Roof Work

Just above freezing, a new dusting overnight, but we've narrowed down the general area where the leak must be, so D and I on the roof, sweeping away debris. With a large push-broom D urges the the last of the melt-water to the scuppers. We leave it to dry, busy ourselves with other chores until after lunch. An excellent tomato bisque. Back on the roof, he amazingly finds what we think (process of elimination) is the leak: a glue failure on the flashing around a vent. A tough repair in this weather, but we actually have an EPDM mastic that is factory spec for application in damp cold conditions. It must be massaged into flexibility, easily achieved with a disposable plastic putty knife on a piece of scrap matt board. The repair itself takes five minutes. Probably too good to be true, but we are ever hopeful, and besides, we haven't spent a dime. Worth a shot. D has web work to do, and I have to clean the theater and mop where road salt has tracked footprints inside. My Fantail Loop is the agent of change. I'm ready to go home, early, when Pegi asks me to please stay one more night, as a wintery mix of precipitation is due and she wants to be sure the roof repair will hold. OK, I tell her, I'll stay in the heated museum one more night, with hot and cold running water, and the pub just across the way, twist my arm. D leaves a little early, since I'm staying, because he and Carma are supposed to go view a dead person (I don't understand many religious customs) and Pegi and Trish are both staying a little late to balance numbers for the final report on a grant. I lock up and go to the pub for a pint, banter with the staff and owners, and when I get back, the museum is empty and quiet. Take a sponge bath at the kitchen sink, doctor the various cracks on my fingertips, take a smoke break outside, then retire to the seclusion of an upstairs office where I read an interesting article about earth-like planets in other solar systems. Seemed like a good day to me, although maybe I didn't suffer enough, I didn't split any wood and I was never really cold; hell, I'm not even wearing long underwear. A cruise in the Bahamas. Elide from one thing to another. A choppy style, until you catch the rhythm. Then it's purely jazz, a couple of notes, then an off-beat thing, then a cow-bell, Mickey Hart on drums, and then the theme returns. Not unlike Wagner. Music is a game, as words are, as life is, really. Note what I mean by game. Lives at issue. Three kids killed in a fire, a school bus overturned, that hard line where friends die by their own hand.