We are so geek…walked into the living room this morning, eyeballed a couple new “features”, and had this exchange with the wife…

“Symmetrical book stacking. Just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947.”
“You’re right, no human being would stack books like this.”

Y’all DO recognize the quote, yes? If not, you are not geek enough to be healthy…or are either way too old…or too young…to drive.

These piles…they are growing…all over several rooms of TWO houses and our store…one theory says it’s because the bookshelves are full and I’ve not built any new ones yet…

The other is ghosts.

I prefer the ghosts…because it’s the explanation that involves the least amount of “it’s my fault” as is possible.

…and I’d guess I need to get started on more shelves.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer (shelf builder extraordinaire)

A couple down the street from us (at the suburban “blah”) house, seemed to be having a yard sale. An amazingly disorganized yard sale, but there it was. Since I was walking Shorty the Corgi I decided to take a stroll through. I’m always on the lookout for a bargain on tools or whatnot.

I left completely and utterly depressed.

The couple was not there, you see. Their (barely) adult children were, and they were “closing up” the house.

The couple had called it quits…divorcing…their relationship flying apart so fast and so spectacularly that a judge had permitted them to grab personal items, and then banned them both from the residence. Each had taken his/her prized possessions and fled to their respective corners of the country. The house was a rental, and the judge terminated the lease effective the end of this month (just a few days away).

The kids were removing a lifetime of memories and possessions from the house, loading a few more valuable items on a truck, and the remaining was put out for strangers to rifle through and look for anything interesting. Desperate to get it all done in the limited time, they were frantically sorting things into piles. Trash. Charity. “Maybe somebody wants.”

“There’s no prices. Take anything. Pay what you want. It’s all gotta go. That pile over there is free.”

From the liquor in the cabinets to the food in the pantry…socks, lingerie, the CD and movie collections…things the couple would have taken…not *super* valuable stuff, but certianly useful stuff. Things they would need. Things that had memories. Any couple moving would have taken these things…had they not broken down into a seething pool of hate. These things were tainted now…for them.

You could see the life…the memories…the work and effort…scattered randomly about the lawn.

Even the wedding pictures…this was more akin to an estate sale than anything else.

I left empty handed and disturbed.

How could love break so far down? How could it get to that point without communicating that there was a problem? How could it progress this far without a more peaceful…or productive resolution? Even if a split was inevitable…how could the culmination happen so suddenly?

Nobody won here. Everybody lost. The carnage of that loss was spread out for all to see.

How?

I’ve no clue…and hope I never have to find out. The world’s too big to take on alone.

If you’ve got someone…hold ’em tight.

If you’ve got a problem…talk about it.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

Surprised my wife with this old curio cabinet Saturday. She’s been eyeballing it in one of the local shops for a while, but then would eyeball the price tag and sigh.

But…they were having a sale and even then, I sighed a bit as I wrote the check…but it’s only money and I’ll make more.

The cabinet is old, and it’s dainty, and it fits very nicely in the corner of our dining room…which is an interesting place as it’s a room that only has one (90 degree) corner! The cabinet is a little over 6 feet tall.

I’m not sure how old the cabinet is…given its construction details and the oxidation on the bottom/backs I would guess it’s early 1900’s. It looks great in our room though and actually matches the trim on a large china hutch we purchased as well (not an antique, but a nice style for our room).

The hutch is a large Thomasville piece of excellent quality and solid construction. We paid very little for this piece as it was packaged with an antique table we purchased to fill this 27 foot deep dining room!

Pictures of the table will come later. Very old, sturdy…drop leaves on both ends…3 leaves for the middle…well over 12′ long…it will be great in this room.

And yes, the wallpaper is slated for an upgrade…it’s getting kind of ratty…what with the fading of any green/blue and the tearing…they just don’t make it like the used to I suppose…it’s only 110+ years old!

So…yep. This was a furniture moving weekend!

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer