On the Roof

Yesterday I came home from work, fixed up a big plate of Pasta Puttanesca, downed a couple of glasses of Little Penguin and indulged in some real Binge Sleeping. I'd been running pretty low in the sleep department for a while and I was long overdue for full night's sleep. So this morning I hopped out of bed, still groggy of course, swung a leg over the Cervelo, and rolled over to the levee. Thanks to this morning's haze, it was almost too dark to see with my Oakley's on. Almost. I had tweaked the new saddle position a bit yesterday, Tilting the nose just slightly lower and sliding the seat a few mm farther back. This saddle is longer than my old one, and I'm still searching for that "sweet spot." I'm not really convinced there is one, though. There were just a few people waiting on the levee this morning, but eventually we picked up more, and although it got fairly fast, it never went supersonic. Pretty typical Wednesday ride. I was rather distracted by the thick humidity and the unfamiliar saddle, though. The change in saddle angle was putting more weight on my hands and making me slide too far forward, so I guess next I'll tip the nose up a touch and see how that works. It seems that these newer saddle designs put more pressure on smaller areas rather than spreading it out like the older designs did. I guess that's both good and bad. Whatever, I think it will take a little while for me to either get used to this new saddle or give up altogether.

I was still in the shower when I heard the first loud crash and felt the house shake. The roofers were here! Mixed emotions, for sure. The contractor had called yesterday morning to say they would be starting today or tomorrow, but I was expecting the dumpster to show up first. Instead, a bunch of guys with Latin accents climbed up there around 8 a.m. and started enthusiastically tearing the roof off. This re-roofing thing is really stressful. There is some kind of deep-seated need most of us have for a "home," and at the core of that instinct is the need for a roof over our heads. Suddenly having a bunch of strangers tearing it off is just a little bit disconcerting, especially when it's been raining practically every afternoon. So anyway, I'll be working out of the house today just to kind of keep an eye on things. Every now and then I hear one of those old cement-asbestos shingles slide down the slope and land on the sidewalk alongside the house. Hmmm. Not good. Of course there's also the ever-present possibility that one of them will come right through some rotten spot in the roof or slide off the edge or something.