This morning, there are workmen running around clearing away the snow that’s accumulated on the flat roof, and I'll confess that I have a certain fascination with them. This may have something to do with the fact I’m easily distracted, and a half dozen guys with shovels in a space where there are usually none are easily classified as something shiny. I keep catching movement or sounds of scraping or laughter and my head cranks around to the left so I can get a glimpse of what’s going on. Not surprisingly, I find that they’re shoveling snow off the roof.
What is kind of neat is that they’re all geared up in climbing harnesses and helmets, and if they had bought into the fashionable gore-tex tech, they’d be indistinguishable from a bunch of guys planning on scaling a floe. Each has a safety line anchored to some structure on the roof in hopes that it will be stable enough to break a fall in the event of catastrophe. I keep hoping that one of them will lean out over the edge and shout out something lyrical or profound as he stands braced with arms flung wide. (It just made me think of a line from Incubus: "I lean against the wind, pretend that I am weightless, and in this moment I am happy.")
Actually, I really just want see one of them make a running leap so he can be snapped short of falling. I want to see him laughing as he dangles over the edge and the supervisor comes over, looks down, and shakes his head at the utter silliness of it all.
I’m guessing that all of this is apropos of nothing save for the fact that I really want to be outside playing in the snow. (And no, I won’t come shovel your walk… unless you promise that I’ll get to use über-sexy gear to rappel off your roof or at least tempt me with a pie.)
