I got to paint my son’s ex-office today.

Actually it is still half his office — for the moment. Currently it is housing a crib, a dresser, a changing table, a computer, a fax machine, a file cabinet, a bookcase, a mounted deer skull, a badger skin, a stack of historical biographies, a cross bow, and gun cabinet. It’s a pretty crowded room.

Fortunately the new occupant won’t be needing it for a couple of months so more adjustments can be made.

But real progress was made today. I had no idea we were going to paint. But yesterday, after the shower, when the dining room filled up with loot from the shower (including above mentioned baby furniture), Son decided it was TIME.

When this son gets the bit between his teeth, things really move. We had the room emptied and prepped and two coats of paint were on before dinner. The room began the day a sort of a deep slate blue (courtesy of the former user of the room prior to my son). It is now supposedly white. It actually looks sort of, um, gray. His wife thinks beige would be an improvement. Tomorrow he’s going to get another gallon of paint and go for beige.

The painting was fun — even if tomorrow it’s going to be another color altogether. I get to help again as I’ve got one more day here.

I’m looking forward to it. He is possibly the only son who would allow me to paint with him. Maybe his next oldest brother would, too. He, too, is reasonably tolerant of ineptitude and does not strive for perfectionism. The eldest son wouldn’t let me, I know that. The eldest is like his father — a proponent of the Sistine Bathroom School of Painting.

These are the people who are meticulous, orderly, and basically perfectionists. They are not me. I did not paint our bathroom. The reason I call it the Sistine Bathroom is because my husband did paint it. And when he does anything, he makes sure it is perfect. It was lovely (still is, though he was not the last Michelangelo to paint it. Last time I hired a retired teacher to do it). But it took all summer to get that way.

I like to be meticulous and crazy when it comes to writing books. Not painting. But I enjoyed doing it today. And tonight I get to sleep in the living room with the fish because besides being my son’s office and his baby’s new bedroom and the gun room, it was also the guest room.

Not tonight.

Got a bit more done on Sebastian. He and his heroine are beginning to come to life. Keep your fingers crossed.

The baby shower was great. When I get home and get things downloaded I may be able to put up a pic or two.

This morning we opened the front door and the suitcase fell in. No idea how long it has sitting there. Good thing they live out in the country where no one passing by was likely to look up, see a nicely packed suitcase leaning against a front door and decide they’d like it to be their suitcase instead.

I understand it arrived sometime after 2 a.m. at the airport and was picked up sometime after 6 a.m. to jaunt around the countryside with the other wandering luggage as it was, piece by piece, taken home. I find it a little disconcerting that, when I called to see about its location, the clerk told me that the “regular driver” had already appeared and it was probably already there (it was). The disconcerting bit is that this airport, which is really not that big, and this airline (which only has something like 3 flights a day into Bozeman from Minneapolis) needs a “regular driver” to ferry all its misdirected luggage about.

Does this make anyone else want to ask just how many pieces go astray regularly?

Perhaps we should draw a veil over the question. Move on. Yes, good idea.

Spent a part of the day looking at houses and lots in the valley, anticipating the time when we will be back this way on a permanent basis. Amazing amounts of growth here. Scary almost. We’ll have to do some real looking — and thinking.

Currently thinking about Sebastian’s heroine. Drawing a blank. Hope she gets her act together soon.

Flynn and Sara are still incognito. Hmmmmm.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but apparently the real reason for driving to Birmingham was so that I would have luggage when I got there.

As opposed, say, to today . . . when I do not have luggage because, though it was correctly marked this morning for a flight to Minneapolis-St Paul and thence to Bozeman, the vagaries of air travel have sent it instead to Detroit.

Last time I looked Detroit was not on the way to Bozeman from Iowa. I am especially bemused because when I took the luggage to the woman who was putting them through the baggage checker thingy that x-rays them or whatever it does, she said, “Is this bag going to Memphis or Detroit?” And I said, “Neither. It’s going to Minneapolis and then to Bozeman.” And she said, “Oh, good. I’ll start a new section.”

So much for the new section. We know which section it got in, don’t we? And so, while I was winging my way west, it was flying east. And by the time I landed and inquired as to its whereabouts, they had discovered it — oops — didn’t belong in Detroit and so sent it to Minneapolis, where it missed a flight to Bozeman.

But wait, there is another flight tonight. It was due in an hour ago. Did it arrive? No. In fact it’s going to be at least three and a half hours late. The baggage person told me it wasn’t expected until two a.m. at last update.

I began to have flickering shades of deja vu all over again — as memories of my last trip out for the wedding last summer came roaring back. And it was all I could do not to say, “Well, I hope you all thought to PUT ON AN EXTRA CREW or the morning flight won’t go out due to airline regs that prohibit flight crews from getting less than eight hours (or whatever it is) on the ground. Because there are NOT eight hours between when the plane’s crew is landing and the morning flight is supposed to be taking off.

But did they? It will be interesting to find out. It was a different airline who pulled that trick last time. But maybe they both do it.

Am I getting a little testy? Just a bit. Flying has become such an annoyance. It makes driving 825 miles more or less seem like a picnic by comparison.

But the bright side is, I am enjoying the son and daughter-in-law and I got to hear the baby’s heartbeat. It pays to have priorities!