And a new window,just to add to the commotion

In the middle of all the Callie commotion yesterday morning, the window contractor, Monsieur Roch (Serge is his first name) came over to install the new kitchen window. That meant we had had to move a lot of things out of the kitchen Thursday night when we got home with Callie from Montmarault, and then move it all back in and mop the floor after the work was done.

First the old shutter had to be taken down,
and the hinged window panels removed.

There was a lot of noise and not a little dust, since Serge and his assistant, Jean (that's John in French) had to drill a good-size hole in the concrete wall above the window in order to install the hand-operated crank that opens and closes the roll-down shutter on this new sliding window.

The new look: the upstairs and downstairs
windows match now, plus ou moins

Callie didn't seem to notice, however. We closed off the living room so that she wouldn't be underfoot or get hurt, and she just focused on chewing on everything she could get away with chewing on. Her daytime pattern seems to be an hour or so of intense activity and then an hour or so of sleep.

It looks nice with the shutter rolled down

Anyway, as Walt said, maybe it's time to change the name of this blog from Living the Life in Saint-Aignan to Living with Callie. Now for the potty report: when she gets really hyper and starts bouncing off the walls, it's time to go outside. She needs to poop and pee. She's already housebroken, it seems, and last night she woke Walt up at 1:00 a.m. and asked to go outside. We are living a charmed existence, I think.

From inside, my first impression of the window
when I walk into the room is that I might fall out.
It's so open it almost gives me feelings of vertigo.
The finish work will get done when we repaint the room.

I'm happy with the new kitchen window but now we have to figure out how to put curtains on it. The old French-style window had two big, hinged panels that swung open into the room. Each panel had café-type curtains on it, and that worked really well. They weren't in the way, because they opened with the window, if you see what I mean. You can't put that kind of curtain on a sliding window.

The house as you see it when you come through the front gate

After the window was in and Serge and Jean had left, I had to go out to do some shopping. I went to the pharmacy to get monthly prescriptions and was waited on by Madame Smith, whose husband is Scottish. She knew we were getting a new dog, and she asked about that. I told her we had gone and brought Callie home yesterday. We had a nice chat, since there was nobody else in the pharmacy.

Callie, willing to play, but not yet sure what the game is

Then I drove across the bridge over to the little shopping center where there's an Intermarché supermarket, a Netto hard-discount grocery, and a sundries store called L'Univers des Affaires. Walt had asked me to look for some tennis balls that he and Callie could play with.

At L'Univers des Affaires I picked up and couple of chew bones and a little collar for the dog — we bought one last week, but it's still too big for Callie's little neck. She'll be able to wear it later. There were no tennis balls in the store, however. The clerks said maybe later, when the outdoor season begins.

Callie and her green eyes

I found some across the way at Intermarché, though. There and at Netto, I got the makings for lasagne, which we're having for lunch today. Lasagne noodles, ground beef, mushrooms, and mozzarella were what we needed, and all these are available in the grocery stores. I got frozen ground beef, which was on special. The mozzarella is the kind that's little balls of cheese packed in brine, imported from Italy. The mushrooms are the white button kind, which are called champignons de Paris. We already had onions, herbs, and garlic, plus plenty of tomato sauce from last summer in the freezer.

Une rose à la Renaudière, le 04 mai 2007

Now I'm just rambling, so I'll quit. I'm pretty tired. We're having our English friends over for a barbecue tomorrow night, so I have to think about what we are going to cook and where I'm going to go shopping this time.

Can you believe I didn't take any pictures of Callie yesterday? Or at least none that are good enough to post. The ones here were taken Thursday afternoon when we got home from Montmarault.