“Houston, one whole side of the spacecraft is missing!”

– Jim Lovell, Commander of Apollo 13. 
(And me in last night’s wind storm…)

This photo shows how much skirting was blown off the house by the wind.  This is the view looking back from standing next to the air conditioner.  Two more panels are out between the AC unit and the front of the house.  At this point I’ve laid out what I can find of it so I could put it all back on.  I chatted with my next door neighbor briefly while I was gathering up the wreckage.  She said she wasn’t certain that the contractor who was here Friday in the rain to install my new propane furnace had put back the skirting they’d removed to run the line to the tank.  They may have been thinking that way they wouldn’t have to take it off again for the building inspector come Tuesday.  The fact that my pipes may freeze between now and then doesn’t seem to have entered into the equation.

If true, I am not at all happy about that.

I am happy that they took down one of my little oil lamps so it wouldn’t be damaged when they were wrestling the furnace into the little closet in the hall.  But I am decidedly unhappy that they laid it on its side on my bed! 

Fortunately it seems that I don’t have restless leg syndrome.  I haven’t been rubbing my ankles together to create any friction that might ignite the lamp oil that leaked and saturated the foot end of my mattress.  I sopped up as much as I could.  But still…

To adapt a line from Cornel Jeff Cooper:

‘Rule 1: All oil lamps are full.’ 

Grumble, grumble!