Engineering

I'm sure you've all seen the news about the bridge collapse in Baltimore. I'm certain I've driven across that bridge before -- I have a dim memory of doing so, maybe when I was moving up to New York from Florida in 2000, with two cats in my rental car. (What a drive that was!) The video of the collapse, while horrible, was fascinating to watch -- the speed with which the entire span came down once that left-hand pillar was struck. It shows the exquisite engineering and tension that goes into building any bridge.

Of course it reminded me of the collapse of the Sunshine Skyway in 1980, an event I remember well from my adolescence in Tampa. Unlike in Baltimore, there was virtually no warning when the Skyway was struck by a ship and many cars (and a Greyhound bus) went into the water. It might have been my first experience with a full-fledged local disaster. It came not long after a similarly traumatic collision between two ships and both stories monopolized the news for months.

We've had a minor engineering mishap of our own here at Chez Olga. The other day, Mrs. Russia mentioned to Dave that we should have our bathroom window re-framed because the wood is old and weathered. We wondered how she would even know that, given that they can't see the window from their flat. (It's not that weathered and we're leaving it alone.)

We have a small garden shed with a sloped roof at the side of the house, beneath the Russians' terrace. Well, yesterday I realized that the roof covering of the shed had slid downwards by about six inches, as if someone stood on it and pulled it loose. Now we're getting rainwater through the boards of the roof, and that waterproof covering -- made of the same material as asphalt shingles -- needs to be pulled back up and re-nailed. I suspect that either Mr. or Mrs. Russia, for some reason, climbed down from their terrace onto the shed, damaging it, and accessed our patio (and thus saw our bathroom window). And then they didn't say anything about the damage. Super-annoying!

So that will be my Spring Break -- fixing the shed.

To make things more interesting, Dave is sick. He has a cold or something -- he hasn't taken a Covid test yet but he says he's very achey so I think that's a possibility. So maybe THAT will be my Spring Break!

On a positive note, though, H&R Block finally managed to successfully submit our tax return. The tax professional in the USA sent it to a Block affiliate in England, who submitted it with no problem. I guess the foreign phone number is only a barrier when taxes are submitted domestically, which makes sense. "I wish I'd thought of this a week ago," the American tax pro messaged me. So do I!

I shifted the avocado outdoors yesterday. After five months indoors, it needed more light and more moisture. It's on the patio for now, but I may eventually move it out to the lawn. The angle of the photo makes that pot look smaller than it is -- the tree probably is root-bound but not that bad! We still need to figure out a long-term plan for it.

Temperatures got down to 40º F last night, which probably gave it a chill, but as long as we don't freeze again it will be fine. The weather is warming up after today so I don't think there's too much danger, though frost in April is certainly possible. If that happens we'll cover it and hope for the best.

It rained last night, so the tree got a good shower. It makes me happy to see water on the leaves. Nature as it should be.

Last night Dave slept all evening, so I didn't watch TV as we usually do. Instead I put on music. Remember how we had our Bose sound bar for the television repaired? Well, it doesn't work with our new TV but it sounds AMAZING when I play my iTunes over it using bluetooth.

If there's a happier, more fun song than Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science," I'm not sure what it is.

(Photos: Top, shadows on my walk home from work; Middle, shadows on our bedroom wall.)