Yesterday Chas called me on his way home from work to ask when I wanted to start on my floors. At the time, I was standing in the lumberyard talking to a guy about picture rail for the front parlor. This strikes me as very funny.
Anyhow, it should surprise absolutely no one that my answer to his question was, "Tonight." Chas makes this little noise, sort of a cross between a grunt and an "uh-huh", when he's stalling the conversation. He made that noise. I backtracked. "I mean, you could come look at 'em tonight. I don't expect you to actually start on 'em after you worked a 10-hour day pourin' concrete."
So last night he came over and looked at the floors, cursed the people who glued carpet to them, speculated (as did Mare a couple of years ago) that they might not be the original flooring, kicked at the tack strip still left here and there, pulled out a couple of staples, and then gave his verdict: "Let's get goin' on 'em."
I, of course, took that to mean right this very minute and was ready to push the furniture out of the dining room and into the mostly-empty front parlor. Then, in a rare moment of practical thinking, I actually said, "I probably oughta finish papering the front parlor first, and maybe even hang that picture rail." And he replied, "Well, I can help you with that too." I resisted the urge to jump up and down while clapping my hands. (At least until after he left.)
Stay tuned. This is gonna get good.