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cursed with limited imaginations
Monday, May 20 2024
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY
Overnight Neville did a fair amount of whimpering from lingering quill-related pain. But I'd snuggle with him (lying reversed in the bed, with my head where my feet normally would be) until he'd fall asleep and his whimpering would be replaced by snores. By this morning, he was evidently feeling better and acting normally. I saw a scab had formed in the corner of his mouth, but otherwise there was no evidence that anything traumatic had happened to him. He'd also stopped drooling.
After yesterday's ordeal, I was mentally exhausted and didn't want to deal with the latest crisis that had Gretchen's hair on fire. Some roofing company she'd contacted to both redo our roof in Hurley and fix the slate roof on the Downs Street mansion was now saying two things that were rendering them useless: they don't work on slate roofs and they would require that we remove our solar deck before doing any roofing on our Hurley house. A lot of contractors are cursed with limited imaginations and inflexibility, and it seemed that was the problem. (This reminds me of my work in software development, where I always end up doing the jobs no other software developers are willing to attempt. As a general-purpose solutions guy, I might well end up having to become a roofer as well.) With that potential roofer falling through, how were we going to fix our roofs? Gretchen seemed annoyed that it was on her to find a roofer. Why, she wanted to know, couldn't I also be looking for roofers? I could see her point, but I needed a day of recovery from the porcupine crisis first.
A young man named Andrew from the roofing company (the one that doesn't do slate roofs and would want us to remove our solar deck) did actually come out later in the day, and I showed him the situation. He marveled at the solar deck and the fact that it was collecting all our hot water. But he said he was just a grunt for his boss, and I was pretty sure his company would not be the one we would end up hiring. It's too easy for such companies to take the more straight-forward roofing jobs.
I then drove into town to get the liquor I'd wanted to get yesterday along with a refill of Neville's thyroid medication. Neville and Charlotte rode along, and Neville seemed to be completely back to normal. He even went on a walk in the forest when we got home. As we were headed up the Chamomile Headwaters Trail, he wallowed for an especially long time in the big swampy puddle at its beginning.
When we got back, I took a long nape while the dogs lay on the bed nearby. I was feeling better after that, and ate some ice cream. Gretchen went out with Lynne for dinner, so I didn't have to worry about that. When she came home, we watched another episode of Baby Reindeer.
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