Fans, both kinds

So this morning, my two good neighbor friends showed up early to get to work to take out my busted roof fan and replace it with the one I'd bought, fervently hoping I'd got the right thing. It took two skilled people three hours to navigate the ancient bolts and screws of the original fan, which has been in a hot roof in all weathers for about 15 years, and to fathom how to get the new one, slightly different design, installed without leaving any leeway for squirrel entry into the roof, a big feature of our lives around here.

So, hot and tired and up and down two flights of stairs and a stepladder, over and over, because of testing the circuit, checking the new fan in the kitchen -- no need to lug it up two flights and then find it didn't fit -- and generally organize the electrical side of things, they hung in there and did it. I now have a working fan, hugely important, since it saves a ton of ac in the house, makes the studio, above whose ceiling it lives, livable in the summer.

In the course of this enterprise, Gary, neighbor One, took part in a conference call meeting with his colleagues, who I guess were unaware that he was taking part with his head in an attic, yanking on a fan while holding his phone with his shoulder...and neighbor Two,Helen, found all the right tools, handed them up, and conferred with him, giving advice on the electrical stuff.

They are both whizzes at this stuff, do all their own household renos, and I'm blessed to have them there. Between them there's an arsenal of tools for any occasion. But I'm proud to say that my studio yielded the required wire cutters and special screwdrivers and things that are usually in the service of art, but were willing to work in industry today.

They don't make art, but love it, so I was able to thank them with a little framed piece each as a thank you,which they insisted was not necessary, but I think they'll like them. So I'm a fan of the fan installers.

I didn't take pix, since I thought they wouldn't thank me for unflattering pictures of their rear ends, heads above the ceiling, dressed in grubbies suitable for the environment...

But while my house cooled wonderfully, with the new fan working just fine, I figured I'd better get to work on something really useful. My nametag for the Embroiderers' Guild. You have six months in which to create your tag, and two of my months are gone already.

I found this, probably in contention for the Guinness Book of Oldest UFOs. Unfinished Objects, for them as don't cruise the stitching and knitting world. This is a piece of I think 22 count canvas dating all the way back to my miniature needlepoint days, and it was a design I created to hold my, get this, aviator glasses! note the great organization of my floss collection...

Life intervened, and I only just unearthed it,still clean and blessedly with the size 8 needle still in it, since this is not an easy size to find, and I plan to continue the crazy paving motif, fill in between the slabs with, hm, don't know yet, and then couch my name over the top in a metal thread secured with, hm, don't know yet. So this is a very important task, really practical, and will advance our civilization markedly when I get it done.