get back around 3:30-4 PM and then could help me cook, so I meant to get things ready and then let him at least check the pot while I read some more. However, it was past 7 PM when he actually got back, and he brought food, some of it supposedly for me, though it was ordered and therefore I couldn’t know just what was in it, while he wanted to use the grill for what he had bought for himself. And then he also had to get ready for the following day. And I couldn’t put off cooking, my phone number being about to expire, so I had to go out the following day, plus that I had done the tedious part already and couldn’t just put those ingredients away as they were. So, on top of doing all of the cooking on my own, I also had that grill to wash, both before and after he used it. And then I also tried to help him search for something that he couldn’t find, only wasting some more time, because I couldn’t find it either. So my plan went out the window and I barely managed to read a little more that evening.
On top of all of that, he had left a lot of food for Liza in the morning, which he wanted to throw away when he saw that she hadn’t touched it since then, so we both got angry and snapped at each other, and when I put it into something else, to give it to some other cats, he immediately sat right in it! He had been hovering right over my shoulder, telling Liza that he was just about to give her something else, I left that old food on the seat while I went to the sink to wash her plate, and as soon as I stepped away I heard a crunch and saw that he had sat down right there, and when I snapped at him he said that he hadn’t noticed that I had left it there. Well, what the fuck else would I have done with it when I hadn’t moved from there when I took it off the plate? Not that it wasn’t in a pretty sizable plastic thing, right in front of his eyes. Either way, after he changed his pants we sort of pretended that nothing happened, as usual, so I was left fuming silently, knowing that saying or doing anything would just result in further angry responses without changing anything.

Moving on to the morning of February 27, after getting in bed at 5:20 AM, it wasn’t even 8:15 AM when I was woken by drilling. But it only lasted a few seconds, so I went to pee and then got right back to sleep, and while I was woken up at least a couple more times over the next four hours, I got back to sleep so quickly that I’m not even certain that I was fully awake. But then I guess that I wasn’t so utterly exhausted anymore, and the workers were clearly in this area, so while the noise wasn’t that bad in itself, it was enough to keep me awake and I just sort of drifted in and out, perhaps catching a few very brief naps, before 2:20 PM, when the alarm rang and I got up to watch ski jumping. And shortly after it finished, the workers put back the pieces of insulation which had been removed by those who had installed those things in the holes in the walls and it’s a good thing that I was right here then, because in my room they were pushing that thing inside, so I rushed to tell the guy about it and pushed it back, after which he seemed to do the job properly. I also checked in dad’s bedroom, another guy working there, but there that thing had been pushed in very little and I could just press on it to get it back in place, after which it seemed fine, so I didn’t need to talk to that guy as well. Not that the whole thing hadn’t already messed me up a little on a day when I had to interact with people again, so I tried to prepare myself for that, and after doing the day’s squats, eating lunch, cleaning the litter box, and gathering my clothes from the rack, I left a few minutes before 8:30 PM, with the recyclables with the deposit symbol, a small bag of trash that I dropped down the chute, and that cat food, minus what was left on dad’s pants.
I grabbed a recyclable on the way to Mega Mall, but didn’t see the cats that I expected to see on that route, so I still had that cat food when I reached my provider’s store and waited for quite a while before charging the credit, without receiving a receipt but the change including a commemorative coin which had apparently been released in 2016 but which I didn’t have any of so far. And then I saw that Carrefour had once again removed all cabinets from that location, so I went to put the recyclables in the machine and then took the two that weren’t accepted to the information desk, getting the deposit for those as well before entering the store with that cat food and thinking that it was going to be very awkward if a guard would want to see what I had in the bag. But I found some expiring products to get, at half price, including beer for dad, and the employee approved the sale of beer from the computer, so I then also used the voucher received for the recyclables and arranged the purchases in the backpack.
After grabbing a few more recyclables, I put them in the machine from Kaufland and then just put that cat food in a cabinet, entering with the backpack and making use of great evening discounts for red onions, red potatoes, and a couple of bananas, plus a handful of those Moldovan grapes, even if they just had a 50% evening discount. And then I grabbed an expiring product for myself, even if it only had a 30% discount, and one for dad, with a great discount… After which I waited for quite a long time in line, the people using the three machines that accepted cash having a lot of products and taking their time, so the closing announcement came while I was still waiting. And after my turn finally came and I saw the total I decided to dash back to the non-refrigerated expiring products, which are close to the checkouts, and grab one more of those for dad, after which I also used the voucher received for the recyclables, retrieved that cat food from the cabinet, and walked out at 10:40 PM.
After putting the bags into a cabinet that I didn’t lock at that Mega Image and entering with the backpack, I got a nice expiring oat bar, at half price, and then retrieved my things, went to that bench, took too long to arrange everything for too little real benefit, and decided to check the non-stop one that’s next to the metro station, hoping to find some interesting discounted bakery products there, or at least some bread for dad. But I had also considered going to the one from Iancului, which I thought closed at midnight, and doing so would have been no worse, since checking that other one proved to be a complete waste of time, and I used a route on which I didn’t even see any recyclables, so by the time I got there I just had the pretty crushed one which I had spotted shortly after leaving the other Mega Image and a label that also had the deposit symbol, and then I put the bags and my gloves in a cabinet, entered with the backpack, and just retrieved everything after seeing that the bakery area was completely cleared and the couple of remaining expiring products weren’t interesting. But at least I grabbed a few recyclables on the way back. And, while I didn’t see cats in the spot where I expected to see them on the way back from there either, I wasn’t going to come back with that cat food, so I just left it there anyway, next to the little shelters built for them, where they might have been huddling, considering the temperature. I did finally see a cat a little later and actually considered rushing back to grab that food and bring it, but it dashed into a yard, so I kept going.
I got back just after 12:05 AM. Then I cleaned the litter box again and went to drop what I had gathered down the chute, talked to dad a little, ate a banana, put the purchases in their place, and went to wash at 1:45 AM. I was done a little before 2:25 AM, and then I washed what was in the kitchen, straightened that rather crushed recyclable, saw that a spot on the vitamin C pill that I meant to take looked odd but just scraped it off and took it anyway, and ate dinner between 4:35 AM and 5:20 AM. I got in bed at 6:55 AM, after rubbing cream on my hands and feet.

While I got right back to sleep after getting up to pee at one point and slept through dad getting up and leaving, I had been mostly awake for a while when I decided to pee one more time, just in case, at 1:25 PM… And I saw that dad had left a voucher from Carrefour which that neighbor had left in a bag she had given him on the kitchen table, along with a note saying that he had talked to her on the phone and she said that she didn’t want it back, and the deadline for using it was March 1, which led to just tossing and turning after I got back in bed, wondering what to do, since I wasn’t going to let it go to waste but it felt completely wrong to use it for us, plus that I didn’t feel like going back out that day and I wanted to watch the following day’s matches, so that’d have been a problem too. So I didn’t get back to sleep, eventually getting up a little before 2:25 PM, sending dad an e-mail about the issue, doing the day’s squats, and leaving at 4:40 PM, with the recyclables with the deposit symbol, wearing a mask again, for the only time during this period… And after seeing that my phone’s battery was so swollen that the back cover was off! But at first I thought that it was slipping out of the case, and when I saw that the cover was actually coming off I just meant to put it back, only realizing what was going on when it wouldn’t quite work, at which point I briefly took out the battery and put it back in… And then, despite being concerned, I put the phone in my pocket normally and left.
After taking the metro to Obor, since I had dad’s metro card, I went to Auchan, picked up a recyclable which had for some reason been left in the bin that’s next to the machine and then put all of them in, and got more cat food, also using the voucher received for the recyclables when I paid. Then I arranged the purchases and continued to Carrefour, picking up a few more recyclables and putting them in the machine from there… And then I picked up one more, putting it and the purchases in a cabinet and getting one of the bottles of wine that the voucher that I wanted to use was obtained for and which was actually discounted those days, so dad could take it to that neighbor, so most of the voucher would still be used for her benefit, and a bag of cat litter, so the remaining amount became a discount for that. That meant that an employee had to come to approve the sale of the wine, but then some other bar code accidentally scanned when I was trying to scan that voucher, so he had to come again and there was a misunderstanding between us, since I also had the voucher received for the recyclables. But the matter was eventually sorted out and I could use both vouchers. And then I retrieved and arranged my things and took the metro back, also picking up another recyclable and trying to have a look at the cats that I had left that food for, yet I still couldn’t see any of them and the plastic thing that the food had been in had also been taken away.
I got back at 6:40 PM, then cleaned the litter box, ate a citrus fruit, either a clementine or a Mandarin orange, put the purchases in their place, and after dad got back I sent a message to the power company, since he hadn’t even done that, much less actually switch to the better offer that I had been telling him about and which was expiring that day… Not that it seemed to do any good, so it was probably too late. Either way, just before 10:10 PM I went out again, without the mask, first having a look in the nearby Mega Image but seeing that they hadn’t made bakery discounts… But I also didn’t see dad’s car, so after looking around, thinking that he might have parked it in a different spot, I rushed back up to tell him about it, learning that he had left it at mother’s but hadn’t bothered to tell me. So I then went back out and jogged to the Mega Image from Mihai Bravu, seeing bakery discounts and getting a few things. And then I jogged to the non-stop one as well, putting those purchases in a cabinet that I didn’t lock and getting an apple circle that also had the 50% discount… And just as I was about to cross the road, the power went out in the entire area, including on the streets, so I started to pretty much run back, and dad sending me and SMS to let me know about it but not sending another one when the power was restored didn’t help. But I saw lights turning back on… Only to turn off again a little later. But this second failure was brief, and they were on again when I reached the building, and there were a few minutes left before 11 PM, so I had another look in the nearby Mega Image, but just from the door, seeing that they hadn’t made bakery discounts at all that evening.
I was back for good just before 11 PM, and while my computer was still on, dad’s, which had been fixed after having once again stopped working, wasn’t, despite being plugged into the old UPS, but the data cable isn’t connected and, while I tried to have a look after eating that apple circle, I couldn’t figure out what had happened, and he had been taking a bath, so he didn’t know either. So I eventually had to leave it for another time, and after putting my phone in a pot, to be safe, it was just about 12:25 AM when I went to wash. I was done a little after 1 AM, but then I spent quite some time looking for replacement batteries from stores that I could pick one up from, so I won’t spend almost as much on shipping as on the battery and risk being left with something useless if it somehow won’t work. And after getting back to the kitchen I had to clean up a little and wash some things, eating lunch between 2:45 AM and 3:10 AM, taking one more of those supplements for immunity that aren’t expired, and eating dinner between 4:40 AM and 5:20 AM. I got in bed at 6:55 AM again, after rubbing cream on my hands.

After what must have been the briefest nap, I found myself awake again and with that strange feeling in my body that made it hard to get back to sleep, but after I finally did I could really get some rest, only getting up to pee twice, getting back to sleep quickly both times, and only getting out of bed at 4:55 PM, though I had been awake for quite a while by then, and the last dream I had messed me up a fair bit. Either way, I then ordered a replacement battery, from the same store that I bought the case from, even if it’s far and the battery’s more expensive than others that I found, even by more than 50% compared to the cheapest ones. But it was listed as actually in stock and they offer more information, so it seemed more trustworthy. On the other hand, I gave up on the idea of making mamaliga again that evening, and since calendar winter was over I also stopped taking any supplements… And then the noise made by the workers made it really hard to sleep, waking me up at 8:20 AM or so and then only allowing agitated naps, so I only got out of bed a couple of minutes after 4 PM but I have no idea how much sleep I got, and the quality of it was bad anyway. But at least it meant that I was awake when that store called to confirm that the battery was in stock and I could pick it up.

After going back to the kitchen at 1:10 AM, having to continue washing and cleaning after dad cooked, and ending up eating dinner between 3:40 AM and 4:20 AM, the plan to also shave in the early hours of March 3 went out the window, since I ended up going to bed at 5:20 AM even so. That made me set the alarm to ring at 1 PM, to have time to do that before leaving to pick up that battery… But my body picked just that day to “clean the plumbing”, which hadn’t happened in a long time, waking me at 7:15 AM, if not even before that, and after peeing and cleaning up a little, I hadn’t managed to get back to sleep by the time the workers started to arrive, and then they worked right in this area, including actually painting around my window, and that neighbor’s dogs were also going crazy because of it, so there was no chance to get back to sleep and eventually, just before 8:40 AM, I got up and shaved. And then I spent some time on the computer as well, only getting back in bed at 9:25 AM, after moving the alarm to 2 PM… But the noise was impossible to sleep through, so just before 9:50 AM I decided to read a little, and after dad got up I exchanged a few words with him and sorted out a few things, getting back in bed yet again just before 10:30 AM, when it seemed quieter.
Despite the continued occasional noises, including what sounded like things falling right outside my window, and some even banging against it, after a while I did manage to get back to sleep, even if it was in the form of brief and agitated naps, broken for a longer time just after 12:15 PM, when my phone gave a low battery warning, so I set the stopwatch to ring as well, after figuring out how, and it must have been half an hour or so before I got back to napping, getting up to pee yet again somewhere around 1:45 PM, after which I’m not sure if I had just gotten back to sleep or not by the time the alarms rang, the phone’s battery emptying as it did so… Not that I needed any alarms, since some loud drilling started right at that very moment.
After turning the phone back on a few times, to drain the battery just a little more fully before removing it, I made sure that Liza ate what dad had left her, some men that I heard were supposedly inspectors walking around this area and at one point bringing a worker to cover the area around the thing that was placed in the hole in my room’s wall somewhat better, on the outside. Either way, I then had lunch and did 200 squats, to at least make up for the fact that I hadn’t done them the previous two days and leave just that day’s for a later time. And just as I was rushing to leave, dad sent an e-mail to let me know that they were five minutes away, since he was bringing mother. So I waited, but when those five minutes became more than 20, just before 4:25 PM I walked out, also taking the phone’s charger and the empty battery, with the contacts covered, as well as the recyclables with the deposit symbol. And when I got outside I saw that my parents seemed to just finish getting what they had brought out of the car, so I waited for them to cross the road and then got the metro card from dad, which made the day a whole lot easier.
After grabbing a few more recyclables, I knew that there was a Mega Image near the metro station that I had to get off at, so I put them in the machine from there and cashed in the voucher before walking to the store that I had to pick up the battery from, getting there just before 5:25 PM, putting the new battery in the phone, and seeing that it worked… Though in the picture on the site it said that it was made in Hungary while on the actual battery it said China, as expected. And when I wanted to have another look at it after walking out, I couldn’t remove it anymore, so I struggled for a while, then had a quick look in another store, and eventually decided to walk to Victory Square and take the metro from there. But on the way, after having one of my gloves fall out of the jacket’s pocket as I crossed a road and then rushing back to retrieve it when I realized it, I took a picture of a store’s name and noticed that it was saved in the phone’s tiny memory, and that it wasn’t detecting the memory card, so I had to open it again and put more effort into removing the battery, managing it and pushing the memory card back in fully.
After grabbing just one more recyclable before reaching that metro station, I took the metro to Obor and decided to check that Penny first, entering with that recyclable and then just walking back out, also seeing that the evening discounts were listed as starting at 8 PM in that location. And then, after beeping dad and asking whether they wanted anything when he called back, being told that they didn’t, I went to Auchan, putting that recyclable in the machine, along with another one which had for some reason been left in the bin that’s there, and buying another pack of cat food and what I counted as four small packs of biscuits for dad, so that was what I entered at the self-checkout and paid, also using the voucher received for those recyclables. However, when I reached Carrefour and put those purchases and the gloves in a cabinet, I found that I actually had five of those packs, and I have no idea how, because I was sure that I had counted them when I had taken them off the shelf. Either way, I decided to leave one aside and give it to a homeless person, entering the store when it wasn’t even 7:50 PM, so I had a lot of time to waste while waiting for the evening bakery discounts to be made. Admittedly, they started making them around 8:30 PM, but it was taking time, so I just kept wandering around, getting a bag of spoiling bio (organic) Mandarin oranges that were expensive even at half price for myself and a couple of things for my parents. But eventually being able to get four of those apple circles made it worth that time, and I got two breads as well.
After retrieving my things and arranging everything to some extent, I grabbed another recyclable, put it in the machine from Kaufland, then put everything in a cabinet from there, peed and washed my hands, and entered the store a little after 9:35 PM. And I beeped dad again after seeing some expiring products that I thought they might be interested in, but I had walked away from the first one before doing so, thinking that he wouldn’t be interested and eventually deciding to ask just in case, and by the time I got back there after he said that he actually was, it was gone. Either way, I then also made use of a good evening discount for carrots and of a decent one for some more of those Moldovan grapes, that time buying them for mother, and grabbed two pretzels as well, also for mother, since they were at half price, plenty of bakery products having discounts there that evening. I was at the self-checkout when the closing announcement came, the machine asking for an employee after I tried to scan an expiring product twice instead of each of them separately, since I had two identical ones, the employee who eventually came telling me that it won’t work like that for those products and sorting out the issue. And then I also used the voucher received for that recyclable when I paid, went to wash my hands again… And when I reached the cabinet where I had my things, I saw a 5 RON bill in it! And I didn’t think that I could have dropped it there without noticing it, which was proven true after I counted what I had, so somebody had slipped a bill into the cabinet, I guess over the top of the door! So I obviously couldn’t refuse it, which I’d have done if they’d have tried to actually give it to me, and the only thing left to do was to mentally add half of that value to what I mean to give away at some point.
After arranging everything, it was close to 10:40 PM when I walked out, and then I picked up a few more recyclables and checked that Mega Image that closes at midnight, putting everything else into a cabinet, entering with the backpack, and seeing that the bakery discounts were made even if it wasn’t quite 11 PM yet, so I got a bag of cheap buns and a sweet pastry for mother, plus a nice yogurt and a spoiling cabbage for myself, even if they were all only discounted by 50%. But at least I wasn’t charged for the bag that the cabbage was in. And then I retrieved what I had in the cabinet, arranged the new purchases, and rushed to the metro station, though I still picked up a few more recyclables. And I guess I rushed just enough, a metro that might have even been the last one going in this direction coming seconds after I reached the station. And after getting off here I checked the non-stop Mega Image as well, giving that small pack of biscuits to a homeless man, then leaving the bags next to the cabinets, once again entering with the backpack, and getting one more of those sweet pastries for mother, the cashier having to ask a coworker to print another discount label, because that one wouldn’t scan. And then I retrieved my things and grabbed a couple more recyclables on the way back.
I got back just after 11:45 PM, with just over 13 kg. Then I cleaned the litter box and went to drop a bag of trash down the chute, exchanged a few words with dad, talked to mother for quite a while, and after she went to bed I put most of the purchases in their place, rearranging things in the fridge, and also removed the worst parts of that cabbage, to see just how usable it was. It was a few minutes before 2 AM when I went to shower, with water that was below body temperature, and 2:20 AM when I was done. And then I had plenty to wash and clean in the kitchen, ate one of those bio (organic) Mandarin oranges and one of the apple circles, put the remaining purchases in their place, arranged a few more things for my parents to take in the morning, dealt with one of my breads, used some of that cabbage for the salad, took one more of those immunity supplements that aren’t expired, and ate dinner between 5:40 AM and 6:20 AM. I got in bed at 7:15 AM.

My parents were supposed to wake up at 7:30 AM, but I must have fallen asleep so quickly and slept so deeply that I don’t know anything about it, only waking up at 12:15 PM and going to pee. It does seem that the workers didn’t make much noise, however. Admittedly, that should have been during their break, but they didn’t seem to be taking it, or at least not all of them did, since I heard some voices and something being dragged on the hallway, and at some later point I was woken up by what sounded like something being done at my window again, but I was only awake for mere moments, getting right back to sleep, and when I did wake up again and remained awake for quite some time before finally getting up a little before 3:55 PM, I just heard one guy occasionally shouting, sometimes prompting some barking from that dog, and some rare and faint noises that I’m not even sure were made by them.

And now I’ll skip to yesterday, when I once again expected to have a hard time sleeping when drilling woke me just after 9 AM, but I guess that I was just too exhausted, because this part of the building was painted then, yet after peeing I got right back to sleep, was only woken up again around 11:30 AM, once again got back to sleep quickly, and stayed asleep until close to 2 PM, when I spent a few minutes on the computer and set the alarm to ring at 3:30 PM, for ski jumping, though I woke up again a little before that time, probably drifted off for the briefest moment, and woke back up with seconds left, just managing to turn off the alarm before it rang. And at night I made mamaliga, “cheating” to be able to say that I took a first bite in my room before 3 AM but then thinking that I had plenty of time, even after I actually started eating at 3:10 AM, so I checked some things on-line as well and ended up finishing at 3:50 AM. And before going to bed I used cream on my feet again.
The Formula 1 qualifying meant that I wasn’t going to sleep for long, but it was barely over an hour after I got in bed when I had to get up to pee. And then I caught another brief nap before 7 AM, when the alarm rang and I got up, getting back in bed at 8:25 AM… Only for the workers to arrive moments later, and then they placed the windowsills, so there was a lot of noise and it was probably only after they were done that I could get back to sleep. But then I could sleep, and things seemed to go quiet after a while, so I occasionally woke up again, but usually got back to sleep quickly… Until my phone started giving a low battery warning, way sooner than I thought it would, though the new battery was admittedly not full when I bought it. So after that point I just took brief naps between warnings, only finally getting up just before 5:30 PM, and after the phone turned off I set it to charge. On the other hand, the pain that I’ve been feeling in my lower back, mainly towards the right side, ever since this week’s run, or perhaps more exactly ever since I went back out that evening, doesn’t seem to be going away and it’s bothering me a fair bit.