Drive on the driveway.

Yesterday our long national nightmare finally came to an end. Yes, I was able to drive my car on the driveway. What a relief.

Last winter really killed the driveway, and it wasn't so great before that. Last fall I realized I had waited too long to have it sealed -- they say every other year is good, and it was on year three -- and the winter before that had taken a toll. But by the time I called around it was too late and too cold and raining a lot. So, my poor unsealed driveway got pounded by the blizzards in March, and looked like hell.

I've waited since May for the guys I contracted to do the job to do the job, but they finally did it last week. It cost me. Large chunks had to be cut out and replaced with fresh asphalt. Money evaporated.

When the job was complete, we were told not to drive on it for days, and not to walk on it that night. Of course it's hard to get that across to the dogs. I kept little dog Nipper on a leash, but big dog Tralfaz? He didn't care that the place smelled like an airport. He's used to walking on the driveway to get to the far lawn for his business, and no amount of panicked instruction to the contrary from his nominal master was going to stop him.

I was sure he would track tar into the house, and leave permanent paw prints all over the driveway. My wife heard my moans, and, sympathetic soul that she is, sent me this text:

Fortunately it had dried enough so he didn't stick to the tar, nor the tar to him. No footprints were visible in the morning.

Normally you can drive on a resealed surface after a day or two, but since there was new asphalt and it had to adhere to the old stuff, I had to park out front for almost a week. It's not a big deal, except that Nipper likes to bark when he sees anything unusual outside the front window, like, oh, I don't know, a car parked on the street. Took him a few days to get used to the sight. And I worried because we're on a long stretch with no traffic lights or signs, and at night people like to drive way too fast along here, throwing their banana peels higgledy-piggledy. I expected to be awakened by some idiot conjoining his car to my parked vehicle in the middle of the night, but that didn't happen.

I never worried about this stuff when I lived in the city and parked on the street all the time. The suburbs have spoiled me.

But no crises, the job is done, the check cleared, and now I don't have to worry about the driveway until 2020. What a relief.

Now, about that roof....