In which there is a disaster

To begin with, you have to know that the walls of our apartment in Paris were completely covered with art: big pieces, small pieces, originals, prints, sculpture, it was probably on our walls somewhere. Also, you need to know that our apartment was quite small (though not by Paris standards) and so all three kids were sharing the bedroom on the bottom floor of the apartment, with Ezio sleeping on a trundle bed and Cherry on an air mattress. But this room was also fairly small, and also served as Blaise's office, and so every morning Ezio's bed was shoved under Sapphire's bed then Cherry's air mattress was balanced on top in a giant mattress and bedding tower. Furthermore, since the washing machine was in a relatively inaccessible location, their dirty laundry tended to end up in a pile on the table at the end of the bed. And now the scene is set: a big framed picture at one end of the bed, a pile of laundry that needed to be brought to the washer at the other end, and, in between, an air mattress balanced atop a pile of blankets and pillows.

Sapphire was given the job of collecting the laundry that had collected at the end of the bed and bringing it to me for washing, while I loaded the kitchen towels and the laundry from our bedroom upstairs. In doing so, she bumped one end of the air mattress, which shifted, knocking against the bottom edge of the huge (45 x 50 inches) picture, which turned out to have been precariously balanced on the top rail of its frame, and knocking it onto the bed. The glass shattered. Sapphire screamed. And I dropped the laundry and came rushing into the room. 

First things first. Get some shoes on. Is anyone hurt? Sweep up the glass that is on the floor, and then vacuum to get any stray pieces. Now take a look at the picture. What to do? Replace the glass, obviously, assuming that we can figure out how. Searches for "framing Paris" yield a bunch of do it yourself places, but none of them are close, and I don't exactly relish the idea of getting a massive piece of glass home on the Metro, nor do we have the tools to handle it. A search for encadrement near Place Maubert leads to professional framers in the area, one perhaps 50 meters away as the pigeon flies (there are no crows in Paris), and five times that by foot. Maybe they could help us? 

Sapphire and I set out. The shop is closed until 2:00. Back home to wait until 2:00. Then back to the shop. I explain what has happened, and that we are leaving Paris on Sunday morning. She asks if we can bring the picture. Of course. We go back to the apartment to remove any pieces of loose glass from the frame and somehow maneuver the picture down our tightly twisting apartment staircase and the quarter kilometer to the framer's workshop. She looks at it. The frame is also broken, since it was too light for the picture and the glass was too big. It was a disaster waiting to happen. She can fix it, she says, but she will need to use acrylic glass, and a wooden frame, which will be much sturdier. She does not understand how they managed to even get the picture hung in the first place without breaking the glass. She promises to email an estimate and we leave the picture there. Sapphire is full of self recrimination. I assure her that it was an honest accident and that we are not angry with her.

The estimate comes that evening, and we contact the owner through the service. Does she want us to deal with this? We don't hear anything until Wednesday afternoon. Yes. I go back to the framer's and pay the deposit. She can have the picture ready at closing time on Friday. 

Friday evening Sapphire and Cherry and I go to the framer's workshop to pick up the picture. It looks beautiful, and feels much (much, much) sturdier than before. It is also much lighter. She wraps it in bubble wrap and Sapphire and I carry the picture while Cherry carries my purse and opens the doors for us. We put it in the corner, underneath where it had been before, still in the bubble wrap. I am not going to rehang it, especially when we discover that 3 out of the 5 hooks that had been supporting it are in fact loose. 

At check out on Sunday, the rental company reminds Blaise that we have insurance on the apartment, and so we should be able to get back at least some of the cost of the framing. And finally, because she rearranged her schedule in order to deal with our emergency and need for a quick turn around, our framer was

Laurence Albessard

4 Rue Maître Albert

75005 Paris, FRANCE

who was truly wonderful and much appreciated.