Old man, young man, old stairs, new stairs

This scene on a walk a couple of days ago reminded me of the old riddle: what walks on four legs in the morning, two legs and noon and three legs in the evening? since the ten month old crawling baby down the street was not available for a photo shoot, I had to skip morning and give you noon and evening, reading right to left.

And today the kitchen floor was redone, and the two flights of stairs and the hallway that connects them, all done, in, amazingly, four hours. Beautiful job, very friendly workmen, full of stories about how their little kids like birds, as I was moving my bird out of range, and who made the art, and so on, and it was really a good time.

Heard all about the supervisor who came with, and his art career and life, very interesting discussion on the meaning of art. This almost always happens when people come to do skilled work in the house. They are all artists in the evening, it seems.

The only drawback was that as the men arrived, banging and crashing and hauling equipment in, HP started to seize, and I ran to get one of the calming pills to head off major trouble. Rescue Remedy for me, too. I'm pretty sure it was the stress of the workmen's noise and disruption that did it, HP being not so good at change at the best of times, really wasn't sure why the ragged, ancient 21 year old rug



which has survived many animals, needed to be replaced. And the kitchen floor, much worn by dog nails and the years of wear, though the picture is kind to it




But that was several hours ago, and I don't see any further seizure trouble.

Anyway, we now have a lovely cushiony kitchen floor,



much warmer and easier to walk on, and the stairs actually look bigger, can't figure that out. The color didn't show up well on my camera, but it's a nice gentle green, peaceful.



I love green in a house. And this goes right from the foot of the stairs to the loft two stories up, to the entrance of the studio.

So it's done. And I assured HP we are only doing this once! I say this every time we have a major change made, to keep him calm about it. He gets very anxious about will the cats run out, will it all work out, etc. And I always remind him that the first thing the cats do when strangers with vacuum cleaners and noisy staple guns arrive is dive into my bed and burrow under all the covers until the coast is clear, no matter how long it may take.

Shakuhachi, shakuhachi, my mantra, along with SERENITY NOW. Try singing shakuhachi to the tune of La Cucaracha. It fits. You could also squash serenity now into the opening of the Fifth Symphony.

At least I can, but that's me.