Final Inspection.

Friends and fans of building codes, of professional plumbers, of semiprofessional electricians, and of hobbyist drywallers like me, know this: one can, in fact, satisfy the City of 2740X Department of Building and Engineering, even if it does take a year. A word of advice: Don't throw up the framing for your shed addition three weeks after the birth of your child. Don't have the slab poured three weeks before the birth of your child. The net effect will be that you don't really remember anything from May to Thanksgiving. The net effect will be that a building permit issued you on 5/19/10 will be finished on 5/10/11. Still: after hitting a parked and shiny PT Cruiser in the parking lot at the puppet show last evening, I was in need of good news, triumphant news, even, and this is that. Persons who know things have turned up to look at what is mainly square and largely waterproof and said yes.

I just missed, is what happened. I was in the pickup and the Toad was riding with me and my head was full of novel and puppetry and time of day and needs of child and then I hit the damn car.

We're sunny out there now, though we started cool and humid, and one does wonder if this is the week we make the quarter-turn to a chance of showers each afternoon, if the weather forecast goes from being science to art, to which way the dog orients herself on the porch and how comfortable she is sniffing the wind. I'd look mainly west, though I think I recall some gentleman on the local cable whatever last night showing a model that had things sliding in from the north, or the northish, and so look there, too. I think he said 'some may be severe,' but once we hit, oh, i don't know, 5/10/XX, isn't the chance there that anything that pops up may be poppier than normal?

The agony of defeat and the thrill of victory, 14 or 15 hours apart. If the Toad were old enough, I'd explain to him that this is usually the best you can hope for. It may be slightly better than that, even. Instead, though, I'll just wait until he comes babbling out of his nap, load him into the backpack, and stroll him around in all this slightly-cooler-than-it-could-be pre-possible-thunderstorm mid-morning tempered triumph. I'll take the dog, see which way she's aiming. There's no better barometer, friends and fans of wanting to know a little more than you know. None.