Saturday night fire

The fire, snooker and Baccarat

as I see it from my spot on the sofa

This is it. This is life as I like it; the only thing missing is snow falling outside the window, drifting up against the wall, tomorrow in question. Tonight, snooker, a fire in the wood stove, Baccarat curled up on the cushion for the smallest cat, snoozing cozily in front of the warmth of the fire, -- which is really very silly since she is a Black Lab and the littler cat weighs not even 1/10 what she does; it's rather like the cat fitting in a tea cup -- my husband at the hospital, and my son in Paris.

Peace. The opportunity to indulge myself in whatever I like, no one to whom to answer.

Who says living in a couple is a must for happiness?

I called my husband at the hospital, where he is on duty, to tell him that there is snooker the way one likes it on Eurosport, O'Sullivan and Higgins in the second semi-final of the Welsh Open.

"Tu es seule," he said. "Sam est parti à Paris, j'imagine." It occurred to me that he might have been feeling badly for me.

"Oui. Il a une soirée," I replied, not feeling disappointed in the least to be alone, he at the hospital and my son off at a party. Au contraire. These are the Saturday evenings I love best, which makes me wonder just a little bit about the rest of my life.

At 7:30 pm, I finished up the batch of plaster I had prepared with a final sweep of the trowel and thought about making just a little but more to finish the last small area of the triangular segment of wall about the larger French doors, and then decided against it. Last night, I had felt the moment when the end was just perceptible. Why rush it?

I can't tell you what that moment feels like. This room has been particularly difficult. And to think that I looked at it and thought, With all that window, it'll be a cinch ("si facile", pour les français), but I was wrong. I am approaching 4 bags of plaster at 15kg each, and it is a small room, and I haven't finished yet. I learned my lesson on the orange room: aim for smooth and don't fill the depressions in the walls, and you'll when it's time to start painting with the roller. This leaves me with a cruel choice: fatigue my hand applying plaster to fill in those depressions as much as possible and make a single plane of the wall, or kill my hand pressing on the roller, turning it this way and that, to cover the depressed areas in paint. I tried the latter the last time, so I thought I'd give the former a try this time, but all I can think about is the piano and the room for it that I really need to get a move on.

Had I bought the first piano he showed me, it would be here by now; I would have cared much less about the room, but this piano is special. It needs a room digne de lui. Not just the walls need to be plastered and the wainscoting continued all the way around, and not just the wood floor finished where it ended at the storage system my husband never finished, but a whole new wood floor: old parquet.

I have to find that parquet, my husband has to install it, and Monsieur would like to deliver the piano, and before all of that, the larger guest room has to be finished (because I said so, and) because everything from the room that will receive the piano needs a place to go before I can insist on the wood floor being done right now, which involves the will of my husband, so that Monsieur can slide the piano into place and it will only have to be maneuvered ever so slightly to let us finish the wainscoting around it.

Already I am accepting the loss of the ideal. Before, the room had to be perfectly ready to receive my beautiful, beautiful piano. Now, at least the floor should be in place and the walls plastered.
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