I came out of my study tonight, warning Maria that I wrote a bit about Jesus on my blog tonight (a joke between us, she is down on organized religion).

As I came into the light, I saw this beautiful and regal sight: Maria sitting alone on the primed but still unfinished dining room table, blogging on her laptop, as we both do every night before bed.

With all the clutter moved somewhere else, for now, she looked like a Queen sitting at her throne, a solitary figure dwarfed by the “desk” in front of her. It looked like a royal photograph to me.

While I was quoting Thomas Merton about charity, she was writing about the dichotomy of Bud, how he loves to kill moles outside in the yard, and then snuggle up with us when he gets inside.

Outside, Bud is a marauder and a beast. Inside, he’s a pussycat.

From her studio windows, Maria can see Bud rampaging around the yard eager for something to kill. Our table painting hit some roadblocks, there was bubbling all across the table.

The people at the hardware store suggested this was because it was so rainy and human, there was moisture in the table wood. So we are waiting for it to dry.

Maria scraped and scraped – she gets quite obsessive about these tasks – and we started from scratched. Sanding, scraping, and two new coats of primer.

We’ll try painting the soft orange color again sometime tomorrow. Maria thinks we’re on a good track now, I get to paint the Polyurethane over it all at the end.