Two life-altering events dovetailed this week. Events so emotional and personal that I really shouldn’t be telling you about them. But, what the hey! This is a mystery blog and what is life but the mystery of all mysteries?

Life-Altering event No. 1:

This is my final week of painting. Oh yes, I suppose I’ll paint again. Someday. A little here. A little there. But the real painting – the ten-year juggernaut of applied pigmentation that coincides with the decade that I’ve been with Carol—is coming to an end.

Let’s go back ten years.

Within three months of our hooking-up, as the youngsters say, I agreed to paint her screened-in back porch while she went to Cape Cod with her sister. I painted the ceiling and all those 2×4s between the screen panels and then tackled the concrete floor. I painted half of it then tried to figure out how I was going to move the big picnic table from the other half all by myself, Carol being in Cape Cod and all. I couldn’t just drag it. That would scuff up the half I’d already painted. So, I crawled under the table and lifted the table up on my back, like the shell of a Galapagos turtle, and then slowly, in great agony, duck-walked the table to the other side. It was while in this position that I realized how much in love I must be.

Over the next three years a non-stop succession of painting projects followed. I painted the outside of her house. Both the brick parts and the siding parts. Then I started painting inside. Bedroom one. Bedroom two. The hall. The bathroom. The living room. The kitchen. The stairwell to the basement. All the windows and doors.

Then we got married and Carol decided that we needed a bigger house for all the garage sale furniture I was refinishing for her. And so we bought the house we now have. But before we could move, I had to re-plaster and paint the inside of the garage in order to make the place sellable. I also painted the front porch floor and both gable ends of the house, which had acquired a bit of ugly black mold. This was in January.

Then we moved to the new place. I stripped off all the horrible ‘70s wallpaper and then start painting: Bedroom hallway. Two bathrooms. Two bedrooms. The office. Dining room. Living room. Kitchen. Foyer. Every inch of baseboard and door moldings and crown moldings and wainscoting. I’ve painted the kitchen cabinets, too. Three coats! And now here I am. Down to the last room. The sunroom. I have two more coats to go on one remaining wall and then, after painting the French doors and the molding, I will be done. And no, Carol, the basement does not need painting.

Life-altering event No. 2: I’ve finally met Zorro.

Saturday was the Larchmere Street Festival & Flea Market in Cleveland. Since Casey and I were both going to participate in the accompanying authors’ event sponsored by Loganberry Books, we decided to bring our spouses. Afterwards the four of us would have dinner at The Balaton, a great Hungarian restaurant just one block away on Shaker Square. And I’d finally get to meet the mysterious Zorro.

He and I had been teasing each other for a year on this website, but we’d never actually met. Three or four times during the past year we’d made plans that fell through. So Saturday would be the big day!

When Carol and I arrived, Casey was already set up in the alley next to the bookstore with the 15 or 20 other local authors who had come to sell their wares. Alas, Zorro was nowhere in sight. Casey said he’d gone down the street to get a haircut and would be back soon. Carol quickly disappeared, too. Not to get a haircut. To shop. So, there I was, lawnchair to lawnchair with the famous Casey Daniels, soaking in her wisdom.

Man, can that woman complain. It was too hot. It was too windy. She wasn’t selling enough books. She was hungry. Only when her favorite mystery author in the whole world showed up — Cleveland’s own Les Roberts — did her frown turn upside down.

But alas, Casey soon disappeared, too. And I was left alone to be cooked alive in that hot-air corn-popper of an alley.

Finally, late in the afternoon, Casey and Carol returned. Then, lo and behold, who should appear but Zorro. He’d not only gotten a haircut, he’d had a burger and beer at the Academy Tavern. We shook hands. Gave each other the once over.

Actually, Zorro is not as funny looking as you’d imagine. Yes, the mask was a bit disconcerting at first, as were the colorful bells hanging from the brim of his black hat, and the pink fringe from his cape, but after a while my fears were gone and we had a fine chat.

Then it was time for us to go to dinner.

Zorro immediately announced that he could not find his car keys. So off he went in the pouring rain to find them. They weren’t at the Academy Tavern. They weren’t locked in the car. They weren’t anywhere on the sidewalk. Perhaps they were at the barbershop – the barbershop that had already closed.

I was impressed at how calm Casey and Zorro were about losing their car keys. I got the feeling it had happened once or twice before.

(I should add that their car is not some dippy little red station wagon that no one would look twice at. It’s a shiny black BMW. A 2008. No way could they leave that on the street overnight in Cleveland where it might get towed, or vandalized or stolen.)

No reason to change our plans, said I. We’d go to dinner. Carol and I would drive them home. They could get their other set of keys and then drive back to Cleveland in their other Beemer. All before dark.

So, we piled in our tiny VW and drove down to The Balaton. We had a fine dinner. Zorro did not let the lost keys affect his appetite. He ordered the Magyar Tál, which is Hungarian for “enough stuffed cabbage, veal paprikash, and wiener schnitzel for five Olympic weightlifters.” He finished this off with an enormous wedge of Dobosh Torte – “eight layers of rich cake, with seven layers of smooth creamy chocolate, covered with hard-caramel.” Casey managed one teeny-weenie forkful.

(To be fair, I had the Dobosh torte, too. But I let my wife have two forkfuls.)

The real embarrassment came when Zorro tried to pay with Spanish dabloons. The waitress wouldn’t take them. They only accepted dollars, Hungarian forints and Visa. Zorro, who’d obviously had way too much schnitzel, was just about to throw the violin player into the fish tank when Casey came to the rescue. She wiggled her nose and changed the waitress into an apple strudel. We ran for it.

On the way to the Daniels’ mansion in hoity-toity Brecksville, Zorro had us stop at Dairy Queen. We watched while he ate a large M&Ms Blizzard. Then we dropped them off at the front gate to their estate and Carol and I headed home to humble Akron.

Did Casey and Zorro find their other set of keys? And go back to Cleveland for their BMW? Did Zorro explode during the night? Will their bedroom need repainting? Can’t say. We’ll see if either of them check in this morning.

By the way, somebody left two great PBS umbrellas in our trunk Saturday. Let’s start the bid at $6 each (US dollars or forints only).