Why we are never moving

P1030372 It was raining when I originally started writing this post, but since then the weather has changed and now I'm guessing it won't rain for months and months.

But. When it does rain again, when spring comes (and really, these days, who knows when that will be? February? May?), my downspouts will work.

And they will work because Greg fixed them.

I've written about Greg before: Greg, my quiet, saintly, magical neighbour, possessor of esoteric drill bits and endless patience. Greg, the handiest of handy people; father to four now nearly grown and impeccably behaved children. Greg, who smiles and lets Isaac "help" him rotate the tires on his truck, who helps put together special Halloween care packages for my children, who snowblows my driveway, who called the electric company when our power blew out in a windstorm and ran an extension cord from his house to mine, who leaned over the fence a few months ago and said, "You need to fix your downspouts. Otherwise, you're going to compromise the brick."

The downspouts had been lying in pieces in our backyard, courtesy of the guys who had reinstalled the siding after said windstorm. I knew that they had to be put back together, but the one time I tried to do that, I cut my finger on the jagged edge of a piece of aluminum and that kind of put me off the task for a while.

Still, at Greg's urging — because I never want to disappoint Greg — I dutifully gathered all the pieces together and laid them out neatly in a row, intending to play the game of downspout Tetris and stick them all back together on the wall somehow. And then that was enough work for one day.

And then I came home and — of course — they were fixed. Magically, perfectly, quietly, impeccably attached the brickwork, probably attached better than the original attachers had ever attached them before in their whole lives. Ever. With new screws to keep everything in place, and not all just bunged together with chewing gum and duct tape like some other people might have done it.

We are never, ever moving.

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I am taking part in NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month, which has me posting a blog entry every day throughout the month of November.

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