Duly Chastised

I have been remonstrated with this very afternoon for neglecting The Inn. And so I have been.

We are still in house-renewal mode. I tried my best to convince Herself how wonderful bare wood flooring is. And in particular the distressed wood look: think 18th century Irish country house. I overshot the mark. She used to live in an 18th century Irish country house and was freezing cold most of the time. So we've had people in to choose rugs and area carpeting which will be "warmer". (Yes, I know this is southern California. But we still apparently want "warmer".) Some of the wood will, indeed, show so we've also had people in to sand and clean and varnish the bits that will be on display. Which bits will actually be on display have changed since the first exercize in wood prep, so more people will soon be in to sand and clean and varnish again. Then more people to actually intall the rugs and carpets.

To fill in the time between people coming in to mess about with the floors, we've been trying to put things back where they belong in the places where they won't have to be moved again. This takes longer - a lot longer - than dumping them in boxes and hauling them out to the garage and the patio, which we did oh, so very long ago. (Was it only last summer? It seems longer.)

And for the first time in almost four decades I am again in a choir. SATB this time and not TTBB so I can't rest comfortably in my gentleman's baritone range. I'm happier pretending to be a bass even though I can't reach as far down into the cellar as is ideal but once in a while I get to pretend to be a tenor, and it's a pretty squeaky tenor without much in the way of harmonics. But it's been great fun and we've been practicing quite a lot for Christmas and the lessons and carols.

So that's where the time's gone. (I probably should also have been practicing the pipes. That, alas, didn't happen. And now I have some Christmas stuff to play for and the Christmas carols are, ahem, not quite as smooth as I would like. And speaking of Christmas, I have to get ready for the RSCDS-OC's Christmas ball in one hour and five minutes.)