St. Patrick's Day

With good, early spring weather predicted, we made plans to spend St. Paddy's Day and the following weekend up at the property. Tom was going to apply the rubberized membrane to the roof, and I was going to work on the windows and be the go-fer girl for him up and down the ladder.

Disengaging himself from his telephone and computer, Tom was able to head out a bit early Friday afternoon to get a jump-start on the activities. I would follow when I had my things done.

Leaving a full hour to an hour and a half after he did, I rounded a corner about 1 mile from the new house . . . and found the Suburban pulled over to the side of the road with Tom, very aggravated, sitting inside the engine. And, to top it off, just as I pulled up behind him, a very full logging truck idled around the corner towards us. Fortunately, our plow truck had died in one of the VERY FEW SPOTS wide enough to allow passing, and, after a quick visit and with only about 6 inches of room to spare, the loggers rolled on by.

Fast forward past initial calls to our good-friend-and-mechanic and some failed attempts at getting the old beast running again ourselves, and Tom walks into the house where I'm now working with his head hung low. He shakes his head and mumbles, "That damn Jay." A big smile breaks out on my face, and I ask, "He's coming up, isn't he?"

So, late on a Friday evening with a full week's worth of hard work in his own garage behind him and with spare distributor and wife (with a bottle of wine) in hand, our wonderful friend heads out into the dark night to change a distributor on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere in the pitch-black of early night.

Mrs. Mechanic and I had a wonderful, unscheduled catch-up, and the guys joined us for drinks in the trapper cabin after the truck was fixed. I'm telling you, you CANNOT beat friends and evenings like that!

(Although, what was it he mentioned about a $1,000 house-call fee?!)