Klowns in my Koffee

Daily Kup (Up, Up and Away)

Today I climbed the ladder of success.

The ladder was leaning against my house...

...but I was finally successful in repairing the roof. This was the first day in years without the two littlest kids, who are visiting Grandma and Grandpa. It felt odd. So, like all normal people who feel out of place, I climbed on the roof. I did not howl at the moon.

I hadn't done any substantial work on the roof since Day 94, also known as the day that I fried my back. http://klowns-in-my-koffee.blogspot.com/2010/06/day-94-baby-got-back.html Since completion of roof and gutter repairs was necessary before fixing the raccoon hole in the soffit and then painting the whole house, it could be put off no longer. I know because I tried. The only thing that made me shed my precious procrastination was the knowledge that Tuesday would be even hotter.

I emptied, scrubbed and leveled the gutters. With a gun of roofing cement and a pocketful of roofing nails, the flashing was fixed in short order. Then came securing some loose shingle sections and replacing missing edge shingles. I stood on the roof admiring my work and feeling like Rambo with my machine gun of black roof goop. My self-congratulations were cut short as I heard a neighborhood kid yell, "Jump! Jump!"

T does not like heights. This is an understatement in the vein of: "Bill Gates has some money." Or "Oprah's not going to collect unemployment." In reattaching a metal vent cowling under a soffit, I wasn't able to get the screw completely in. After trying nailing, different screws, different holes, bending the metal and lighting sacramental candles, I finally pursued the course of last resort -- I asked T to climb on the roof and put the screw in.

He asked me to hold the bottom of the ladder while he climbed. This shows an optimism that outpaces the reality of mass and gravity. He climbed the ladder slowly and circumspectly, as though he were in deep thought. Reaching the edge of the roof, he requested the opportunity to rethink. We rethought. I thought that I didn't want another varmint climbing into the new hole. After a period of stalemate, my thought won.

He sighed (or maybe stifled a scream), grappled with the edge, and made it over. He made his way slowly up the roof and over the peak. He was saying something about there being no way to get traction. I didn't understand this because asphalt shingles are a big emery board and I have the skinned knees, elbows, hands -- and anything else that sticks out -- to prove my point. Still, there was nothing to be gained by arguing. He wedged himself under the overhang, inspected the damage and then said bad things about my choice of non-Phillips screws. Re-armed with smarter screws, T was able to get the cowling back flush with the soffit.

It was getting dark. Again holding the ladder, T faced the eternal question of whether to launch himself over the eave frontwards or backwards. He sat up on top of the ladder weighing his options for quite a while. We joked that this would be the ultimate diet -- every day I could throw him a Poptart and a bottle of water. The promise of a dinner more substantial than a Poptart enticed him to back slowly down the ladder and onto terra firma. Roof repairs done. On to soffits and paint.