O, that Xmas Cheer

Well.  That was unpleasant.  I get food poisoning/stomach virus maybe a couple times a year, so it's not that big a deal.  When you tear your throat and vomit blood.. that's when things get interesting.  Anyhoo, even that passed quickly enough.  Just to be sure, I went to the doctor, who bade me get a chest x-ray from this delightfully antique x-ray machine.  I kind of like vintage medical equipment.  It all looks so much more medicalish than the sleek computerized devices of today.
I got off my duff and set my tree up tonight.  This year it's going to be white with pink lights and ornaments, and why not?  Also, it came to my attention that of the two strings of outdoor lights I hung on the roof, only one was blinking.  That just looked odd.  So I got me some replacement blinky bulbs, climbed back onto the roof, and made the non-blinky string go blinky.  Now that that's fixed, the formerly blinky side has decided to curtail its blinking activity by half.  Sigh.  I really don't wanna climb back up there again.

Again, I opted for a more minimalist approach to the tree modification:  lights, a few boxes of simple, glass ornaments.  When I was young, we would get huge fir trees that always had to be sawed off (at the top or bottom) to fit, with long gangly branches with large open spaces, that would take up half of the living room once it was screwed into its stand and properly balanced.  Seasonal music would be placed on the old, faux-wood-grain record player.  Then out would come the Giant Box of Christmas from under the stairs.  This huge, time-worn box (the top edges soft and creased by the weight of eager children trying to peer over the edge and reach inside) contained pure holiday heaven to a young child's eyes-- filled to the brim with house decorations and ornaments.  Then the tree would be decorated with miles of lights (the big bulbs, not the dainty ones), complete with large, aluminum reflectors, and loads of silver tinsel (I recall loving to thrust my hands into the tinsel box and squeeezing.. mmm..  tinsel squishiness.)  Then came the hundreds of ornaments, of which very few twos were alike.  Mirrored stars and balls, elaborate homemade ornaments, glass ones, clear ones, cloth ones, plastic ones, pretty ones, gaudy ones, pipe cleaner ones, fake birds (both new and mangled cat-attacked ones), and just about everything else imaginable.  A chaotic cacophany of christmas cheer.  The frickin holiday spirit threw up all over those trees and, god, it was wonderful. 

I had adventures on those trees.  My mind would wander along the avenues of the branches between the needles and lights.  Wars would begin between different factions of ornaments (chiefly among my mom's homemade ornaments, which looked a whole lot like deep sea jellyfish) over ownership of the tree.

I had remember getting up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons in December, clad in my footed PJs, for cartoons (usually while the color bar stripe of the off-air channels was still showing) and plugging the tree in.  I'd be the only one awake in a darkened house, while it was cold and dark outside, sitting in the rainbow glow of the vast tree.  Slowly, as the bulbs began to warm and blink, I would hear the faintest, almost inaudible, tinkling of the lights.. tink, tink, tinkle, tink, tink.  The sound of happiness.

I think you have to be a child to fully appreciate that kind of wonderment.  Only flickers can ever remain, and child-like glee is nowhere near the same thing as a child's glee.  But, still, those feelings were strong enough to keep me enjoying the holiday season despite all the commercialization, congestion, and whatnots.  It's something the real world can't touch or tarnish.  And so, though my tree is nothing like the garish trees of old, I continue to set it up and decorate in honor of those all too fleeting christmasses of the past.  Because that's something worth doing.

Inseedious

Ooh!  ooh!  You know what'd be cute?  Carving a pumpkin and dumping the pulp into a slavegirl's panties.  Yep, that'd be cute.

Halloween in full swing

So today I got a ghost placed up high in a tree and decorated my porch railings with orange halloween lights.  I haven't seen them at night yet, but I think they'll look quite nice.  They have some black fabric leaves built in to the string, so it acts as a garland, too.

But honestly, I shouldn't have to be fending off mosquitos during late October.  The forecast says it's going to be in the high 70's all through the rest of the month.  I always remember October weather as being shorts at the start of the month and jeans and jackets by the end of it.  Darn you, global warming!  Messin with my status quo, it is.

I also had an idea of poking around in the basement.  It's a dank, dirt-floored affair that's really not good for much.. too damp and dirty to store anything halfway valuable, and too many potentially harmful bugs to store a slave.  There's really not any way to effectively seal it off and prevent more bugs coming in.  But I thought it might not be a bad idea to go through and throw out all the old junk that has been accumulating in there for the past 40 years or so:  moldering boxes of unknown lawn chemicals, old drop cloths, broken fishing rods, and who knows what all.  I didn't get more than a few feet inside before the garbage bin was full, forcing me to stop.  I did find a few bags of old seashells, some of which were pretty enough to wash off and put on shelves down here.  I also came across an old ball-and-chain.  Hm.  Go figure.

Dead Trees

It's a foggy October morning, and the air is filled with the sounds of chainsaws.  The neighbors decided to cut down a bunch of trees in their yard.. several good sized ones, including one that was on my side of the property line.  I'm not too pissed about that, as the tree in my yard was pretty small and mostly just an ivy trellace, but still.  I had to go out and make sure they weren't planning any other cutting that would lead to a property line debacle.

I just don't understand the mentality of butchering trees pointlessly.  Yeah I can understand if someone wants a yard and not a dense, wilderness glade, sure, but those trees weren't doing any harm.  They provided shade and leaves and calmness.  Some of them I've known since I was a child.  I just get such a visceral reaction of horror when I see good trees cut down for no good reason.   I can't understand why people feel the need to subdue nature and reform into some 1950's model.  It's not real nature, it's nature chunked up and formed.. it's natureloaf.

Now they're out there cutting off some very large branches off some very old oaks.. I can't tell why.  Changes the whole look of the neighborhood, and not for the better.  Yeah, let's cut down trees to provide a clearer view of the power lines.  I'm afraid to look outside and see what empty blandness now awaits me whenever I look out the windows from now on.  Maybe I'm a tree hugger.. or maybe it's alien brainwashing.  Hmph.

D'oh! A deer!

I saw a deer this morning!
Deer aren't exactly the rarest things in the world, and especially not in Arkansas, but I live in the middle of a fair sized city.  I've never seen one around here before.  This morning I looked out my front window and right across from my driveway, on the other side of the street, was a rather large male deer with big antlers.  For a second, my mind couldn't make sense of what I was seeing (abstract art?  a decoy?), but then it moved.  Went up the street, wandered into someone's yard, then took off in a hurry up the hill (clip clop clip clop) and around the corner.  Then a few minutes later it passed by again, going the other direction, before finally heading into the wooded park.  How odd, and yet, delightful.

Also this morning I had to turn the heat on for the first time since last spring.  It broke, of course.  Had to get the heating and air guys out here, just days after they had come here to fix some damaged ductwork.  Some exhaust fan had corroded and went flying to bits (so *that* was what that sound was!).  Having your own house is a good thing.. but they sure do break down a lot.

I get these ideas for cute outfits now and again.  Last night I was thinking of a piglet suit.  Like, a light pink velour unitard, with a curly tail, and a hood with a soft snout.  Of course, rows of little teats would have to be added to the front.  That'd be just so cute, I bet I'd just wanna hug the girl and not let her out of it for weeks!  Well, maybe not weeks, she might get a little stinky.  On the other hand, she'd be a piglet, so I guess a little stinky comes with the territory.  Hm!

Chairs, Pink Trees, and Darth Vader

Okay. First chair was too high. Second chair was too wide. Third chair is too hard. I'm a domme-type person, it shouldn't be *my* butt that's hurting at the end of the day. I think that's fair to say. So I got a fourth chair yesterday, but as I was de-boxing it, I found it was broken. So I'll have to take it back for an exchange, and hope that the new, unbroken one works for me. I'll have been on my fifth chair. It's really not that big a deal... I'm just getting tired of lugging the things back and forth.

I was in Garden Ridge the other day (it's kind of a hobby/cheap home deco warehouse) looking for some autumn wreaths. They already have all their x-mas trees set up. They might have them set up all year round, I don't know. But they had a 6' tall light pink tree!! I squeee'd! It would be so perfect for my pink, barbie dungeon room. But I couldn't see to spending two-hundred bucks on a fake tree. They had a 4' version on display for much cheaper, but they were sold out. Guess pink trees are popular this year. They even had black trees. A few years ago when I was searching for a black x-mas tree, I couldn't find one anywhere. I had to make my own with a green tree, black housepant, and a Wagner power sprayer. Now I look online and there's black trees everywhere. Go figure.

Oh yes, the wreaths. Well, a lot of them weren't my style.. lots of little foam pumpkins in a ring and such. Then I found one completely unadorned wreath made entirely of twisted up, gnarley grapevine. Perfect! I've thought of hanging little animal skulls from it, or maybe barbie dolls tied up with twine, but... that might be a little over the top and worry people. It's hard for me to tell sometimes.

Online I've ordered a black Halloween wreath and some resin gravestones. I already have the makings for a tree ghost, so I'm all set. I kinda wanted a skeleton, but the life-size ones all cost more than I cared to spend. The only affordable ones were 4' tall (hey... same as the x-mas trees! weird), but a 4' tall skeleton isn't exactly scary. Unsettling, perhaps, but that's not the same thing.

Evil Dolly's Vague Recollection of the Day: Star Wars came out when I was very young. I sort of remember lying on a blanket on the hood of a station wagon and seeing it at a drive-in. I can't recall exactly when, I must have been 5 or 6, but my dad took me to see Darth Vader, who was appearing at a Hallmark store in some strip mall. Obviously, it was a guy with a franchised costume making a few bucks selling autographs, but when I got to the front of the line, I was in awe. He asked me my name for the autographed photo. I was literally unable to speak. Only time in my life I can remember being dumbstruck. My mouth moved, but all I could do was stare. My father had to lean in and tell him my name. I treasured that Darth Vader photo. Had it sitting in a frame on my chest of drawers for years and years. I still have it around here somewhere, I think.

Bad chair. Bad.

To accompany the previous entry's rant on incompatible spectacles, I'll mention computer chairs.  It's only fair.

My old computer chair was getting a little long in the tooth, loosing wheels and such.  As I sat lopsided on a half-wheeled chair, I thought 'Might be time for a new chair.'  So I went to the office place and sampled many chairs, some comfortable, some painful.  I picked a chair only to find, once assembled, it didn't quite work for me.  See, most of the time I perch here cross-legged.  It's just the most comfortable way for me.  That only works if you don't have pointy chair arms digging into your thighs.  I got bruised!  So I took it back and got a nice, comfy leather chair with plenty of sitting-space.  Except that one was too wide to fit under the desk so I had to lean forward to type, and that's just not gonna work.  So I got a third chair, which is kinda hard and small, but it fits under the desk and allows me to cross-leg it.  Except the tilt tension is so tight that even at it's lowest setting, it's very hard to recline.  Nothing's easy!

Had a heating and air guy here the other day giving me an estimate on some damaged crawlspace ductwork (don't know how, but a duct had come loose of the floor and has been air conditioning the basement for god knows how long).  So anyway, while he's looking around for a place to put some additional intake vent space, he looks inside my understair closet.  In the rear wall of that closet (which is about ten feet deep), I have a very heavy chain bolted and hanging down (above an old bath mat for comfort, aren't I nice?).  It's impossible to miss.  He was silent for long moments while looking in the closet, but he didn't say a word.  Good for him.

Aah my eyes!

It's a Monday.

I went to eye glasses place in the mall to see about some new glasses.  My current ones are about seven years old and have gotten mightily scuffed over the years.   For some reason, they won't sell you glasses unless you have a current perscription, so I had to have an eye test, too.   Well, I got that done then wandered through eyeglass place for an hour, trying to make a decision.  The problem with glasses these days is that they keep getting smaller and smaller.  I need glasses to see, see, and if I only have a narrow strip of vision and the rest is blurred, it doesn't do me all that much good.  Pretty soon glasses will probably consist of quarter inch wide strip.. "It's fashion!" they'll say, as they walk straight into walls, bushes, low-flying birds.

So anyway, it's hard to find a pair that have reasonable coverage without being massive black plastic, square-lens, nerd frames.. the kind my father wore in the 50's through the 70's.  At last I found some which I thought suitable, along with some sunglasses for driving, because they're cool and who doesn't wanna be cool?  Got them on (wow, everything's so clear!), went home, and found I couldn't wear them for more than 15 minutes without a splitting headache.  Maybe they're calibrated wrong or something.  Took two hours to sleep off the headache and my eyes still feel bushed.  I'll have to try to take them back tomorrow.  Prolly have to end up with little strip glasses in spite of it all.

I was poking around in my leaky storeroom yesterday, thinking that I ought to get rid of some of the stuff just to open up some space.  Could stand to get a new shed, but that's an expense that can wait.  There's some stuff in there that could go to Goodwill, like a pair of lamps that are excessively lemon yellow--yellow to the point of being aggressive.  I have no idea where those came from.  I looked inside a vase and saw a brown recluse at the bottom staring back at me.  Now I'm scared to go back in there.

I also used 120 pounds of dirt to fill in a stumphole.  Yes, I have a stumphole, and now it's filled.  Sounds kinda naughty.

Steamy Doldrums

It's been hot.  Really hot.  There's hardly been a drop of rain for a month, and it's been in the 100's and super humid much of that time.  Downright unhospitable.  I've had to scamper around the yard moving the sprinkler around every day.  Finally, at the end of the August, the weather seems to be about to turn.  There's even a few leaves starting to fall, foreshadowing the crunch goodness of 13 oak trees dumping their leaves on the lawn. 

I had a weird dream.  I was in a Chinese restaurant and trying to pay a check.  I had an appetizer but had ordered the rest to go.  The appetizer had been a bowl of soup, called in some places on the menu as "Cursed Cabbage Soup" and other places as "Dammit Cabbage Soup" (and reading that name "Dammit!  Cabbage soup!" just made me laugh and spray cola all over the place and then sit here blinking in surprise for a bit).  Anyway, I couldn't get anyone's attention in order to pay the bill.  Time went by and I got more and more frustrated.  After maybe thirty minutes of wandering around the place, I didn't even want the food anymore.. though I did bump into the Japanese prime minister and shook his hand.  Some mobster-lookin guys came and I got nervous for some reason and took off out the back door. 

I ran up a steep hill on a well-worn dirt path that was bordered by tall, thick grass.  It was night.  Somebody followed me and caught up with me, he had really skinny arms and legs.  He took me to a place with a bunch of old human bones sticking out of the ground, and I knew he meant me no good.  There was a big pile of large, rotting pumpkins nearby, so I shoved him down onto the pointy bones and started throwing the pumpkins at him.  He threw a few back at me, but I eventually buried him.

Then I was looking through a hole in the bottom of my basement door.  I noticed a bug I thought might be a hornet laying eggs in a nest by the opening, above a pile of old cans.  Every time I looked back, the bug got bigger until it was a foot long, and there were a few others, too.  I was trying to figure out how I was going to get rid of the darn nest when one of the bugs fell on the cans beneath the nest, and the can started spraying green gas.. it was a bug bomb.  I thought that was a good solution, but it didn't appear to bothering the bugs too much.  Then I realized that the bugs were actually really ugly, inbred cats, and I got concerned the gas would hurt them.  Most of the cats were hairless except for their heads and the tips of their tails, and they started talking, but I can't recall what about.  One came out of the basement.. it was a short black cat with its paws on sideways.  Despite its paws, it was quite friendly.  It chirped like a bird when petted.  The other cats started talking, but I can't remember what about, cause I woke up.  Weird.

Bridge

A bridge collapsed into a wide, muddy river in Minnesota.  Remember that dream I had a few days ago?  It looked an awful lot like that in my dream.  Weird.

Mosquitos and Earthquakes

I dreamed I had dozed off in my car on a long two lane bridge across a mud-colored river somewhere in the woods of Arkansas.   I think I had been out there to watch fireworks.  I woke in the dream to a slight swaying motion and realized there had been an earthquake.   I drove to the other end of the bridge to find some of it had crumbled away.  Nothing below but swirling, brown currents.  Then the bridge started to crumble away.. I slammed into reverse and tried to get back to the other end before the whole bridge crumbled beneath me.  The collapsing bridge was faster than I was, and the asphalt was falling out from underneath my wheels, and I knew I wouldn't make it.   My car finally fell into the water and I (somehow) jumped out, hoping I wasn't too far from the shore to swim.  I did make it, but as I crawled onto the shore, I remember thinking that this was too improbable (and unfortunate) to be real, so it must be a dream and ordered myself to wake up.  That always works.. but not this time, so I worked hard on adjusting to the idea that this really must have happened.  Then, a while later after some other strange events happened, I woke up.. relieved to find my car hadn't plunged into a brown river.

I hate muddy rivers in my dreams... always overgrown, weedy shores, overcast skies, a humid feel, mud banks and deadfalls.. never pleasant.  No idea where that imagery comes from, but it never bodes well.

I went out earlier toda to spray this deadly stuff on the poison ivy that's spreading out back.  The mosquitoes swarmed me and chased me back inside.  I had to restrain myself from scratching.  You're not supposed to scratch, they say, but it's oh so satisfying.

To cap off my exciting Saturday evening, I scrubbed the bathroom and nearly gassed myself with caustic cleaner fumes.

I think a day like that deserves a little vodka at the close.

June Turtles and Jaguars

It's good to have a Internet connection.  The other day, out of the blue, my connection speed dropped from about 2500 kbps to around 9 kbps.   That's slow.  That's really quite slow.  I tried to fix it myself with some modem shaking and router rearranging, but it was beyond me.  After an hour and half phone call to customer service (first to India, then to Missouri) during which I was told things like 'That shouldn't be happening,' they scheduled someone to come check my lines the next day.  Later that day, the discovered some outtage somewhere, and everything went back to normal.  Coulda saved myself a long phone call, if I'd just gone to bed.  Let that be a lesson to you.  About what, I'm not exactly sure.

In other news, I finally got that old 59 Jaguar sold.  It's been sitting there, unmoving, for about 5 years now.  Thanks to someone who knew someone who spends lots of money collecting old cars, it's now gone.  Had to push it out of the driveway and onto a flatbed thingie, breaking the flatbed thingie and leaving a nifty gouge in the street, but it's gone.  Looks kinda weird to have an empty driveway again.  It was a cool old car, but I don't have enough of a collector's zeal to go to the effort and money of fixing it up right. 

Yesterday, I saw another micro-turtle, trundling down the sidewalk beside my house.  A little guy, barely filling the palm of my hand.  Here he is, placed artfully atop a leaf for your viewing pleasure:

May tears

Today I've been moving books to and fro;  crumbly, centuries old books.  I'm covered with book dust.  So, I tried the extension ladder thing, but it didn't work.  It was just too long.  I went Home Depot, but all they had were more of the same.  So I had to order ladder online to be able to access the higher shelves.

I also looked at google satellite maps today.  It's neat to be able to see my house--even my car parked in the driveway--from space, and to trace my walking path through the streets and woods.  I also looked up my grandparents' old lakehouse in Hot Springs, looking at where I used to play in the water 25 years ago. 

Currently, I'm a little drunk, and I'm crying a lot.  But I'm not crying out of sadness.  Rather, it's tears of regret/compassion for the whole, damned human race.  For all the evil we do, and all the evil we've done, maybe all that's left in the end is our love, and what we've meant to the ones we've loved in return.  Maybe that's all we mean, in the end. 

Maybe that's enough.

May Things

I went to a sub friend's graduation this weekend (congrats!).  It occured to me that I was at another sub friend's graduation this time last year.  Is there a pattern forming?  I wonder what graduation I'll be at next year.

I got a bug to try and organize some things and get rid of some old unwanted and unneeded stuff.  Or, at the very least, make better space for it.  Storage is a problem in my house.  Contrary to what one might think upon entering my house, I really do like open, uncluttered spaces... as opposed to a house full of junk rooms.  There's just not that much space to put things out of the way.  I don't have much in the way of closets and so forth.  I do have a store room out back, but it's outside and gets kinda damp... just not the best place for perishables.  So, mostly what I do is just throw a little away while moving stuff from room to room. 

I decided the current tossing-and-moving project should be these old National Geographic magazines I inherited.  They take up about 25 feet of shelf space I could be using for other things.  There's problems involved.  The shelves are way up high, like ten to fourteen feet off the ground, and a little out of my reach.  I can get to the lower ones on a small wooden ladder I have, but the higher ones taunt me.  I'm going to have to use the old, aluminum, outsidesy ladder to get to them.  But it's covered with leaves and dirt and junk.  While I leaned it against the fence to hose it off, I got to thinking (as I envisioned weaving a heavy ladder through a room with breakables and computers) that maybe this isn't such a bright idea, and that someone ought to be talking me out of it.  Well, there's no one around to do so, so I guess I'll press ahead.

The second problem is what to do with all the darn magazines once I get them down.  Seems a waste to throw them away, as some are pretty old and must be worth something to someone.  There's already a glut of them on eBay, though, and they're only going for pennies each.  Maybe if there aren't any friends who want them, I can drop them off at the library for one of their sales or something.  I'm sure they'd reward my donation with sour looks.

I saw two baby bunnies the other day.  Isn't that special?

May the First (Has Encountered an Error)

Sigh.

Just had Microsoft Works crash on me again... five hours and several pages of writing down the tubes.  That is a most disheartening feeling.  Most disheartening, indeed.  Guess I should go ahead and spend the several hundred dollars for a real word processor.  Something with an auto save.

On the plus side, the early morning sky was a pastel haze of pink and purple and the air was full of the scent of honeysuckle and roses.

May is probably my second favorite month behind October.  May here is all full and green and flowery.  It's warm enough that the recent winter is nothing more than faded memory, but cool enough that it doesn't have the heat-blasted aura of summer.  It is most acceptable.

Sticky and Cells

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Soft Yellow

The world is soft and strange outside.  It's the pollen, you see.  Everything's been coated with a thick layer of yellow-green pollen.  It lends an eerie aspect to everything, especially in the evening.  It will soon all be washed away in the rain.  I'm glad I don't have allergies.

The other day I saw more caterpillars than I've ever seen in my life.  It was a caterpillar parade!  Thousands of them, all marching along the edge of a long, stone wall in twos and threes...  a virtual river of undulating fur.  I wish I'd had my camera with me.

I watched Edward Scissorhands last night.  I must have been about 15 when I first saw it, and I connected with it even then.  I've seen it many times since, and it never fails to bring tears to my eyes.  In particular, it's the scene near the end where the girl tells him "Hold me."  He wants to more than anything, but fearing he'll hurt her, replies "I can't" and walks away.  Then she makes him hold her, anyway.  I sometimes feel very much like that.  Being the monster that I am, I'm sometimes afraid of holding the girl, knowing that I'll hurt her.  And, I suppose, I want the girl to make me hold her, anyway.

Spring is Sprung

Certainly feels springish out there, anyway.  Various trees are flowering, bulbs are bulbing, and the redbuds are going all purply.  Even the trees are growing new baby leaves.  And I got bit by a mosquito yesterday.  I'd say it's certainly springy.  Went on a walk this evening and stopped to help a slug cross the road.. cause even slugs need a hand, sometimes.

A sub friend read my latest story (Eudeamon) and liked it so much that she made a figurine of one of the characters.  I was rendered speechless, but was very touched.  Here it is... it's cute!

No one's ever made me a story-related gift before.

My head... my head!

What a miserable day.  A couple hours after I woke up I realized I was going blind... the sure signs of a migraine coming on.  I used to get them in high school, less frequently in college, and none at all in the past few years.  Once one's on its way, there's nothing you can do but cancel your appointments and slink into bed.  Ugh.  At least the worst seems to have passed now and I can see again.  Now I've got a lingering, throbbing headache, but at least I'm not nausious anymore.  And they still don't have a cure for these things.

On the up side this week, the new roof looks splendid.  Seems to have gotten put on without a hitch.  It has a lot more texture to it than the old, light gray shingles that have been up there since before I was born.  Next on the outdoor list is getting new siding or at least new paint.  If I had all my druthers in a row, I wish I could have natural stone siding.. always loved that look.. but that's just way too much money to spend on such a thing.  As for paint, I'd really like something in the mauve-ish area, but a little more subtle.  Or maybe a blue-ish or gray-ish lavender is the way to go.  Then again, I wouldn't want a color that'd lower property values of the whole block.  That's no way to win friends and influence people.

There's guys up on the roof.

You see, I've got a bad case of the squirrels.  For a while now, unbeknownst to me, they've been pulling up the old, brittle shingles and chewing their way into my attic.  What could they want in my attic?  It's slightly warmer in there, yeah, but surely it's not as cozy as a pile of squirrel bodies in a little squirrel nest somewhere.  I didn't even know they were up there until I heard them running around overhead.  So now I gotta get things fixed. 

The price I was quoted for a whole new roof seemed reasonable (actually about what I was expecting to pay for a patch job), so I'm going ahead and getting a whole fresh roof put on.  At the moment, there's shingles flying off the roof every which-a-way.  Hope it all works out well.  And hopefully, I probably won't have to do this again in my lifetime.  I wasn't expecting the workers to show up today, though.  I woke up from a sound sleep and a spooky yet amusing dream about a ghost into asphyxia play in some haunted hotel to the sound of thumpings and bangings.  I honestly thought there were fireworks going off somewhere nearby and went to my window... oooh, it's coming from the roof!

Okay, they're directly above my head now.  I better move in case someone falls through.