EDMONTON EXISTENTIAL

When the Rain Comes

I was fifteen feet up, near the top of the aluminum ladder. And the rain came down just like that defiant, multi-generational lament on Steve Earle’s seminal Exit 0 album. Ann had spotted me as I’d climbed to the roofline. The ladder’s base was braced against one of the railway ties that form the barrier between the rear of our front garden and the narrow path that takes visitors around to the back of the Crooked 9. I was perfectly grounded thanks to the quarter-inch synthetic rubber soles of my yard shoes. Right. While trying not to look down, I did notice that Ann, wisely, had stepped away from the lightning rod I was perched on even though the severe thunderstorm weather warning was no longer a red alert on any of our weather apps – we tend to choose the day’s best forecast and hope.

Ann and I had stood fretting, framed in the dining room window watching the eaves trough’s overflow cascade before our eyes in a relentless sheet, a silver blind; we were on the wrong side of a waterfall. I fret, Ann frets and together we redouble our efforts. This is the power of thinking that’s generally not positive. But nor is water pooling hard by the foundation of a house, brand new in 1955, with a spotty history of leaks and seeps. It’s crucial that those durable asbestos tiles in the basement remain destined to be somebody else’s problem.

The dehumidifier has been working double time downstairs since last Tuesday. There’s so much paper down there: scribbled notes, typed manuscript drafts, books, CD inserts and record albums. Other stuff averse to moisture too, including a post-apocalyptic toilet paper supply from Costco, and family heirlooms.

The week’s rain was the proverbial mixed blessing. Farmers require it, but not at a sustained, punishing velocity. The deluge was a dousing boon for the wildfire fighters working throughout Alberta. Of course, there was the curious case of Edson, a town halfway between Edmonton and Jasper. In the space of a week locals were issued two sequential Old Testament evacuation alerts: the first for hellfire and the second for flooding.

The Edmonton Riverhawks first homestand of the West Coast League season was scheduled to be six games, three apiece versus the Kamloops Northpaws and the Nanaimo Nightowls. I understand the club managed to squeeze in one. I can’t confirm that because Postmedia’s Edmonton Journal seems to have added baseball to the list of city stories it does not cover, a lengthy one that already includes the provincial legislature and city hall; the paper’s dwindling pool of loyal readers have been instructed to blame Facebook and Google – but I digress.

We’re lucky to have two birch trees on the property, one close to the house in front of the dining room window. Birch trees are deciduous. This is the time of year when they drop their ropy seeds. They will stain concrete brown when saturated. In sopping clusters they make damn fine dams in eaves troughs. I don’t help matters either. I’ve inserted light bulb-shaped wire grilles into every downspout drain. A clog up top is preferable to removing a length of downspout from the side of the house and reaming it out with a hockey stick. Covering the eaves troughs with mesh in a winter city is just begging for trouble, a bit like standing on a ladder during a rainstorm; the icicles that form will not only be spectacular but potentially lethal – it’s safer to walk under ladders.

My father didn’t take up golf until late in his life, but when I was a kid he always kept a nine-iron with his workshop tools. The angle of the club head was ideal for scraping eaves troughs clean, about six feet in each direction. My tools consist of a disused car snow brush and a small plot gardening tool of Ann’s, a miniature hoe with a telescoping handle. And rubberized gardening gloves. The most efficient way to clean the eaves troughs is to get on the roof on a sunny day and work from above. But the rough, black shingles heat up in a hurry and I turn green kneeling forward on a down slope.

Routine emergency maintenance forces me to weigh immediate risk against immediate and future peace of mind, as mundane as that may be. Like most people, I’m worth more dead than alive. The worst case outcome would be me getting zapped and the Crooked 9’s foundation being compromised. In this scenario Ann could realize a tidy profit in exchange for the inconvenience of an extensive renovation. I’m pretty sure she’s of the view that any or all potential losses would be incalculable, excepting the 24 toilet rolls.  

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of meteorology since 2013. The novella Of Course You Did is my latest book. Visit www.megeoff.com for links to purchase it in your preferred format from assorted retailers.