Tin at last

Finally -- though it's going to take a few days, given the complexity of the roof.

Dennis (the neighbor who runs the guest house up the blook, not Dennis the electrician or Dennis the architect) thinks the roof was part of the islandwide effort that took the wind out of Chris, expected soon to be downgraded to a mere tropical depression, and expected to pass over Cuba, not us.

Dennis says my storm-supplies run also helped, as did his own efforts: topping off his propane, and stocking up on beer.

But the roofer wasn't our only welcome guest on Thursay: The HVAC guys, Kenny and George, showed up to run their refrigerant lines while the floor is still torn up. They'll be back next week to work on ducts and such. That's Kenny in the picture, pushing copper pipe under the house.

Ref, meanwhile, keeps getting better. This morning, he almost looked and sounded like his old self, and the doc gave him a glowing report. He seemed a little wearier this afternoon -- but after all, he'd been doing laps of the hospital halls all day.

Back to the subject of guests. We did have one unwelcome one, in an odd Key West way. There is no delicate way to say this, so:

Even though we have a porta-potty onsite (and it gets a workout from the late bar crowd on weekends), someone got into the house overnight, went out on the roof and went, out on the roof. Since we need no overnight visitors, I called the cops. Two guys in blue pedaled up on bilkes and inspected the, um, evidence. After some predictable humor, they promised to increase night patrols.