Update

We've been having ridiculously gorgeous weather lately for Washington, DC. It feels and looks more like late September these days than August, with clear skies, all the way down to the low 60s at night and the very mild low 80s during the day, with comfortable humidity. I'm looking for jobs to do outside just for the sake of being there. And sitting in the deck with the paper or my audio book is certainly something I wouldn't usually be doing at this time of year.

The bathroom project has been stalled since we decided to re-glaze the tiles. It's taking forever to find enough people who do the work to get an array of estimates. So far I've had only two guys come. The first seemed very good, easy to work with, and offered what we thought was a reasonable rate. The other guy took one look at the scope of the job and shook his head. He was the polar opposite of the first, full of reasons why the project would be difficult and time-consuming. He wouldn't even give me a tentative price while he was here--said he had to run it all by his boss. That was last week and I've heard nothing back since. I'll not go chasing after this company's business!

We finally found another contractor this past weekend at the Arlington County Fair. (Aside from guaranteed great food from all the ethnic vendors who set up there, the county fair here is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. You never know what you might turn up.) A friendly young woman with a couple of kids had a table with brochures about the family business: tub and tile re-coloring! Right here in Arlington! Her husband is coming at 10 this morning to give me an estimate. If he's reasonable and doesn't do a number like the second guy, at least we'll feel we've done due diligence and can make a choice. (And if not, we'll just go with the first guy, whom I liked anyway.) It's been nice for us to have some time not completely dominated by some house project, but time's a-wasting if we want to have this painting work done by the fall. There will be plenty more to do during the winter.

No news on the employment situation--we're just waiting to see what Steve's company and TSA decide to do about the transition to the successor on the contract. We do know that the project's landlord requires two months' notice for the space to be vacated, so there would have to be that much of a grace period if and when the company finally pulls the plug. Steve's circulating his resumé but is not taking any concrete steps until he knows for sure that he will not be able to stay long enough for vestment, that is, until the end of March 2009. At this point anything is possible, and we continue with our plans.