Putting a lid on it

  The call from our complex’s management company came in on Tuesday: The roofers would be starting in on our building on Thursday.

          This is actually a good thing. I don’t see a darn thing the matter with our roof, but this is a pretty well-run place, and so we follow a timetable of roof renewal, so many sections per year.

          I heard the big blue truck-container-sized dumpster arriving as I lay in bed on Wednesday, THUNK. I know from experience that it will sit down the street for at least the remainder of the summer, and probably into the fall. (My Guy is already rubbing his hands at the illicit stuff we might be able to wing into it when no one is looking.)

          I gathered up my few garden tchotchkes – a sundial, a whirligig, etc. so some workman doesn’t become impaled on the shepherd’s crook holding the hummingbird feeder.

          I cut all my rhubarb, which had already been trampled this week by the other workmen installing our million-dollar new air conditioning unit and heating system, and socked it away in the fridge – pies on the horizon.

          I woke up Thursday morning in the cave created by drawn blinds and curtains, and stumbled into the dining area to draw those blinds, too, not wanting to look up over my raisin bran and see someone on a ladder peering in. I got dressed, this time not while standing in front of uncovered windows that only look at the woods, as is my wont, and went around opening things up. Still no workmen.

          It’s been gray and rainy for days, never mind the lung-clogging Canadian smoke, so they must have opted to wait a bit.

          Then I remembered one more problem to solve. We have a window right over the toilet, so high that there’s been no need of a covering. Until now.

          To the basement: an old spring rod, a dish towel, some staples,
and voila.