Yesterday was a red-letter day for our house. We had a lot of arrivals, and some odd visitors.
I finished the big rug for the basement, and basking in my glory I moved our rocking chair and sofa to the basement to live with the rub.
I was very proud of myself. The chair was rough, but with enough shoving, pushing and geometry I got it down in about 15 minutes. I took the doors off the basement stairs and took the feet off of the sofa, stood it on it’s end and slid it down to the landing halfway to the basement (where it wedged).
I left it for Gerry when he got home.
Together we got it down with little problem. He was happy that it was done, but not happy with me that I’d moved it on my own. What if you had thrown your back out before leaving for San Diego? What if you’d become trapped under the sofa? What if you’d had a bad asthma attack? I sounded more like Hannah than I like to admit when I said, triumphantly, “But I didn’t!” Yeah, living life with an 9-year old’s rules.
So what to do with the empty holes in the living room? Vacuum!! In the midsts of the cleaning a bird came flying by, followed by Gerry, who’d chased it down from our bedroom. “You must have left the door open!” he wasn’t happy with me – but I don’t leave doors open (we have a cat who’s an escape artist…)
The truck with our new sofa and chaise pulled up, the guys unloaded them in record time and were visibly relieved to see that A) the furniture all fit through our door easily; B) there was already a cleared space for the furniture and C) we weren’t going to ask them to take other furniture anywhere. The kids were in heaven – they LOVE the new stuff. I think Gerry liked it, too. I’m very happy with it – although it’s bigger than I remembered it being (and MUCH bigger than the sofa and chair I/we wrangled downstairs…)
Just about that time my new comptuer arrived (!!) and we unpacked that with great ceremony. It’s amazing. Beautiful, sleek, fast, wonderful, started up perfectly and is already ‘talking’ to my minimac. It’s going to be a breeze to transfer my important files to it. I’m going to attempt to set up my email on both computers and then just import saved emails to my mini when I return from a trip (I use my emails all the time to remind myself of agreements I’ve entered into, names, places I need to be, etc.)
WHAT a day! Hannah had a sleepover, and Max was staying with the same friend’s little brother, so the girls christened the basement by sleeping on the pull out bed and watching TV until late into the night.
This morning we heard a lot of bird sounds coming from the chimney. It turns out that birds are coming down and into our living room (HA! Mr. Landy 0, Annie 1) so at some point we’ve got to put one of those cage-like things on our chimmney to keep our feathered friends out.
My mother used to say that A bird in a house means death. – I hope that’s not the case. This is my third bird incident. Once, while walking down 42nd street a bird hit a window and bounced in front of me, motionless. It was an amazing green and yellow color – so lovely. I picked it up and took it back to my office, gave it some water and it perked up and flew away.
Then when I was temping in NJ after Max was born as I was leaving one of those huge glass type mono-buildings another bird hit the window and fell in front of me. This one was a hummingbird – amazingly beautiful – and I picked it up and gave it some water and it, too, flew away.
This time I think both birds were grackles – the one yesterday flew out of the window I’d opened for it. The one this morning flew into Hannah’s closet, so I shut the door to the closet and opened the closet window (it’s an odd house) and I think it’s probably flown away, too. I’ll have to go check in a little bit.