In Watership Down, Richard Adams informs us that rabbits can only count as high as four. Five represents the absolute ceiling of their numerical competence, a vague shimmery notion of a number higher than three or two. Fiver, the fifth born runt of a litter, has some degree of psychic intuition, and is regarded with respect by his peers - even his name suggesting the tantalizing and unknowable.
Last night after work, my wife and I put hardwood laminate in a condo. We aren't finished yet, but we're making headway. Anyway, we've reached the doorway of the bedroom we're working on, and are about to transition into a hallway. The laminate, in case you've never worked with it, has "male" edges running down one side and end of the board, and female edges on the opposing side and end. When assembling the floor, you slide the male edges into the female, and they fit together like - well - a male and female.
It's pretty easy as long as you're on the straight-away; it's just a matter of cutting a board here and there to make it fit. But just before the door, the bedroom wall slants in at a forty-five degree angle. This necessitates cutting boards to match, which isn't so hard except we didn't start a new board just at the start of the angle, so part of the board had to be cut at ninety degrees and another part had to be cut at forty-five.
When we reached the threshold, we have to cut a board at forty-five degrees to go along a slant, jig away a slice to make it run down the wall to the baseboard, then jig a fancy cut to go around the molding of the doorframe and across the threshold. Also, keeping in mind to cut the board on the correct side; nothing is more useless than a board with a female end when you need a male or vice-versa.
And that's why this blog is sort of short today.
I'm a rabbit that's been thinking about the number five.
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