There’s an old saying, measure twice, cut once. Good advice. It’s also good advice to measure even once. I went to the lumber yard Friday to buy wood for the next three sections of my fence. Got home. Put up the first section. Went to start section two and made a discovery. All my two by’s were in eight foot lengths. That worked for the first section. Not so much for two and three. They are ten feet.

Wow. And yesterday I was talking about memory, and how it can fail in the oddest way. This is another example of how you can’t trust it. You have to measure, you have to check, you have to double check. Never assume. Hell, that one is good advice no matter what. Don’t assume. Check. Do you have the tickets? Is the reservation firm? Is there anything you need to know because it’s the things you don’t know that will reach up and bite you.

Right now, I’m pivoting, changing plans. That’s being flexible. I took a deep breath. Stepped back. Said wait. I can still use that lumber. I have a little deck up against the old fence facing the pool. I want to move it. Rebuild it. Now I have the lumber. I’ll get to work on that and in the end the only people who know I made a mistake will be you and me, because I’m about to stick a graceful landing and make a smooth recovery.