To Code.

Today is the last day of July, the end of the second month of the Toad, in the year of No Toad Then Toad. Saturday 7/31 finds the 2740X greater metropolitan area in drizzle and clouds, with more earnest rain forecast for the afternoon. It was not quite 70 degrees on the ANYLF ActionWeatherNowPorch this morning. We sat out there and the Toad tried his newest trick: being awake without screaming. We drank coffee. We looked at the rain. We watched the goldfinches eat the seeds from the center of the spent coneflower blooms. We did our best to survive.

The city has come out and looked several times and in several ways at the building, and minus final inspections—those for pretty and for abject functionality—we have passed. The plumbers passed theirs, the electrician passed his, and yours truly, friends and fans of general halfassery and of DIY with newborns, has passed his as well. Framing good. Exterior rough good. These things are maybe not perfect, but they are waterproof and nearly square and they have squeezed within the parameters of the code. Make that The Code. Actually, given the way enforcement seems to work, let's pull those capitals back down and just leave code where it was. There has been some wink-and-nod here at 709. There has been some off-the-record. But we are good. We are legal in letter and spirit both. Other than the ongoing explosion which is and ever shall be the Toad, we have not done anything of any lasting damage or danger to the property. We have built ourselves eighty framed, roofed and sheathed square feet. To code. Or damn near.

This week: insulation, drywall. Get those done and we've done well. August arrives tomorrow. Do we ask about the novel? We do not ask about the novel. Is the plot problem solved? The voice problem? The absent last two chapters problem? We do not ask about the novel. We build. We shelter the Toad. We watch it rain, a cool mid-September gift in the wrong month entirely, and try to enjoy it for what it is and nothing more. I mean, we still ask about the novel. We can't not. But we try to watch the rain.