vacuum excursion

Date	Place	Duration	push-ups	Pull-ups	60-second sprints	Time
4 Dec	Kavaja to Elec Market	29; 22 min	25,25	15	1	08:15

     I went out today to find a vacuum cleaner bag.  I need to cleanse my apartment after two wonderful little kittens were living here for two months.  My sons are quite allergic to cats.

   
 Last night, my teaching colleague started to draw me map to the electronics market where I might find a bag.  She wrote only the basic outline before I pointed to an empty portion and said, “Is it here?”

     “YES!  That’s it!  So you know it?”  This is a benefit of living in the city for some time.  

     So today I ran to this place—a long street that has shops selling lamps, food processors, radios, extension cords, yada, yada, yada.  After running up Kavaja, along to my pull-ups bar, to the river and up the street, I finished with a 60-second sprint.  I may not have given myself a super strenuous work-out this morning, but I am still unsure about my knees, although, they are improving.

     So now I was walking back DOWN the street.  I wasn’t sure where the vacuums were—as I was running, I noticed many places displaying food processors that look very much like my vacuum.  A used model with some age that I was given by different colleague at the office.  Fortunately, I didn’t waste any time looking for vacuums…instead asked the first salesman standing in front of his business NOT occupied with anything at the moment.  

     On my phone, I had “qese fshese me korrent” (vacuum cleaner in Albanian) written in a ‘note’.  I showed this to the man, and he pointed back UP the street.  I didn’t think I had passed any shops.  He recognized the look of doubt and confusion, and immediately led me to a group of shops standing some distance from the street, straight to a dude with stacks and stacks of old, new, unopened, half-broken appliances.  In the back of the shop, from floor to ceiling, there were scads of vacuum cleaners bags.  On my phone, I also had pictures of the serial number, and accompanying figures, and a picture of the vacuum itself.  He went scrounging through the stacks and came up with a bag.  I thought looked the cardboard anchor was too small from my machine.  With hand signals and facial gestures, however, the dude indicated that this was exactly the bag I needed.  

     I was not convinced.  So…I said that I would be back.  All he understood was that I was not satisfied and that I was leaving.  He unenthusiastically waved goodbye (or maybe his gesture was one of “Oh, get out of here, then!”), and I jogged away.

     I ran to my apartment in about 20 minutes.  I found a cloth bag big enough for the vacuum and threaded by arm through the handles.  I carried my bike down the four flights of stairs and onto the street.  The vacuum cleaner dude was happy to see me (I guess), and we soon discovered that he was absolutely correct about the size of the bag.  Well, WE didn’t discover this—I discovered it—he was sure already.  So the cleaning of the apartment was done with a well-working, though not slick, vacuum cleaner.  The next morning, a different dude came by to pick up the carpet that didn’t seem to have been cleaned in ages.  So all is well.a