Down To Earth

Yanno what I hate?

I hate heights.

We spent part of our summer vacation in '09 in Glacier International Park and it's outstandingly beautiful. We stopped at the ranger station and inquired about which roads to drive since we only had a day there and were told "You must travel the Going to the Sun Road". I asked if it was really scary, because I Do Not Do Scary and was told with a kindly smile "You'll be fine".

It. Was. Horrifying.

On the last leg of the route we stopped and Alec said "Look, Mom- some of those rare ground squirrels" and I said "I hope they all die of rabies- lets go IT'S GETTING DARK OUT".

By the time we were back at the hotel I was delirious. I was talking to Joe, recovering from knee replacement surgery in Helena (and the reason for our trip to Montana) and told him how beautiful-yet-ghastly the drive had been and he said "Well, Sugar- this land makes for tough men".

I told him they weren't tough- they were all brain-damaged from high altitude, lack of oxygen and the freakin' frigid temperatures.

I remained traumatized for weeks.

We visited a friend several days later and there's a ditch about a foot deep along her road and I hollered "Look out- you're too close to the edge".

But I'm not talking about Montana today.

Today I had to do a little work on the roof.

All I needed to do was climb up there and apply stain to the trim up there.

Easy Peasy.

I climbed up. I looked down. I couldn't stand up.

Crab-crawling to the gable, I managed to get most of the stain applied. My knees hurt from crawling on the shingles, my arms hurt from the death grip on the trim and the stain can, and I needed to pee. I could not imagine standing up to do the tippy top trim.

Ward- my hero- helped me down onto the ladder and I ran for the porta potty.

But it rankled that I hadn't finished the job, so after a few minutes to gather my shattered wits, up I went again.

I stood up and applied the tippy top stain.

I laid down and applied the bottom-most stain- an especially daunting task since I wear bifocals.

And Ward- my hero- helped me down onto the ladder and I ran for the porta potty.

There's one more gable to do and then I'm off the roof. The next time it'll have to be stained is in 5 years. Alec will be 15 then.

*Perfect*.