Damage Control

D decides we should reroute the condensation from the air-handler today. Thought he would. Trip to the hardware store for a one inch masonry drill bit, thank god this is old brick we'll be going through, and a few plumbing supplies. A second trip to the hardware store, you always have to make at least two trips to the hardware store. Turn off the twin units and the air-handler (it's the size of a storage unit), calculate so we'll daylight outside above the wall flashing for the EPDM roof membrane. D drilled the hole and wallowed it a bit as three-quarter PVC is a touch over an inch outside diameter, we made the connections, and the damned water now drips out onto the roof. Lunch with Anthony at the pub, where they're having the same damn air conditioner problems, condensation leaking through the roof. Spent the afternoon taping the insulation on the air-handler with foil tape, a critical part of the system, which will probably save the museum $10 a day. Actually, that was yesterday, met Anthony for a couple of beers at the pub after which I realized how exhausted I was, went back to the museum and got my groceries from an early morning shop. Endless daze. Got home, grilled a small steak, made a vat of macaroni salad, fed the dog, and feasted, eating also the first really great vine-ripened tomato of the year from the farmer's market (40 cents for two of them) drinking to our success as Heating And Air Conditioning guys. This morning was another of the Butterflies Of Mackletree mornings and I stopped several times to look at them, lovely things, this new batch with spots of color against the black. They don't just congregate on the road, thank god, but also on the verges, where they're somewhat safer. The front of my truck is spattered with them. Off the road they congregate in clusters. Often a dozen of them in a space the size of the diameter of a bowling ball. Twice I saw circles of them, within that radius, surrounding a yellow butterfly. It was beautiful, the black color-spotted folk were flapping their wings and the yellow was completely still. I had the thought that he or she was in robes, teaching them a kind of flutterbye Buddhism, maybe last year's butterfly, passing on knowledge; but, in truth, it looked like they were going to kill him or her, probably eat the carcass, and shrink the head. I don't know anything about butterflies, and certainly don't intervene; I could save the queen, possibly, but then what would I do with her? I'm a janitor, I don't save queens, I merely mop. What kind of relationship could I have with a butterfly? There's both a serious and a light-hearted response to that. In a certain sense, whatever you want to hear. Meaning is a nebulous handle. Some things are, and some things are by implication. You and I are the same, trying to pick something out of the background noise. At what point do you explicate? I don't know. I mop a modified chevron because it seems the best to me. Anyone else could see it as an incident, a twitch. I'm sorry Svet died, but it wasn't my fault. You die when you need to. Look at the records.