Weezie Meep enjoys resting, eating, and playing. Who doesn’t?
One of her favorite activities is to flop down against the clear plastic child-guard that encircles the upper stair posts. Oh, the poor girl in a bubble! She somersaults and mews and tries so desperately to reach you, but – alas! – the plastic bubble keeps us apart. ::: sob :::
She purrs madly during this game. No doubt in anticipation of her golden statuette.
Today I peeked out the back door to check the weather before I went to work and noticed that there was a chunk o’ something on the lawn. With the record high winds the city experienced last night I figured some beeblehead left his garbage pails or recycling bins out and their trash ended up by the rhodedendrons. Then I noticed something on the garage roof. To my surprise… it was the garage roof! The wind had peeled back the tar paper and the (what I would come to learn by the end of the day was called) torch-down back like a sardine can lid , so it rolled up and snapped and probably kept the rest of it from flying off into the house too.
I guess I can call work and tell them I’ve got some house issues to deal with so I won’t be reporting to the office just yet. Second thing, I guess I should call the Dad, the Man Who Fixes Things (but lives 3000 miles away). Third thing, I think I need a big blue tarp.
Dad’s out but I tell the tale to Mother and email her the photo, and after my sister coincidentally calls me (“What do I want for Christmas? A new garage roof of course!”) and helpfully suggests that if I was a christian I could ask the holy spirit to guide me in my journey through the yellow pages to pick out whom to call for estimates, I get to call Dad back for advice. His suggestions are a bit more secular and include: start calling now, look out for the bunches of crooks, and how to rig up the tarp to make a giant shower cap for the garage roof. I start calling around by noon. Any spot that advertises “flat roof” and “free estimate” and “Seattle” gets a buzz. A bunch are busy or don’t answer, but I set up four estimate calls. And wait.
In the meantime I go out and get a big ol’ tarp, and some xmas presents, return home and wrap them, and wait some more. Finally at 4pm a mister calls to say he is on his way to assess the situation. I am in the process of spreading the 15′ by 30′ tarp on the roof without actually having to go stand on the roof (fear of falling through and all). He was the only one to show up today and a sweet dude at that. I haven’t received the estimate yet, so maybe he works for one of the “crooks,” but he was cool enough to help me finish securing the tarp as I was his last call of the day.We’re measuring and stretching and he asks me to reach up and secure the tie-off. “You’re so tall!” he says, “now I feel bad.” “Yeah,” I say, “but I can’t tie a knot and I can’t fix my roof!”
