Following Edge

Here are a couple of shots from a birthday party that Lauren went to at a local gymnastics place this week. As you can see, she is always either considering and observing, or in motion (on a trampoline, in this case). Lauren is wonderful, of course.

Our house has sprung leaks. Most dramatically, half the floor and part of the wall in our office is totally wet. Since we live in a dome, trying to figure out any leaks is an almost insurmountable problem for an acrophobic. The roof is extremely tall and impossibly steep. One would need more climbing gear than a ladder to climb it. Happily, we determined the leak must be near a dormer window, which offered a thin, only-slightly-slanted surface for me to stand on to find the problem.

Being on that thin, slanted section of roof reminded of Philippe Petit's description in "To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers" of his first time to the top of the trade center towers and how frightening it was to stand on the thin, slanted section of roof just at the edge. Now, you might say that the World Trade Center was 1,368 feet tall while our upstairs window is only 10 feet up, but I'm sure one could die falling from either height, and I am no high-wire walker, as Philippe is.

I think I found and patched the quarter-inch hole in one of the pieces of dormer flashing. I've ripped up the wet carpet in the office, am drying things out and waiting to see if the leak is truly gone before I repair everything.

And that's just one of my concerns... thinking about starting a business, volunteering to make an online timeclock for our company, and...

Trying to find proof that a six-somewhat-black-star Sudoku puzzle (Difficulty Rating: ) is not a "0 of 5 star" puzzle, even though I don't know what it is. One appears to be in our newspaper every Saturday, so figuring out what it means shouldn't be that hard.

I'll tell you about all those things when I can. Hopefully, there'll be more time for writing this coming week.