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March 26, 2006
Nesting, I suppose.
Being here doesn't feel strange anymore. I have a monthly pass for the trolley that takes me to work. The garbage, recycling and compost bins go out on Wednesday evening, and Safeway delivers, though you shouldn't trust them to bring you meat or produce.
The bookshelves we ordered a few weeks ago arrived yesterday, four hours later than scheduled. This wouldn't have been the end of the world, except for the fact that I had a number of important things on my to-do list. Liz took advantage of the delay to go purchase primer and paint while I tried to figure out where my day had gone wrong.
My cat is easy like Sunday morning.
My internal alarm clock woke me at 7:20, the same time as my Treo does each weekday. I brushed my teeth and started moving things away from the wall in the back bedroom/office. Later, we vacuumed, Swiffered, stacked and sorted I may even have collated; I can't be sure, it was all such a blur. We went through a lot of the things we never got around to unpacking since moving in over a year ago.
The place is dramatically improved, but there's still work to do. I was trying to find a place to put our shoes, but my only clear options were the back of an already-crammed closet or along the cat racetrack that is our main hallway. Cradling several pairs of shoes in my arms, I asked Liz where normal people would stow such items.
"I guess in a closet, but ours are stuffed full of junk."
"Should we get one of those things that hangs over the back of the door? Because I hate those things."
She fairly shuddered. I dumped the shoes in our enclosed back porch and returned to the hall to shift two Webvan crates so the movers could get past with the bookshelves. The first crate was filled with shoes that we haven't worn since we moved in, the second with toiletries.
The bookshelves will free up a lot of space, and Liz can't wait to take a power tool to punch a hole in one so we can continue to access the room's sole electrical outlet. However, it's now plain to me that I'll have to part with some of the items I've acquired in the last ten years:
- a restored black formica-aluminum dinette with matching chairs
- coffee table purchased from a graphic artist who was moving back to NYC
- the pedestal cafe table I'm writing on now that was discovered on a street corner
I'm not overly attached to any of these objects. I long ago stopped telling people that my dinette set appeared in an episode of Nash Bridges, and the coffee table came with an Spanish leather sofa that was probably a holdover from the Inquisition.
New pine shelves, with a coat of primer
It feels like we're really moving in. At the hardware store, Liz bought hooks so we could hang art and photos. I'm considering getting some plants to replace the ones that died while we were traveling. I'm even thinking about what I'd need to do to get the place in shape where we could have a few people over. Better get a few more issues of Dwell and ReadyMade.
I like our downstairs neighbor and the pine tree out back that looms over five houses. We get great light, and the loudest things I hear on a Sunday mornings are kids, dogs and snippets of conversation as people walk past our house.
It's nice here.
Posted by Your Protagonist at 07:33 AM | Comments (0)
March 25, 2006
Note to self.
Leaving copies of Dwell around my place will not really make it any more hip, in and of itself.
Posted by Your Protagonist at 08:40 PM | Comments (0)