More Changes

I'm going to start with a grim change. I am now a person who knows somebody who lost her sister to the virus. It happened back in February, when nobody recognized the symptoms yet for what they are. Travel was involved, but only to the east coast. It was enough. Both sisters are/were in their 40s, and so far as I know, otherwise healthy. It happened in Minnesota, and it was my daughter who informed me of it today. The sister who survived is one of her friends, and I met her through Steph years ago. Though testing was never involved, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that it was classic covid 19.

We are of course used to most of the flyers that come through the mail. We want to buy your house. We want to buy your car for an insulting amount. You are obviously deaf so you want to buy our hearing aids. Install our walk-in tubs for more than a month's SS check.

Any day now I figured we'd be getting some for life alert pendants, home health assistance, memory care facilities, and whatever fills their expectations of potential customers circling the drain. Perhaps I've been too optimistic about their expectations, however.

Today I got a new one, perfect, I suppose, for covid 19  times. It was an attempt to sell me funeral services. In Spanish. Not English-plus. Just Spanish. It guess they went by the last name, which, incidentally, is a several-hundreds-years-old corruption of Rousseau. French. Enough of the message showed around the envelope address window that I didn't even have to open it to get the drift. Too many words are similar in both languages: I could understand it, despite all those decades beyond my high school and college Spanish. I never bothered to open it, just tossed it in recycling.

Somehow, despite all those assumptions floating around out there and landing in my mailbox or taking space in my voicemail, there's an inner part of me that is still 16.  But smarter. More experienced. Bolder. Sillier. More skilled. More aware. More independent. More confident. More content. Much more loving. And much more loved! Best of all, fully cognizant of all of it. And grateful I'm not really 16 any more, even if it's all tucked inside this 71-year-old body.

I did change my mind about something else today, however, something that salesmen (always men for whatever reason) are regularly knocking on my door about. The roof. From the time we moved in, they came. The first few years I assured them our appraiser for the house sale had assured us that the roof was in great condition. The next few years I assured them that the solar company assured me that our roof was in great condition. They checked because they didn't want to go to the expense of installing something that they'd have to redo soon. The 20-year contract gives them all the maintenance costs of the system, so my inclination is to give their opinion weight.

Last year a big storm went through and the wanna-be roofers flooded the area. One tried to tell me he saw from across the street that my roof was in dire need of replacement. It happened that I'd just looked at it a couple days before and everything looked perfect. Not a lift, curl, or blemish. What he thought he saw from across the street was a gullible customer. I disabused him of that idea. He informed me I would regret it when my house leaked. Mmmm, yeah, sure, whatever.

About a week later my next door neighbors got their roof replaced. Not a single shingle (hey, rhymes!) was lying flat. They had to call the company back - several times to get any response - in order to get their fix fixed. Now it looks great.

This morning a fellow knocked on my door to tell me my roof on the back of the house needed to be replaced. He claimed he could see it from doing work in the neighborhood. Across our back yard, the adjoining yard, and the street, that was his so-called vantage point. I didn't see any sign of a telescope and sent him on his way.

Now I'm not saying that this year we haven't had any leaks. There is one. It started as one tiny drip point a few years ago, then several, now a pretty full line. Fortunately, it is located outside the house, at the join between the regular roof where it hangs out about a foot past the walls of the house, and the steel roof which covers our patio. It drips onto concrete. If we anticipate rain, the furniture needs to be pulled forward to the middle of the patio. It stays dry there while the rain runs across the concrete into the yard. If we don't think about it in time, the cushions get wet. It may or may not be the primary reason the paint is flaking off the wicker, though I think the more likely culprit is the Arizona sun.

This afternoon another fellow stopped by. First, he stated he was there with the approval of the homeowners association. He asked permission to inspect our roof to see if the March 18 storm had damaged ours as it had many others in the neighborhood. He took his cell phone up to bring back evidence of what was or wasn't going on. I agreed. Ten minutes later I saw up close the damage. At my request he checked out that roof join leak. Ouch! No wonder we had that leak. There were  lots of floppy shingles that should have been sticking to each other, creases across shingles that had no business being there. No imaginary telescopes, no slick talk, just proof.

His company often works with my insurance company. (That's promoted by AARP and insures a huge chunk of the homes in this area.) They also coordinate with my solar company. The best part, the convincer, was they offer to cover the deductible. I agree to have them put their sign out on the front "lawn", each week covers $250 of whatever it is.

The insurance company will send their person out next Wednesday to do their own inspection. Installation should follow a week later. They protect plants and are used to pointy things in yards, next to walls. They go around the perimeter after instalaction with a metal detector to remove any dropped shingle nails. Coolers of water are provided the crews, and if they haven't sweated everything out, they don't need access to our plumbing but go down the street. It's all finished in a day.

Then I can go back to arranging the patio furniture how we want it. And waiting for the next piece of crap mail to recycle. Some things don't really change.