* * *
Friday evening Fred and I were watching TV, and I said, dreamily, “Just think! This time tomorrow night we’ll be sitting on our new couches, watching War of the Worlds with your parents, and I’ll be all kicked back and comfy!”
Fred turned to me, a horrified look on his face. “Bessie,” he said. “You would recline in front of company?”
“Well, GODDAMN,” I said. “NOT NOW, I won’t! I was GOING to, but now that I know you’d be sitting there all horrified about me reclining my seat in front of your parents, all worried that they’d be thinking ‘Good christ, look at her over there, so fucking LAZY she can’t expend the ENERGY to sit upright!’, I won’t! I wouldn’t DREAM of reclining on my OWN couch in my OWN home, I would HATE to embarrass you!”
By this point, Fred was guffawing so hard that it took a few minutes before he could speak again.
“That is NOT what I meant!” he said. “It just seems a little… relaxed to be reclining with company in the house. Like… like…”
“Hanging out in your pajamas?” I suggested.
“EXACTLY!” he agreed.
Saturday morning, the guys who were delivering our new couches showed up half an hour before the beginning of the three-hour window we’d been told about. I was just getting out of the shower when Fred came upstairs, all wild-eyed.
“They’re here!” he said.
“HERE?” I said.
“Yeah, they just called to let me know they’re in the subdivision, and will be right here!”
“Well, shit,” I said, and quickly got dressed and ran downstairs to help move the old couch and loveseat into the garage. The guys who were delivering the new couches actually ended up moving the old furniture into the garage in no time flat, and then they quickly brought in the new couches and put them exactly where we wanted them.
“You need to check and make sure the mechanisms in the recliners are working right,” the head delivery guy said.
And the three of us stood and watched as Fred went from recliner to recliner, sitting and extending each to its full horizontal position, looking very uncomfortable. And I LAUGHED MY ASS OFF.
Karma, it is a boomerang.
(And for the record, Fred’s father and stepmother reclined almost as soon as they sat down, immediately followed by FRED. I held out for about ten minutes, but couldn’t resist the siren call of the half-laying position for any longer than that.)
* * *
So, to give you some idea of what our old couch and loveseat looked like, I took this from the
House Tour page (which desperately needs to be redone, because nothing in the house is like it was when I did that series of pictures 4 years ago):
And with the new couches:
I am aware, for the record, that those are some hideously ugly couches – the color of baby poop, I believe I told Fred – but they are sooooo comfy, and besides, who the hell do we have to impress? That’s right, NO ONE. I was concerned that the kittens weren’t going to be able to get under the couch – they like to hang out under there – but they actually have no problem getting under there. So, we’re all happy!
* * *
Fred has been a painting fool. Thursday afternoon he had the spud help him move everything out of the guest bedroom, and Friday he spent a good part of the day painting. By Friday evening, everything was moved back into the freshly painted room.
Here’s a before picture, stolen from the House Tours page (none of the furniture in that room is still there, because it used to be Fred’s room, and then he and I switched beds, blah blah blah, but this gives you some idea of the color of the walls):
Annnnnnd, after:
When Fred first showed me the paint, I honestly wasn’t sure. Because I’d expected him to come home with a dark wine color, and this looked more to me like Pepto pink. But once it was up on the walls and dry, I decided it was more of a dark rose color (even though the name of it was “burgundy 1”), and the more I look at it, the more I like it.
And THEN, Friday night while we were watching TV, we discussed what color he might paint the dining room. It’s the only room in the house with a chair rail, and he was thinking of painting the top one color and the bottom another. We discussed many different color combinations, and I finally just told him that whatever he chose would be fine with me. Saturday morning he went to Lowe’s and then to the grocery store, and came home to show me what he’d chosen. He spent most of Saturday painting, and once again when I looked at the result, I really liked it.
Before (another picture taken from the House Tour page):
And after:
The bottom looks like it’s black, but it’s actually a very dark green – Blackened Pine, is the name. The top is White Pepper, and it’s gray, though it looks almost lavendar in the picture.
That man o’ mine, he’s got a talent for picking out paint, doesn’t he?
I think next weekend he’s going to paint the spud’s bedroom. Stay tuned for more before and after pictures!
Tom Cullen thinks it was awfully nice of The Daddy to paint the kitten room to match the kitten cubes!
* * *
Considering the amount of gas these two produce, having their heads so close to each others’ gas-output outlets doesn’t seem very safe to me.
If there was only something I could do to make him less miserable…
All of today’s uploaded pictures are
here.
* * *
Previously
2004: What If?
2003: Fred’s sister nodded. “That’s what I figured.”
2002: I forgot that teenagers are, on the whole (though yours may be different, or at least pulling the wool over your eyes) bone idle.
2001: McAfee rocks.
2000: Recent purchases.
1999: I informed him that there was no way he was getting out of taking me to the emergency room for this.]]>