Sick & Frustrated

Sick for the 3rd time this month, such that I'm not sure if I'm sick again or still.

But I'm up helping Dad on the roof, because it's been raining and we're getting into rainy season and the roof is covered in tar paper but the tile still isn't up to protect the paper. And Dad's been doing this mostly by himself because I've been away and whatnot, and everyone else has been busy too. And roofing is not a one person job.

But I swear, between the drugs and the stuffed head, I am DUMB today. He's had to explain each task at least 3 times before I could make sense of it, and I just spent over an hour doing a section and it turns out I've been leaving out one tile on each row which pretty much means I have to pull them all out and do them over.

(The tiles overlap like fish scales - not only one side over the next but also they have to fit the right place over the rows above and below. So to remove one tile 7 rows down and 3 tiles in, I have to pull out everything from the top down to that row, plus all the sides. So to fix one tile, I have to pull out around 25 tiles [it would be more, but the piece is on an angle, so there are different #s of tiles in each row.])

This is all complicated by the fact that the tiles are all original and handmade which means 1) they're irreplaceable, so we're trying not to break any as we pull them out and nail them back in and 2) they are not all shaped the same - each one is slightly unique, so while it should be easy to lay them down, they usually don't fit neatly and you have to swap tiles around like puzzle pieces to make them lay in a straight line.

Next time we do the roof - hopefully not for another 20 years - I don't care about aesthetics. We're either using new, uniform, store-bought tiles or skipping the tiles altogether for something much much easier.

And hiring someone to do it.