Crazy Stable

Here comes my nineteenth nervous breakdown.

The roofers arrived at 8 a.m. on Columbus Day to begin tossing blue tarps over my plants. This is it: the job we should have done right decades ago, when we slapped a new layer over our old roof. 

This is the tear-off.

By nine, two trucks had arrived, one with enough plywood to build a small city, another with shingles and rolls of "Elastoflex" membrane base sheets.

  We have also got "Leak Barrier" ice and water armor and a massive crate of "Grip-Rite" colloidal framing nails (which are apparently manufactured in the United Arab Emirates).

Spouse and I realized that we never consulted about any "green" materials or LEED-certified techniques in this job. (Joke.) However, I did pause to wonder what forest our plywood hailed from, and to what landfill  our torn-off roof would be hauled in the cavernous dumpster out front. This is the fog of war, on a bare-bones budget; such concerns must be left to our betters.

Soon, the house shook under vigorous scrapings and hammer-blows. The guys are out there right now, pushing off the four old roof layers with special shovel-like implements, then hammering back all the popped nails in the skeleton underneath. You can see the back of our third-floor ceiling, like a chocolate layer cake of lathe with plaster icing oozing out. Inside, you can glimpse daylight through some cracks in the ceiling. Next, they will lay fresh plywood down. 

Spouse is taking it in optimistic good humor; I feel sort of ill. Whenever the house undergoes radical surgery, I tend to wander restlessly, overeat, and rock rhythmically while standing in one place. I've been doing a lot of all three this morning. So far, none of the guys has fallen clean through the ceiling like the crew did 23 years ago. I'll keep you posted.