A little "progress"

Yesterday between my beloved post-prandial Saturday nap and Maeda Galinsky's memorial service I spent some time in the driveway raking and sweeping up leaves in advance of the much-anticipated rain we are finally getting today. Afterwards, as the sun was going down and I was sitting at my desk not doing much of anything, I bucked up and headed for the roof. As I said some months ago, Marvin had given me the idea that the only way we were going to get the damned thing clean was with a bucket of diluted "outdoor bleach" and rags.

But of course, a metal roof is hot as fuck in the summer. So I wasn't doing it then. And now is the time of year when, even as the weather moderates, the days grow shorter by the day -- a minute a day, quoth Sergei and Larry. So daylight is precious.

Nevertheless, up I went with rag and bucket. As you would suspect, it's not quite as glamorous as it sounds, and requires some careful dancing. You have to plan carefully not to step on an area you just washed (I could go on)... in short, it was hard, and it was very difficult to get much done.

But I made a meaningful if incomplete dent in the really dirtiest area and, objectively, I got a lot of dirt off the roof. Intrinsically, therefore, I made progress, if not a ton. My arms were tired. And I figured out that, while this probably isn't the absolute best approach to cleaning a metal roof, it is, like democracy, the worst approach except for the alternatives. Plus it's always nice to be up on the roof to look down the hill at the lake.

At the end of the day, I felt good for having done a little something, and slept well.