And here we go.

 Martin and his assistant showed up - later than I expected but apparently the construction on 69/75 is horrific right now and is snarling traffic. He looked at the tile I bought and said "oh yes, this is just a lighter color of what I used in my house. It's good, it's easy to put in, and you will be happy with it." 

I almost cried with relief, both because they were there but also because I was afraid I'd bought a bad flooring or one that would not install well. 

They're going to patch the damage in the subfloor, fill in the hole where the mice were getting in (this is a gigantic relief) and then put down the new floor; hopefully by the end of the day this adventure will be DONE

My house smells weirdly like an antique shop; I noticed that yesterday. I think what it is is the dust from the construction and perhaps some mold from the subfloor having been damp. Hopefully it will go away (but not be TOO replaced by a chemical smell, and I may have to open the windows and run my air purifier in there if the new flooring seems to be outgassing) after they're done. 

but holy crap, this has been a whole Journey to Lonely Mountain And Back Again. I'm absolutely exhausted and once again, it's trashed my memory, being so focused on this - one of my colleagues e-mailed me about "hey did you and your colleague J rewrite the intro bio lab quizzes like you said you were going to" and I was like "oh no I forgot to do that!" and then J. was like "we did that at the end of last semester!" and I had 100% forgotten we had. That kind of thing worries me - I have far more "holes" in my memory than I once did and I guess that I have to start writing things down - and maybe I need to get some kind of cognitive assessment done to be sure there's not something actually wrong with me; at times I feel like my "processing speed" is way slower than it should be.