The people across the street are moving. Moving men arrived this morning and sent a telescopic metal ladder up to the 3rd floor. It looks like aluminum but it might be made of something else. There is a platform which rides up and down the ladder to the big open window. I would call these French windows but I doubt the French call them French windows. They probably just call them windows. A man at the top loads boxes and beds and bookshelves onto the platform and then he shouts to the man below who brings the whole load down. The man on the ground must have a button. There are sides on the platform which can be put up to protect the load from tumbling off. Sometimes the man at the top uses the sides and sometimes he does not. Each time a load goes down or the empty platform goes back up it bumps into the branches of a tree. The branches get bent way way back and they look like they might break but each time they smack back with a loud noise. It is difficult for me to get anything done here because every time I look up there is another load going up or coming down. There are so many windows here and they all look straight across at the action. If I stop paying attention for long, the loud whack of the branches brings me right back to the moving activity. The street is not wide. It has a single lane for cars driving in one direction. A moving van is parked on the opposite side of the street. When the platform reaches ground level two men unload it and carry each thing across the street. They have to wait for any passing bikes or cars before they cross. The man who does most of the carrying has a cigarette in his mouth at all times. It is always lit. It felt like the emptying of this apartment would go on all day, but suddenly I looked out and the truck is gone and the men are gone and the ladder thing is gone. The window is now shut. EVH
Source: Watching the movers