The Adventures of Geo Beane: Day 11 of Renovations

The pace of work on the house had dwindled to a drawl and I was starting to pine after the days of just hanging around Humphrey's feet at the office.

He had some major project. Some deadline. Shudder. And so, the morning and part of the afternoon were indeed spent in our apartment with Humphrey distractedly contemplating this word or that? which chart or graph? a picture or not? and so many other decisions that required hunting about the shelves and in archives online that I was hardly given passing glance.

And I, I began to make a nuisance of myself. I whined to go in. I whined to go out. I brought my leash. I nudged my bowl of water, full but now emptied, because I myself had preemptively dumped it out...

"Rrrgh..."

"Almost, almost."

Finally, Humphrey hit the send button and the draft became final.

"For whatever it's worth, Beans," he said, and I could see he was not pleased with the results of his efforts. Sigh.

I thought for sure now we'd take a break for ourselves, but no, Humphrey had other plans.

"Nose to the grindstone, Geo Beankin. We have to get cracking on the new place, or we'll never get moved in."

Mrs. B. was taking Bonnie to her cousin's Bat Mitzvah so there was no going over to romp in the neighbor's yard for me today, and I was glad.

Humphrey grabbed me unceremoniously under the belly and into the car along with a couple bottles of water and we were off.

"It's important to stay hydrated. You have no idea how dehydrating coffee actually is, and you know I've been running on the stuff. It's time to replenish with pure cool Spring Water."

I closed my eyes tight and braced myself on the seat. I wiggled towards the driver seat. I wanted to go to The Park. To Play. With Humphrey snfffl,

Humphrey, though, was determined to scrape the floors for the rest of the day. I decided then to make the best of it. I pushed the scraper around while he did some detailing with a knife. (After removing the wall-to-wall carpeting, the subfloor was found to be patched with a black tar like glue to which linoleum had previously been stuck, remnants of which were evidenced in the far corners in a drab olive-green mottled hue.) In some parts the goo was very thick, and it took a lot to get it all off.

Getting nowhere with the scraper, myself, I chewed Humphrey's shoelaces, until he scolded me. When he sat on the floor, I shimmied into his lap and licked his face, and he sent me chasing after an empty water bottle. Then, I attacked the other bottle with equal zeal till it burst open and spilled all over the hardwood...!

"Geo!"

But with just a quick toss of a hand towel, he was back at his scraping on all fours. So, what to do? I went to sit on the window seat where I watched four hornets building a nest with white eggs inside the frame of the window in the music room. I wondered how Humphrey was ever going to manage to shoot the spray he usually uses into that top corner sandwiched between the glass... I tried to draw his attention with some cautious whining. The wasps were big. Definitely not yellow jackets.

"Arrgh haru.."

"That's it, Beanie. That is the last of it," putting down the scraper and the knife, dusting the black particles off his hands and knees, and reaching for the broomstick. He hadn't noticed the swarm yet. He was now reaching for the vacuum cleaner and pulling up the fine dust.

"Tomorrow we'll throw open all the windows and varnish this floor!"

He still hadn't noticed the hornets...