Things come to a shuddering halt when Sal goes to bookclub.  The centre of the universe shifts every month and I am left in the existential equivalent of a black hole.  Just me, rocks, dogs and chores undone. 

You might think that statement a bit melodramatic and, of course, it is.  But bookclub also falls on a Sunday and, in the summertime, we have usually been working hard for the days prior.  So it feels a smidge dramatic when she goes.  Bookclub Sunday feels like the wheels fell off my cart.  Or maybe better put: I ran out of gas pushing it.  Either way, nothing gets done when Sal goes to bookclub.  It is a day of involuntary rest.

Well, I do the dishes and then make sure not to dirty any more before she comes home.  That’s about it.

Today, I read up on the wiring for the wind turbine as part of my doing nothing.  Reading how to do things is an important way to use down time.  Otherwise I might die.  I have huge holes in my skill sets.  In fact, I am missing whole sets.  I positively dread the welding learning curve that I have planned for sometime this Fall. 

There are dire warnings every page or so in the turbine installation instruction manual:  Warning! Failure to fasten tab A to slot B may cause irreparable damage to the turbine or severe personal injury!! Danger! Inadequate hangers may cause tower failure!  Attention!  Follow instructions precisely or your warranty may be void and your bowels torn from your throat!

And on and on until it feels like you are trying to make home-made IEDs.

It’s a lousy 48 volts!

“Yes, well, 48 volts across the heart and you are a dead turbine owner”, warns my friend, Bill.

So, I read. And I examine the parts and I get confused.  So, I have some tea.  And read some more.  If Sally was here, she’d express even more confusion than me (no stupid ego to get in her way) and so I’d lay on the manly bravado and say, “Hey! How hard can it be?  We’ll just be careful with tab A and get on with it, my little sugarplum.”  She’d look relieved and I’d have to step up and do what I said I would do.  Being macho is like daring yourself by proxy. 

Pretending that I know what I am doing keeps us moving forward.  Macho may be stupid (and it is) but it helps lead the way.  I just don’t quite know where we are going.  Thankfully, nether does Sally.  If we went with caution or even reading the instructions, we’d never have gotten here.

But I read the instructions on things electrical.  I have to.  And I hate it.  It’s like reading Chinese.  Hieroglyphics are easier.  But electrical-speak is completely unintelligible.  First, you have to be a Native Geek-speaker!  Secondly, you have to think this stuff is ‘really neat!’ And thirdly, you have to get comfortable electrocuting yourself.  I have a long ways to go.  I am just partly into the ‘geek’ phase.  It’s called ‘Dorkism’.

So, I go to the panel box and examine it.  I do this with very little knowledge but I do it all the time.  I really have no idea.  It is like: been here before, don’t understand it.  But here I am again.   

“This wire goes here………..and that one goes there…………….and so what the %#!%$ does that mean?”   What makes it worse is that I addressed this very scenario last year.  In fact, with Bill’s help, I wired it.  Well, most of it.  But there are gaps.  Gaps that can spark.  I may have once known how to fill those gaps but I don’t know now.  So I just look at it.

You know what I see?  I see a jumble of wires all different colours.  Then I look at the diagram and you know what I see?  I see straight black lines neatly going from one weird electrical symbol to another weird symbol.  And each black line is on white paper.  To my way of thinking, the two are not even remotely similar.

Never mind.  I hear Sally’s outboard.  She’ll be home soon.  Tomorrow I’ll say, “Hey, sweetie, what do you say we wire up that ol’ turbine, eh?”  She’ll say, “Well, if you think so…………”  And the next step will be taken.