At home in Vermont: This is the magic thimble. This searing hellhole haunted my troubled sleep as Mrs Snoutsworthy used friendly persuasion by day but penetrating will waves from her fiery store of stubbornness. By night. Cutting this circle through cement block and then clay liner in this chimney. All these years this chimney has been in mystical harmony with the land and airmasses around this house and has blown nearly 100% of the smoke out of the old Elm in the basement. Doing surgery on this chimney attracted me like having to reattach a severed arm in the bush. Who could know the inner logic of a functioning chimney?
When the operation was scheduled, I first created a dustproof plastic screen around the surgical theater to avoid freaking out the couch or the bookcases who might just fear their turn was next. But when I undressed the drywall and studs from around the chimney, the extra thimble appeared in just the right place like a wish granted by a genii. I slowly redressed the chimney in slate from Brazil with cement board and thinset mortar and metal studs and other clothing. To surround the thimble, I drilled a million small holes in one piece of slate, the same million holes it would have taken to penetrate the chimney with a new thimble.
