On furniture and family

So last night my friend Lydia and I headed over to Beacon Hill to pick up a sofa, armchair, and ottoman, courtesy of my sister-in-law. My sister-in-law and I are quite different in that she is the sort of person capable of owning a white sofa in her twenties, whereas I am the sort of person for whom the color white seems to shout to to the universe "I am an empty canvas! Please fill me with colors that come from spilled food!"

But I am a big believer that one can change. In the meantime, I'm throwing a sheet over the sofa anytime I eat or drink on it.

Little Brother demonstrated some of his inherited-from-Polack-Pappy skills by tying the sofa to the rented truck using some garden twine. It's nice to see such skills are in the family bloodline. It's also interesting to note that, with the exception of Little Brother, it was all women who moved this furniture. For this I blame Boston, land of the pasty overeducated metrosexual. I also blame myself, for doing whatever it is I've done in the past that has left me not knowing any men with trucks who can move shit.

But mostly what I am is grateful, glad for my own strength, the strength of others, the love of family, and the flow of used goods through the world...my downstairs neighbor ended up saving my old coffee table, one I'd gotten for free from the previous residents of my apartment, from the trash man, to use as a table for her plants. Everything is repurposed.