I'm hanging out at home, waiting for the contractor to come. the contractor's minions are already hoisting scaffolding and such to do the tuck-pointing, but I need to ask the contractor proper a few questions and get a further estimate on something. Any day now....

Tuck-pointing is good, but the thing that's most important is fixing this -- lintel, I think? -- big old rock slab over my front windows. It's kind of cracked down the middle, and no longer straight across, so the windows are not at right angles. Well, nothing in the house is at right angles, who am I kidding, but this is worse than most things. It's big and heavy and slowly falling apart, which leads to the prospect of it crushing my windows at some point. That would be bad.So getting that fixed is the priority.

Now I'm sitting in my office on the second floor, watching guys climb ladders and scaffolding until they're looking down at me. It's very odd. Time to put those great roman shades my mom made into practice, instead of just allowing them to "remember" how to fold.