Looking outside

from the elevator alcove on the ground floor of our building.  I posted a picture of the plants on the window sill and my mother in love mistakenly thought they were my plants.  There are four door ladies that work in our building.  They work a rotating 24 hour shift from 7 am - 7am.  They decorate for the holidays, sweep and the mop the floors, keep the outside steps free from snow and trash, hold our mail for us, keep undesirables out of our building, open the door and elevator for us when our hands are full, let in delivery and repair men, grow beautiful plants. . . I am certain I do not know all of their tasks.  Two of them are delightful and have learned our names and a smattering of English words to try to communicate with us.  The other two are very stern and businesslike.

There are two elevators in the alcove and a door that contains a trash chute.  The trash chute door remains shut as does the one on our floor.  The trash chute is no longer in use but retains a unpleasant odor.  The elevator on the left is the small one featured in a recent blog post.  The elevator on the right is larger.  Sometimes the door lady can request a certain elevator, like when we arrive home from IKEA.  Sometimes however, one or the other elevator is broken and not in use.  Occasionally, both elevators are in a state of disrepair at the same time and we use the fire escape stairs.

On R's return to Russia in October the small elevator is the one that he got stuck in for about an hour, with all his luggage, there was barely room for him.  He sat down on top of his suitcase and read his kindle while they shouted at him in Russian.  I think it is universal, when we are speaking with someone who doesn't understand us or our language we just talk louder. . .