Downtown Girl

I live in the countryside, the quasi-suburban kind.  I have lived in cities in the past.  Frankly, I never thought about the geography in which I was living, sidewalks, no sidewalks, all the same to me.  One of the nice things about where I mostly live now is that there is a freight railway fairly close and hearing the trains and their cars clatter and moan is nice, particularly at night.  I even like the hwa-hoo-hwa-hoooooooo.

So, anyway, today is my fourth day living in this city and downtown, at that.

It is noisy.

There is noise of people and traffic and emergency vehicles all the damn time.  I am amazed that I slept through it on the second night here and am thinking that I was/am simply exhausted from the Mt. Everest flight of stairs up the living quarters in this ancient building.  If this were my own place, the first thing that I would do is install an elevator.  Not by myself, but I would spend my last nickle to have it done.  I suspect that long-term living here would find my level of fitness greatly improved, although I am not so certain that my knees and hip could take it long enough for me to actually become more physically fit.  My knees are swollen and I am scheduling my trips up and down the stairway to heck so that I do not have to make that trip any more often than necessary.  Lung wise, I hardly even notice it anymore, and that is astounding in just four days...plus one extra night.  If only my joints would cooperate. 

Fortunately there is a hoist kind of thing.  It may even be called a hoist, I cannot remember.  I am, however, grateful for it because I realized on coming back here on Thursday that there was no way that I could get both my groceries and myself up the stairs-without-end.  I used it again yesterday to bring my sculpture and all the other crap up here where the light is better.  I just love mechanized mechanical machines.  Luvem.

But, the stairs?  I will be complaining about them for the next decade.  At least.