Springtime, Bathtubs, Guys with No Shirts

It's been a busy few days.

Because the flowers and trees are so gorgeous around here in the spring (thus making life hell for allergy sufferers but heaven for everyone else), we have a big springtime festival and parade. I volunteered to help out at our station's booth Saturday afternoon, explaining to interested passersby all about digital conversion, ways to volunteer, and answering questions about our programming.

I wasn't there alone. One of the folks from radio was there when I arrived, sitting like a king in a folding chair with a gigantic turkey leg in his fist. "Want some of my meat?" he asked, waving the leg around. I laughed. "No, thanks!"

He couldn't resist showing off his turkey legs even so. TC would rise from his chair for short periods of time and accost passersby and ask them to name an NPR radio show of PBS television show that they liked. If they actually came up with an answer, they won a pen (which we were giving away for free anyway). It was really pretty funny and he made the people he stopped laugh. Darling Man called it "very AM", meaning something a top40 disc jockey would do - and applauded him for having the chutzpah to do it.

The face painting was a big hit. We gave them a table next to us and while their children were getting designs painted on, the parents talked to us. It was a nice little set up, I tell you.

Darling Man and ZBoy showed up and wandered around for a while, and returned to the booth with this contraption. The balloon man made ZBoy a Pluto face! It was really, really cool!

Jennifer and I (I told you I looked like Winston Churchill!) manned the booth to the bitter end, then got the fun (?) of loading the van up with everything. We were exhausted when it was over. I went to bed early and got up late on Sunday morning.

I got the call last night. And today at noon, they showed up. I have been descended upon by guys with no shirts. The roofers are HERE!

They set right up and got to work. THey crawled up on the roof and began taking down the edge pieces and inspecting the roof.

When I walked out to take this picture, the foreman was on the truck getting ready to pull stuff off. He stood up and yelled at the guys on the roof, "Who loaded this roll of metal?" in a very accusing tone of voice. The guys loooked at each other and hemmed and hawed before asking what the problem was. "It's loaded on backwards! We're gonna have to take it back and reload ("back" is Albany, GA), God dammit!" The guys looked guiltily at each other and began stammering. Man on truck stood up from bending over the reel and yelled, "April Fool!" Lots of relieved laughter and good-natured swearing ensued.

Neighbor Man, watering his yard by hand, watched all of this with some interest. I laughed with the guys, then walked over to talk to Neighbor Man - he's impressed that we're putting on a new roof. We didn't talk about dogs or cats. About 10 minutes later, I went back inside and moments later, looked out the window to see him blowing Drunk Neighbor's driveway, then proceeded to Sheriff Deputy's driveway, then all the leaves in the street. The street sweeper had been up and down the street earlier today, so there shouldn't have been much...

After blowing off all the pollen and various other bits of debris, they began laying the underlayment. I wonder how far they'll get today. They're already handing up pieces of metal roofing and it's only 2:30 - could the whole of the top roof get done?

While all that was going on, I'm stuck at home with boy and my car blocked in. I decided it was time to get the second bathroom functional, so I started working on those damned sticky things in the bottom of the tub. They've probably been there 40 years, sort of peeling, but stuck fast where they still stuck.

Attractive, no? Yeah - I'm not keen to take a bath in there either. Anyway, somewhere along the line, I read that a good way to remove those things was with this stuff:

The idea is that you lay the foil over the stickers, heat it all up with the hairdryer thereby making the glue soft, then you scrape it up with a stiff card (not metal - don't want to scratch the tub). So I tried it.

Huh. Not quite as effective as I'd hoped. Probably due to the age of the stickers. Still, I could chip off some of it, but it took forever. So I began searching for my Goo-Gone, hoping that it might work a little better. I never found it (and I KNOW I have a big bottle of it!), but I did find a can of WD-40. On the can it says it can clean tar and other adhesives, so I gave it a shot.

It seems to be working. After some trial and error, I discovered that if I spray it and let it sit for a while, I can scrape more up. It's still a slow process, but it seems to be working - and more thoroughly than the foil method. If I ever get it all cleaned up, I'll show you how beautifully it turned out.

More roof updates later!

LATER: The guys arrived at noon and left around 5pm. This is what they accomplished in 5 hours:

The whole front part of the top roof, and half the back part.

Tomorrow, they should finish the top roof and the back porch and perhaps that little bit on the front over the front door. I imagine the garage will be on the last day. Please don't pray for rain here in the next couple of days!