It is a glorious day in Moscow. The sun is out and it is much stronger now than it was ten days ago. The roads and sidewalks are mostly bare asphalt now and we hope that there won’t be any more major snowstorms. It is still rather cool outside, but the temp has gone from 10 this morning to 16 this afternoon, which is why my walk felt so good. I was able to walk erect the entire hour since I wasn’t worried about losing my footing and falling down; much nicer to walk on asphalt than packed snow and ice.
Our trip home from France was uneventful but quite long. We had an hour’s drive to the airport, had to gas up the car and unload it at Avis and then we had to wait from 10:30 to 1 pm because Mr. Smarty Pants Travel Arranger forgot to make sure there was a lounge at the airport (there is not!) and didn’t see the small print that said you couldn’t check in until 90 minutes before the flight. So we sat in the small Marseille Airport, which was filled, really filled, with little rug rats bouncing off every solid object. I have never seen so many accompanied and unaccompanied kids traveling at one time. Just our luck the French school vacations were just starting and everyone was getting out of Dodge. We finally got though check in and security and had time to get a sandwich and glass of wine before our 1 pm departure.
The flight from Paris to Moscow was late so we didn’t arrive home until 11:30 pm and we were whipped. We unpacked just to decompress, had a quick nightcap and headed to bed about 12:30 and fell into a very deep slumber for the next eight hours. We lounged around on Sunday, mostly doing laundry and sipping coffee while catching up on emails since we had had no Internet access for a few days. We took a break to go upstairs to the apartment of a departing administrator and purchase her treadmill. In the afternoon we walked a bit before heading to the store to do a bit of shopping for dinner. We had a lovely roasted chicken with carrots, onions and zucchini, which I served with truffled rice; quite nice.
This morning at 8:30 two of the Green Guys were at the door with the treadmill. I had done some rearranging of furniture so that it would fit in my office/guest room/coat storage/area. I was very surprised to see them lifting the treadmill, since when it was shown to us, one of the sales points was how easy it is to roll around. Turns out the Green Guys REMOVED the wheels before lugging it to and from the elevator. I swear someone must dress them in the morning, and they don’t use clean clothes judging from the odors they were emitting.
Once they left I set everything up and made sure that all the nuts/bolts and screws were tight. What I failed to test was whether it was working or not: It was not! It appears that Mutt and Jeff had somehow stepped on the plug wire or something during the moving process, and what had worked beautifully when we tested it did not work at all. So, out came the tools again and I took the housing off the motor and belt area and tried to check all the connections. Sure enough, two of the connections had been bent and weren’t making contact so I gently bent them back, reinstalled the plug cable and plugged it in. It now purrs like a kitten!
It is a very nice unit that combines a well-built treadmill that allows you to increase/decrease the incline as well as the speed, with an exercise bench for doing weights and elastic band exercises. It has hand weights of 2/4/6 pounds so that you can really get the old heart racing as you work the treadmill or just use them on the weight bench. It has all the computer-generated lights and whistles so that you can keep track of your workout and will be a welcome tonic during bad weather.
I’m off tomorrow for ten days of working in Munich, Lisbon and Wiesbaden. I’ll have the computer so I’ll try and do a few entries if things get exciting. Otherwise, perhaps Cindy will regale you with tales of AAS.
Best wishes, Cindy and Wm.
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