So… my buddy Marc and I have taken to challenging each other once per week with a Daily Fitbit Challenge.  Two weeks ago, he must have been feeling lenient and giving this newbie a chance to beat him by 104 steps.  Last Wednesday, despite my 19,217 steps, he whupped my butt by 5K+.

Circumstances were in our favour to do our challenge today rather than tomorrow.  So, once my meeting with my mortgage broker ended some time around 2:00 pm, I started to get ready for my walk with Zeke.  As usual, I open the door to let him out as he drives me nuts while I tie my boots, and lock it because I’ll go out via the garage so I don’t have to carry my keys.

Open the door and see if the Zeke-Meister is there, and of course, he is!

Gather my stuff and out the garage I go.  Close the garage by pressing the button and take a few steps.  Hmmm… Methinks it might be colder than I thought, maybe I should get a light hat to protect my ears.  Punch in the code and.  Nothing.  Punch it in again.  Nothing.  Shit.  Try one last time and still.  Nothing.  Now I’m thinking that the other button mighta been pushed by accident, thereby blocking the keypad from working.  Why didn’t I check before leaving?  The green dot flashes when it’s locked.   D’oh! number 1

Outside Keypad

Inside Garage Door Buttons

Start walking and text Aidan – “Locked out, blah blah… What time do you finish school?”  Get the response:  “last class is at six”.

Text Iain, who is also at school:  same blah blah as to Aidan plus, “let me know when you can come unlock the door.” Get the response “bruh.  I have a break at 6 and I don’t  have my full set.”

Text my sister, “Any chance in hell you have my house key?”  Get the response “I’m not home right now, and I’ll check but I doubt it”.  So did I.

More exchanges with the boys.  I keep walking because I might as well get my steps in since I can’t even get into the house.  Have an ah-hah moment.  Wait!  I betcha Mick gave a key to Robert for ‘just in case’…. text Robert:  “Hey you!  Any chance in hell you have a key to my house?”  Get the response:  “I think yes”.  He then calls me and tells me he will call me when he gets home to confirm.

Hallelujah!

With a much lighter bounce in my step, Zeke and I walk all the way past the Parc des Coutances to the strip of a trail behind the rue de Gascogne, happy that for once I did not drag my big camera.  I am wondering why so many trees were cut down in that strip.  It can’t be to make way for anything other than the pathway that is already there.  Curious.  But not enough to investigate.

Parc de Coutances

Stretch behind de Gascogne

On our return, I regretted not having my camera as there were cardinals calling out to each other.  I did film a little snippet because for some strange reason, zooming in on a video gives better results than zooming in for a picure.  Sadly, it just didn’t do them justice.

There were other birds as well but dang.  Robert called to confirm he did have the key but since he was going to dinner at his parents, where did he want me to hide it?  I told him where but just to make sure it was the right key.

He calls me back.  “Um… your front door was not locked.”  D’oh! Number 2.

Good grief.  Really?  I guess when I checked on Zeke’s position, I forgot to re-lock the door.  Bravo.  So Robert locked it for me.

By the time I got home, I figured… lemme check the keypad, just for the hell of it.

You guessed it.  The garage door opened.  Of course it did, Dummy.  You were able to close the damn door with the extra button (the one that usually goes in your car if you could actually put a car in your garage, which you can’t because our stupid furnace is in there so we keep the button on a rack by the door).  D’oh! Number 3.

On the plus side, with all this walking and stuff, I beat Marc by 431 steps.  Mind you, he called it at 8 saying he was charging his Fitbit and putting his feet up.  So, in solidarity, I removed mine 😉  Now, he’s gonna tell all a’ y’all that I was getting a lil cocky to which I replied “A lil bit.”  I’m sure I could have gotten a couple more hundred steps in easy-peasy.  Especially since I was behind by almost 900 at 7 so I danced while I prepared my supper 😀

I know full well that most days he has me beat so I’ll just bask in my lil moment for a bit.