April 22, 2009
Dear Everyone:
Last Saturday, “Jeannie” (bless her heart) came to
my new place. We had lunch
at one of her favorite restaurants in
We had decided that what I needed in the second
bedroom was a pair of
torchiere floor lamps to go on either side of a
bank of bookcases against one wall. We
looked all around the store, but didn’t find any lamps that met our
criteria. However, “Jeannie”
did find a vanity that might work in the downstairs bathroom of my old
townhouse, which we need to fix up to sell.
“Jeannie” got in line to try and buy the vanity and
sent me to the other end of the shopping center to another store that
might have good prices on possible lamps.
I found the store and it did, indeed, have a pair of lamps that
might fit the bill. They
were wooden, with brass fittings holding translucent glass shades with
the light directed at the ceiling.
Just in case, I got back in the car to drive back to the first
store.
But knowing that “Jeannie” had planned to walk down
to meet me if she finished before I did, I kept an eye out for her on
the sidewalk. Sure enough,
she came out of the second store just as I was passing.
Stopped. Went back to
the second store with “Jeannie”.
Checked out the lamps.
It turned out the brass fittings were actually
stylized elephant heads, with upturned trunks.
The lamps started out at $150 each, marked down to $99.99, then
marked down again to $59.99.
The fact that they were already assembled was an additional plus.
And they did fit in the trunk of my car, once the back seat was
dropped.
Back to the condo, where “Jeannie” placed
CFL bulbs
in the lamps and tested that they did actually work before placing them
in the second bedroom. Then
we (meaning mostly “Jeannie”) shifted the bookcases until they were
more-or-less centered along one wall.
The high ones on the outside, the low ones on the inside, thus
forming a kind of frame around the center of the wall.
Now when you enter the room and turn on the light
switch by the door, the two lamps come on simultaneously on either side
of the bookcases. Ta da!
Sunday morning, as I watched one of the morning
political talk shows, I started unpacking the
albums.
I found that I could move about three handfuls into a box and use
the little hand truck to roll them out to the living room.
Then I moved each handful into the entertainment cabinet.
Rinse. Repeat.
Next I started unpacking all the books, now that
the bookcases were in position.
By noon, all the books,
CDs,
DVDs and
videos had been unpacked.
I used the hand truck to move all the flattened boxes out to the
dumpster, where I stacked them against the wall next to the recycle
bins.
By Sunday night, I had the 2009 file box set up.
Monday evening, I got the 2008 file box in order.
Two more years of files to go.
Only two moving boxes still waiting to be unpacked, mostly office
stuff. It’s finally starting
to come together.
And no, I haven’t found my old computer
glasses
yet. But there’s still hope.
Love, as always,
Pete
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