I have been away from posting for some days, ten days that included a new roof for this crazy old farmhouse and my recovery from all the noise such advantages furnish us --we who are too old and tired of rebuilding roofs ourselves. I hired it done. Let's begin with a Normaphoto:
The photo shows how things were left the 1st day of scraping, dynamiting and exposing all the weaknesses of my work 30 years ago. They made me park our car next door until they could haul this calamity away in trucks. I get choked up just remembering, so more Normaphotos:
Unused to asphalt shingles, Roofcat was OUTRAGED!
--which brings us to arithmetic. It is not my strongest subject but I've had ample time to think about it.
If 5 men (roofers, carpenters, inspectors, etc.) can reroof a crazy old farmhouse in 5 days, then 25 men (5x5) could do it in one day.
And, since there are 1440 minutes in a day (I don't show my work here but you may trust my calculations are accurate or closely approximate), 1500 men could do the job in one minute. By this line of impeccable logic, there being 86,400 seconds (1440x60) in a day, a crew of 90,000 craftspersons could have reroofed my house in one second --costing me about two dollars instead of what it did for 5 days.
Last night poured wind-driven rain here, all night. We went out this morning to survey the damage. Earnest found us at the side gate.
Geo.: E(a)rnest? You ok? Ern.: I'm wet. I'm cold. Nothing feels good. Wind knocked the chicken coop over!
Geo.: We don't keep chickens anymore, E(a)rnest. Ern.: I know, but I was in it. Geo.: I thought you bunked in the eaves, downslope from Roofcat. Ern.: Roofcat snores, Geo., out both ends!
Geo.: So you've been sleeping in the chicken coop, I see. What happened then? Ern.: "The wind began to switch - the house to pitch and suddenly the hinges started to unhitch!" Geo.: That's from "Wizard of Oz". Ern.: Uh, I got flung into a ditch. Lookit me!
Geo.: Ditch...unhitch, that's very good. But yes, I see you're uncomfortable. Your poor tail!
Ern.: Alas.
Geo.: Can we help? Ern.: Do you have a little towel?
As you may surmise by Norma's back porch photo, it is a rainy day.
I like to sit at the table under this window and write rainy day questions in hopes of finding an enigma. They often look like this:
This second photo was taken when the sun was out, but the idea is sound. "If we lived in a just world, more people would be jailed for crimes against themselves." This premise was questioned 2 days earlier, and over it, in shadow: "Accident or belligerent reality?"--(Trap, pg 41)refers to a play I wrote (performed in 1966) --not sure what the heron has to do with anything (or am I? --parentheses are fun!).
Other lines emerge --as when one falls in the dark: She: I found you on the bedroom floor! Geo.: And here I always thought we met in a library. Much as I would like to follow my inner voice and say she is wrong, I concede my inner voice is wrong far oftener.
Rain resumes and all enigmas seek the same shelter --the human mind-- towel each other off and huddle for warmth.
