in which a rope hangs outside my window

one day at my apartment, there was a rope hanging past my bedroom window (which is on the fourth floor). i looked down to the ground, and it was just hanging down there. i wondered why. but then i forgot about it and started doing other things. a bit later, a rope started to move. then a very long bunch of planks moved past my window, bonking into it slightly on the way up. i concluded the rope was the pulley system for getting stuff to the apartment above mine that they didn't want to carry up the stairs. they've been remodeling up there since we moved in. sometimes they choose to start sawing and hammering at 7 AM on saturday morning. last week there was also banging on metal involved. i guess it's good that i normally wake up at 5:45 AM, so 7 on saturday morning isn't all that early.

the other day at work, there was also a rope hanging past my third story window. from past experience, i concluded it must also be a pulley system--but why? i couldn't think of anything that would want to pull up to the floors above where i work. then later, we were all surprised to see two men appeared from above, sitting on small pieces of board attached to the other end of the rope, and then were painting the outside of the building as they slowly came down! they swung back and forth across the windows as they went as needed. what a scary job! they painted their way past the window, talking to each other as they went. it was distracting for several minutes, and then i forgot about it, and the rope was no longer hanging past my window later.

later in the day, i was working alone, and realized i was hearing singing. in chinese, so i thought to myself, thinking of the building that is being built that i can see easily from the window, it must be one of the workers over there singing. but then i thought, whoever that man is, has such loud singing voice to carry so well from that other building over to here. i looked out of the window down to the ground to see if someone was walking by. but then, suddenly a man (singing loudly in chinese) swung in front of my window! painting as he went... =) of course, the man on the pulley, singing. no wonder it was so close. he was literally 3 feet away from me when i first heard him, i just couldn't see him until he swung in front of the window!