Listening to
Basie
by
Dick Prosapio © 2005
It's a quiet evening for a change. No undercurrent
of thumping rap emanating from Selena's room.
She's out with our oldest, Lia.
Elizabeth is at, yet another, meeting still
fighting the rock quarry the despoilers are trying to ram through
the neighborhood association and the BLM.
She may quit the battle soon. It's consuming her.
And us.
People I know are dying. I mean people I know
personally. This is new for me and though I don't take it as some
kind of omen or agitate about it, there it is. Thing is, these folks
are not dying of "natural causes". I mean, it's not an old age
thing. It's cancer. An artist I knew back in the Texas days, must be
about Elizabeth's age, her days are numbered. The neighborhood
curmudgeon, no, I'm not the only one around here, his cancer is back
after undergoing prostate removal! Now it's the "chemo" route. It
doesn't look good.
A "solid" couple we've known for years are
suddenly splitting up. Another kind of "deathing".
And of course, John's gone. Just seems like a few
months ago he was diagnosed.
Am I feeling "mortality" tapping at my window? No.
Not these days anyway. I'm busy building an entry way to our house.
This little construction project has not followed the usual pattern
which is this; I call Marty, the master builder, and ask him for a
plan. He draws one up and then I buy the materials and he shows up
and we start building.
That is, HE starts building. I mainly hand him the
right tools at the right time and do a little nailing. We have built
two additions to our house this way, and one storage shed and the
kiva.
Enter fate.
A few days ago, as Marty was climbing up the old
wooden kiva ladder to the main roof, one that John hand built about
three years ago, it snapped in two and sent him straight down about
six feet to the ground.
Ordinarily this would have been a minor fall.
Well, maybe not "minor", but certainly not major. But did I mention
that Marty has just undergone double knee replacement?
Well, it didn't turn out as badly as it might
have, severe ankle sprain, no damage to the work site. '
His knees that is.
That left me on my own with no bailouts
available; I was going to have to actually do the rest of the entire
job. Luckily, Marty had already completed all the "skeleton" work, I
had anchored everything in cement and everything was framed up. What
was left was all the roofing, walls and windows.
So far with only a few goofs, I've got the
roof on and two of the three walls up with the windows installed.
Now for the "soffit" and "fascia" parts. Then the final wall and the
storm door. The rest is finish work which I am fairly good at.
All of this has been a giant challenge to my
self-confidence as a wielder of power tools. I can do the drill,
screw, hammer and nail stuff all right, it's the measuring and saw
cutting where I lose my nerve and waste a lot of wood. Necessity is
proving the teacher however, and I am progressing with minimum
number of strange short pieces littering the ground; they're never
too long.
How could I have thought that wall was 7' 7 5/8th"
and cut that long piece to fit perfectly, only to discover that I
was 6" short?
Weird!! Especially since the wall on the other
side is exactly 8'. ? How did I get 7' 7 5/8"? And I measured it
about four times.
Gremlins.
I'm consumed by this job these days, so not much
else is getting done. Fact is, it's a job that has got to get
finished before the "real" winter sets in. Given that it was 70 last
week it may be awhile. But here in New Mexico, the weather gods
could just be setting us up. Last year we had a couple of snows by
now so it could happen any minute.
Hence, my obsession.
But tonight, I'm sitting here with Basie playing,
the cat bugging me to sit on my lap, on top of the compute.......rand
it's about time for a little glass of wine.
When I get done with this construction problem
solving maybe I'll start worrying about life and death.till then,
it's all about Life!
......and now that I look out the window, it's
also about that dumb looking crooked piece of trim that I'll have to
re-do tomorrow......and then there's the window trim.....and
then......
