It took me three days to paint the master bedroom, three days of Jeff-awayness that meant I spent most of my painting time trying very very hard to coax sprightly conversation out of my painting utensils (and failing, I might add). The first two days were spent painting and doing chores at a rather leisurely pace, since I believed I had until Thursday night to complete the painting of the room.

Last night's phone call changed that. "I'm coming home a day earlier than planned."

I had taken the phone call in the half-painted bedroom, fully intending to stare at the walls for a while and daydream about what pieces of art I'd hang on each wall.

Instead, I found myself calculating how fast I'd have to work to get the entire room finished before Wednesday night, when Jeff would come home.The trick to painting is that the painting itself doesn't take very long. The waste and delay comes from having to move the furniture, clean up all the bits and change and various dust animals hiding behind everything. Then you mask all the trim with paint, take down fixtures and outlet covers and protect their guts with tape....and only then do you actually get to paint.

Afterwards it's the same dance again: touch up the trim, wait for it all to dry, take down the tape, put the fixture covers back on, and then move the furniture back into place.

Correction. Let me back up and explain that again. It wasn't actually "moving furniture," it was "restoring the bed back from a chaos state." Only I would choose to do this sort of thing alone, instead of calling in a neighborly friend to help.

Then again, once the bed was disassembled, and the mattress and box springs tilted against a nearby chair, I did get to sit on the floor (with a wee bit of sweat for added decoration) and watch the Brothers Fang play chase-the-brother-kitty-up-the-mountain. I was exhausted just watching them.

But, in the end, there was something approaching a happy ending. I finished reassembling and de-taping the room exactly one hundred minutes before Jeff was due to land back in Huntsville, and found myself sitting on the bed staring at the newly-blued room with one word in my head:

Cheeseburger.

Actually, it wasn't sounding like that in my head. It was more like this: cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseburger. (Extra e's to denote the gloppy factor.)

I picked up my keys, my wallet, and a handful of quarters and headed to the car. I had just enough time to stop off at Wendy's to buy a celebratory cheeseburger before heading to the airport. After paying for the burger, I drove with my left hand while scrabbling around with my right to pull out a couple of fries.

They were fresh.

I drove down 565 at eight over the speed limit, Danny Tenaglia blaring, while I ate the rest of the fries and greedily sucked the salt off my fingers. I pulled up at the terminal and picked Jeff up, welcoming him back home with a request: "Will you drive? I really, really, really want to eat this cheeseburger."

He drove. I ate the cheeseburger, and pronounced the rest of tonight to be Chardonnay Night, in which I'd celebrate the finishing-up of painting the master bedroom by quaffing about half a bottle of decent chardonnay by myself. I am writing this entry at the end of that half-bottle, and finding that it's doing wonders to soothe the frustration and tired muscles that come from days of painting.

How quickly I forget the process. By tomorrow afternoon I'll have forgotten the frustration of standing on ladders, of taping down corners and crannies, of painstakingly doing trim work. The room will still be blue, and I'll be wondering just what color I should paint the computer room.

Those who have listened to me complain about the process of painting the master bedroom may feel free to hit me.