My friend John has known me for 30 years. In the past three decades, he's gotten used to hearing me go on and on about my crazy ideas and big plans for this or that. He lets me prattle on for a little while, and then, invariably, he laughs, points, and says, "Look, a kitty!" It's his way of reminding me that I am...shall we say...easily distracted.
The most recent instance of John's saying, "Look, a kitty!" came Sunday night, when I first told him I was going to paint the kitchen turquoise and then explained (again) my plan to remodel the two bathrooms, beginning with tearing out that shower stall. "Look," he said gently, "the idea here is to keep moving forward. The kitchen's done. Why would you repaint it?" Oh. Well, that makes sense. And then he asked, "When did you finish fixing that peeling paint you were talking about?" Ouch. Um. Well, I haven't finished it.
But I did start it. Yesterday. I went out to the east side of the house and discovered that it looks even worse than I thought it did, so I commenced to scraping yesterday afternoon. I got almost all the loose paint scraped off, and then I went out to the new hardware store in town and bought several tubes of painter's caulk, and then I came back home and commenced to caulking. I finished the full length (about 20 feet) of three clapboards before I began having doubts that I was doing it right and called White Trash Bob for affirmation. (It was WTB who suggested this method of fixing the peeling: scrape all the loose paint off, wet your hands, dispense a big blob of painter's caulk into one palm, and smear over the clapboards, sealing in the edges where paint meets wood. He did this with great success on an old house he used to own, so I have high hopes for my own house.) WTB declared that I was indeed doing it correctly and that I should have no trouble finishing before winter if the weather holds and if I work hard on my days off.
And then we decided that since yesterday was one of those rare late-autumn days of unseasonably warm weather and clear skies, that what we really ought to do was to get on WTB's motorcycle and go for a ride to enjoy the weather and the changing leaves on the trees. We got back just before dark. Thereby proving that a Triumph motorcycle can also be a kitty.