“Exactly,” I said. “Your point?”

John took Horatio out to pee, while I filled the food dishes, carried them into the cat room. We zapped some leftover casserole from last night and chowed it down.

“Should I put a fresh casserole in the oven for everyone else?” I asked.

“I can’t believe our lives have come to this,” John said. “An endless stream of casseroles.”

“We’re under construction,” I said. “The last thing we need is cooking stress on top of renovation stress. I think you need to work on your casserole gratitude.”

“Casserole gratitude,” John said. “I think that might be an oxymoron.”

I flipped the outside light on, peeked out through the panes in the kitchen door. John’s and my cars were the only ones in the driveway.

“Oh, well,” I said. “If anybody’s hungry when they get home, they know where the casseroles are.”

Most of the traffic was coming toward us, so we twisted and turned through the backroads to the highway in record time. I found a classic rock radio station on John’s Acura and cranked up the volume. The DJ was playing the early Beatles, youthful optimistic songs that always made me feel practically youthful and optimistic, too.

John and I sang along to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “She Loves You,” “Michelle.”

I kicked off my shoes. I put my stockinged feet on John’s dashboard and let the heat warm my toes. John reached over and put one hand on my thigh. We sang along to “Norwegian Wood” and “Love Me Do.” We both knew all the words to all the songs, even the ones you’d think we would have forgotten by now.

Remember this, I thought.

We wandered the aisles in store after store. John checked things off his list as we found them. If they were small, we threw them in our cart. If they were big, we made arrangements to have them delivered.

“This is fun,” I said. “It’s like a cross between a scavenger hunt and a date.”

We stopped at a freestanding tub, modern but cozy as a hug, white as snow. It was called Romance.

“That’s it,” John said.

“Agreed,” I said. “But you don’t think we’re just picking it because it’s called Romance, do you?”

John swung his arm around my shoulders. “Tub names don’t sway me. I’d choose this bathtub even if it was called Catastrophe.”

I leaned my head against his shoulder. “Good to know.”

Finally, we’d found everything but the bathroom vanity.

“They’re just all so cookie cutter,” I said.

“Sounds like Ikea it is then,” John said. “You can’t beat it for good, cheap modern design. A nod to classic and midcentury, while still embodying that clean Scandinavian esthetic.”

“Bold but not impertinent,” I said in my best wine snob voice.