Won’t you be my neighbor?

Finally met my neighors, who get up at like five in the morning every morning and bang around. It was, as most things are for me at this stage in my life, freaking awkward. I blame this on my landlady who jumped me in the hallway and dragged me into their apartment. She said, “I’d like to introduce you to your neighbors.” Then, instead of actually introducing us, we all just stood there, staring at each other, until I said, “um, je m’appelle Emily?” Good work team, that got the ball rolling. Now, I know I live next door to Jerome and Valerie who get up at five in the morning every morning and bang around. We exchanged niceties, promising to practice our respective foreign languages and then I awkwardly excused myself.
In related news, I have to admit, I am a little afraid of my landlord. Not because she’s mean, but because she is a perfectionist. For instance, she looked a little annoyed that I slapped my name on the mailbox with some scotch tape. She said that she would do something nicer this week. And when I threw some paper into the garbage can, I came home the next afternoon to find it safely placed inside a garbage bag. It was just paper! Honest. I wasn’t trying to defile the garbage can. But basically, since, the apartment is still being renovated, she comes and goes as she pleases and I just know that she’s gonna go in there on a bad day, when I haven’t had time to clean or I accidentally left dirty clothes on the floor or a wayward brassiere made it into the living room. You never know. I fear her judgement for some reason. I guess it doesn’t really matter, though, but I have this disease that my mother gave me where you can be a little (or a lot) messy, while you’re alone, but when people come over, there has to be a mad dash of cleanliness. Everything must be spotless And DON’T FORGET THE FLOORBOARDS. Ha, I blame mom, who of course is always clean with or without company coming over. There, I helped maintain the illusion.
I'm involved in an ever evolving struggle with France Telecom the french phone company. A guy came out last week to install my phone line and he said it would work that afternoon. Well, it's been a week, so last night I ventured over to the france telecom store and tried to sort things out. The lady told me the line works and that perhaps it is my phone. SO, i go buy a new phone and it doesn't work either. I go back to france telecom and another lady tries to call her service people, but apparently france telecom's phone isn't working either, so i have to come back tomorrow. I go back today and a lovely young man by the name of Julien helps me by dialing the service people, handing me the phone and dancing to the hold music. It was hilarious and mostly helpful. In short, another technician is coming out tomorrow, so hopefully that will work out. If not, "I had a guy come to my house to install my phone last week, but my phone still doesn't work, when i plug in the phone I hear nothing" branded in my brain in french.
In weather related news, it has been cold as (insert expletive here). The problem is all my winter clothes and my blanket are in Paris, so that I can take them back to the US next week, as a pre-emptive strike against the big move in august. The past few weeks have been super hot, but this week for some reason we had a cold snap. I’ve definitely had to do some creative layering. I actually took the cover of the sofa bed and used it as a blanket. Which is just sad.
In work related news, I am making some friends, who I occasionally understand. Awesome. I have lunch buddies, which was one of my bigger fears about returning to the working world in a foreign language. No one wants to have to eat lunch at their desk because no one likes them and they can’t hold a conversation. Thus, my solitude is broken for a half hour every day. Hooray.