Intrusion

As I go through my days, numerous blog topics often spring to mind, and sometimes I even remember to write them down. (I finally remembered what I couldn’t the other day, when I was once again lamenting the weather — I was going to note that Microsoft was taunting me by flinging beach pictures up on my screen.)

Then I wake up the following morning, which is never my best time of the day, and none of my perceived topics start talking to me the way they did in the middle of the day. So I default to “Dear Diary” mode: here is what happened in  my very uneventful life the day before.

Today I had a different struggle, and I sat in front of lifeless keys for 20 minutes before Dusty called and then came over and occupied the next 40 minutes of available blog time.

He came to pick up a piece of furniture. Lynn calls it a dresser, but it’s not really that. It’s an old piece, antique if you will, and I believe she got it from her late mother. It has a bit of space behind two cabinet doors under a stone, possibly marble, surface (did I take a picture? No). She is going to re-purpose it as her bathroom vanity, and Dusty is now ready to install it in her new bathroom. Ben the plumber is coming tomorrow, I think he said.

Most of our discussion this morning was about paint color, and Decisions Have Been Made. Our two little hallways will be the light gray that was among our “neutral” choices, and in the absence of any color speaking to us, we’re going with Chalk, which is a basic white, in the Good Room, except for the kitchen and the south wall.

Lynn and I are now very glad we did not go with our first neutral choice, the Moon Shadow. She had that put on three walls of one bedroom, and now that it’s in place, it’s not gray or white at all but lavender. The fourth wall is going to be a periwinkle, so maybe lavender isn’t a horrible complement, but I see the distinct possibility of a re-paint in that room. Dusty said he would be surprised, with all the strong color choices, if we didn’t end up revising a couple of selections.

He had a story about his wife’s aunt having him paint a room in a shade of yellow, and it was off just slightly on one wall, and she hated it. He double-checked the color selection, and then she pointed to the adjacent wall. “That’s the color I want,” she said. “They’re the same color,” Dusty said of the two walls. The play of light made them appear to be two different shades.

And, for the second time this week, I nearly had an animal incident, as Marrakesh leaped into Dusty’s truck while we were talking. We saw him get in but didn’t see him get out, although before he drove off, Dusty spotted Kesh behind the house and he has since come inside (and gone outside, and come inside, and gone outside . . .), so I do not have to try to track down a missing cat.

For three weeks, Dusty has said the roofers are going to begin in the middle of the subsequent week, and today is one of those Promised Days, but no mention was made of the roof. The forecast, of course, is for snow this evening into tomorrow.

But holes for the deck got dug yesterday, and sometime “soon” the concrete for the pilings and our entryways will be poured. Our front approach is going to be a ramp of concrete, because it seemed kind of stupid to me to be building a house for the express purpose of being stairless but then having to step up into the house from every entry.

So there’s yet another house report, one I wasn’t planning to provide today. I don’t even know what topic I was thinking I might tackle, but the reason I spent so long not typing this morning is because there was yet another school shooting, yet again in Colorado, and I am having a very difficult time remaining silent.

I try very hard, and sometimes don’t do so well, to keep my politics out of this blog. When I started it, I assumed my friends would be all the readers, but more than half my followers have come to the blog through WordPress, and I don’t know you at all. (I would like to thank you, S. and Dennis, for your very kind “likes” of my posts.)

Way back before there were blogs or Facebook, there were e-mail groups, and I watched one of my groups shatter completely in the wake of 9/11. I still can’t really explain it: our group had nothing to do with politics, and I don’t recall what set everyone at odds, but within days, that group had disintegrated amid very hard feelings.

While I know not to read the comments, sometimes I do anyway, like this morning when I went to DenverPost.com to get more information about the shooting in Highlands Ranch yesterday, and it’s easy to see how quickly something that should be dialogue devolves into the pickiest of nits and name-calling.

Having said all that, I feel for Mike Malone, the coach of the Denver Nuggets, who had a playoff game last night, following a moment of silence. Prior to the game, he noted that his children, who must live near that school, have gone through two lock-downs in less than a month. “I’m not a politician,” he said, adding he doesn’t know what the solution is, “But we can’t keep doing this.”

Moments of silence aren’t getting us anywhere. Today there is a family in Highlands Ranch who yesterday morning was preparing for their son’s graduation in three days who now have to plan a funeral instead. I assume it is hollow consolation that he is reputed to have died trying to stop the shooters.

I can’t cite my source, so I probably should not put this out as fact, but last week I read that the United States has 4.4 percent of the world’s population — and 42 percent of the world’s guns. That seems like overkill. And over and over and over.

Like Coach Malone, I don’t have a solution. I mean, I know what I think we ought to do, but there’s no political will to carry out my thoughts, and I recognize that I have friends, some of them quite close, who have very different, and usually quite passionate, views on this topic. But agreeing to disagree is not getting us to a solution, or solutions.

There is an Australian comedian, Jim Jeffries, who has a show on Comedy Central that comes on sometimes before and sometimes after The Daily Show. I haven’t watched anything other than snippets of Mr. Jeffries’ show, but he signs off every night with, “I’m Jim Jeffries, and I think we can all do better.”

I agree. I think we can do better. I think we should do better. Lives depend on it.

Sorry for the political intrusion. I’ll try to do better, too.