First, a bit of news: If you haven’t tried my mystery series yet, the first book, Interview with a Dead Editor, is on sale through Labor Day for 99 cents, so this is a good time to give it a try, or to tell someone else about it.

I’ve been having an interesting week. My condo complex is getting new roofs, removing the clay tile (actually, apparently it’s concrete fake clay), putting on new decking, new waterproof layer, and then new tiles that are actually coated metal but that look like clay tiles. It’s been somewhat disruptive.

Last week, they were doing the buildings across from me, near my garage. They had supplies blocking my garage door, and I had to get them to move them. They brought over a forklift, and I felt so powerful, having a forklift coming to serve me. This week, though, they had reached my neighbors, which meant all the equipment has been in front of my house, more or less blocking me in. It’s a good thing I wasn’t going anywhere.

Yesterday, it was my turn. They start pretty early in the morning, take the hot part of the afternoon off, then work until sunset. I was sitting on the patio, eating breakfast, when I looked up and saw a face peering over the edge of my roof. They warned me they were about to be removing the tiles on the edge of the roof, so I scurried back under the covered part, and good thing, too, because there was a lot of debris falling.

The noise on the roof wasn’t too bad for most of the day. There was clanking when they removed the tiles and I kept hearing footsteps up there. But they they started dragging around the new decking and there was hammering. I kept jumping in surprise with every bang.

Next up, they have to put on the shingles, and I don’t know when that will happen. That seems to take them longer. I guess it’s good that we aren’t getting any rain. The main issue when that happens will be the sound of power tools. It makes a really annoying sound when they use a power saw to cut the metal shingle sheets. I was hearing it in my sleep last night, even though it’s been down the block. I don’t know how I’ll handle it when it’s next to my house. If I got more warning, I might go visit my parents then. For the first stage, I didn’t find out until the day before, and they already had my garage blocked with heavy equipment.

In spite of the disruption, I managed to get a lot of writing done. Imagine what I could do if there wasn’t all that pounding.