I've said this before. When you're at a camp (southern Ontario: cottage; Colorado and Manitoba: cabin; parts elsewhere: I don't know), the line between inside and outside is, well, fluid.
Sometimes more fluid than one would hope, if one would hope a camp structure doesn't include, say, the occasional rodent.
And yet. However blurry the line between inside and outside, the line between up and down remains quite solid, thank you very much. As I re-learned this week.
Last summer, we re-roofed the main part of "it may be a shack but it's our shack."
This summer, we are finishing by re-roofing the bathroom and breezeway. Starting with de-roofing, or pre-re-roofing. As in, destroying.
And I have learned a few Life Lessons.
First, knowing you should stop doing something is NOT the same as actually NOT DOING IT. Specifically, banging my kneecap on the ladder. The first time I thought, "Wow, ouch. I need to not do that again. Okay, lesson learned." The second time, I thought, "Damn, I forgot. But no more." The third time, I thought, "To hell with it. Maybe I should stay off the ladder till I get some physical grace." But not enough time has been invented for that to happen. Fortunately, we were more or less done, but I am not sure I've really figured out how to not bang it.
Second, when you're on a roof prying out nails, be careful to face in the correct direction. If the nail you're working on suddenly comes free and you fall backward, you don't want "backward," "downhill," and "over the edge of the roof" to be anywhere near the same thing. If you're squatting, point your rear end toward the uphill slope. If you're sitting, your feet should be lower than your (banged-up) knees.
Fortunately, I didn't have to learn this Life Lesson the hard way. Having a vivid imagination was enough to catch my attention and ensure that I wouldn't make that mistake. Which probably used up the attention I should have been paying to my kneecap.
Third, as shown in the photo (what you see is the lids of two tin cans, held on by tar to the plyboard roof), there are ways and ways of patching mistakes. Some are uglier than others, some are less effective than others, and some are both ugly and ineffective. Similarly, some are attractive and serviceable. So I'll try for that last combo. Even though I do have to admit that ugly and ineffective patches are kind of interesting from a family history/archeological standpoint 40 years down the road.
So, got that, people? Uphill and downhill are different, as are knowing and doing. Ugly/ineffective is different from attractive/serviceable.
And watch your kneecaps. There's a funnybone in there somewhere, and you really don't want to find it.
