Well, the weekend went off pretty much as planned, and I am dragging ass today (as expected.)

Friday night was exactly what I needed. We met up with the gang at the bar in Birches (strangely enough, the same bar we shared farewell drinks at six years ago when they left town) and caught up over a delicious dinner in a mostly deserted restaurant. The entire Yuppie population of Canton must have left for the beach or something, because parking spots and empty barstools were easy to find. After dinner, we headed over to Lulu’s to meet up with another bunch of friends, and despite all the best intentions, stayed to shut the place down. Frankly, we could have stayed for another two or three hours, as we’re friends with the owners, but when the magic number hit 3 we wisely bid goodnight and crawled back to the County for some sleep.

I can’t describe how good it felt to sit and talk with old friends again. In the last couple of years, I’ve noticed that my personal social barometer rises and falls like a pogo stick: I get intensely antisocial for periods of time, and then binge on groups of people. I don;t know why this is, other than the simple fact that I’m busy and lazy and have nobody else to blame but myself. I have to keep up with my own 2005 resolution to stay in contact with everybody as much as possible.

Saturday we decided to attack the floor in the kitchen, and so we began demolition in earnest. The first layer of linoleum came up pretty easily. The Luuan underneath (very thin, very jagged plywood) came up pretty easily too, even though it was installed with a million ring shank flooring nails. The third layer, another coating of linoleum, is a different story. At some point, some idiot decided that using tarpaper as an underlayment for linoleum was a great idea. About half of the tarpaper is so brittle with age that it’s relatively easy to remove. The other half is next to impossible to budge. I tried two different kinds of citrus-based gel stripper with disappointing results, and the heat gun just made this smell worse. It’s looking like the kitchen floor will not be included in the upcoming refinishing job, unless the contractors have some kind of magical suggestion that I can pull off in a week.

Update: There is no magic bullet. Unless I can clean it up by Monday, we’re waiting on the kitchen until we get back from Ireland.

Otherwise, the weekend was full of success. Our vegetables are growing and blooming rapidly—We have tomato plants that are almost four feet high. Jen’s perennial bed is growing out of control. Our cherry tree is loaded with almost-ripe fruit. The rose bush under our dining room window is covered in blooms this weekend. Our gladiolus bulbs are six inches high. The peonies in the front yard are blooming and fragrant. Everything seems to be ready for summer.

And I want to go back to sleep.