| Easter Feaster |
[Apr. 22nd, 2009|01:32 pm] |
The weekend is gone, but not its effects! Man, what a three days. Not even working two twelve-hour days back-to-back can seem to dampen it. As it is not within my power to have my friends live those days with me and thus share my joy, I will instead report on some of the highlights!
To start with, a most prize find from a garage sale near my parish church served to buoy my spirits in a most welcome fashion on Friday, a beautiful sunny day, perfect for curb shopping. I'd been desiring and keeping an eye out for an easy chair or recliner for a while now, something for if I wanted to just sit and read, or lie back and relax and watch the rain. I didn't want something cheap but serviceable-- I wanted something Nice, something that was worth my time and money and more. I wanted something that could possibly outlast me, something hard and sturdy, but luxuriant and comforting as well; in other words, I wanted a chair I could love.
Divine providence has graced me with the beauty you see before you:
In a word, this chair was perfect, exactly the sort I was looking for, large enough to lounge in with a book, a drink, a laptop, or all three and STILL have room for someone small to sidle in beside you with her own book/drink/laptop/cat. The latter quality was actually the thing that first struck me about it, but you know, whatever.
The thing comes with a fairly interesting semi-adventure too; the minute I walked into the house it was in to look at the big furniture they had for sale, I knew immediately that I may have stepped in way over my head. The dining set was genuinely antique, and the living room looked like something from a high-end designer catalogue. No way I could get anything here for something reasonable a poor working boy like me could afford, right? My trepidations were heightened when the owner's husband called and engaged her in some conversation; from what I could accidentally overhear, he was allowing the living and dining sets to be sold in separate pieces, which was good news. Bad news was I heard something about him getting the chair for a thousand frickin' dollars.
I was about ready to bolt, really.
Much to my surprise, when the woman turned back to me and the other customer with us, she said she could give it to me for a hundred bucks.
Now, I know I can be impulsive sometimes (HAHAHAHA), especially when it comes to money and unwise purchases, but this seemed too good an opportunity to miss. I didn't have the cash up front, as I was short by like five dollars, but I made a down payment of half and promised to return with a vehicle capable of actually lugging the thing around. The other fellow with us nodded sagely as we left, saying it was a very good buy. Feeling rather pleased with myself and my new acquisition, I made the garage sale rounds for a while after that, snagging some other great stuff, and picked up some additional liquid funds on the way home. I called my mom somewhere in there too, as, through circumstances irrelevant and too lengthy to relate here, she was borrowing my van, and I wanted to know when I could retrieve it. When I told her what it was for, she asked me how much I got the chair for. I told her, and she didn't seem terribly impressed; my mother is a very frugal woman, she well knows my weaknesses when it comes to finances, and I was driving while talking, so I wasn't terribly inclined to explain the whole situation to her.
Anyway, she felt that a hundred was a little much for a garage sale item, and so she decided that she'd bring my dad and have a look at the thing on their way from somewhere else. Yeah, she does that kind of thing quite a bit. She's only looking out for me though-- something for which I am eternally thankful, even though I may not feel as I should it sometimes-- and besides, I was quite convinced that the chair would enchant anyone who laid eyes on it.
As it turned out, it was very, VERY good that they made their way down to the sale. Still thinking I had some time before going back, I suddenly got a call from my mom; apparently, they had shot down as they had intended to the place I told them about, and they had paid for the rest of the chair for me... temporarily. In a mild state of agitation, my mom was telling me to hurry down with my brother to help me carry the thing because someone was offering the owner to pay more for the chair and it was a good thing that they were there to hold it for me because the woman had wanted to call me but it was good that I didn't leave any name or contact information whatsoever because the lady said she'd remember the young man with the black hat.
A little flustered, I hurried down as I was instructed, perhaps feeling a little peevish too because I was under the impression that the lady and I 'had a deal'. Apparently, they were more of a mercenary bent than I had imagined, and so I should really rush down if I still wanted that chair. Which I did. But I was already somewhat resigned to the possibility of not getting it; the owners were well within their rights to renegotiate if they so chose, and I was imagining some rich, fat Texan with a cowboy hat waving a wad of bills in their faces, ready with a pickup truck and burly manservants to take the chair away and out of my life forever.
Well, at least my mom and dad likes the chair too.
I arrived without incident, and loading the chair into my van transpired in a similar fashion. The lady wouldn't even take the little extra I had resolved to give her for the trouble of ultimately holding the thing for me even in light of a better offer.
It wasn't until we were on our way out that mom pulled me aside for a bit and told me what she had learned in the thirty minutes or so of small talk she had a chance to share with the owners while waiting for me to arrive: this family was selling their possessions because their home was under foreclosure. My eyes went wide at this, but she went on: they had to be out in three weeks, but they didn't really have anywhere to go.
All this new information put a whole new light on the situation as I drove away with my prize. I had assumed that this family was simply relocating to greener pastures as so many other pseudo-nomadic American families have done for generations; the truth was profoundly sobering. I began to imagine what the woman must have felt like, selling the trappings of her home piecemeal to roving opportunists all too ready to pick them clean. I felt bad about taking her chair from her, projecting my own infatuation for it onto her, and trying to imagine what it would be like to lose it after years of owning it.
I was sad for her, but I thought I had at least not gone there knowing I was swooping down on the spoils of their misfortune. In some small way too, I had done them a service by taking the thing off their hands, albeit at a price smaller than they deserved, but I plan to make up the difference by keeping them, and all those like them, in my prayers. You guys please pray for them as well.
Now I have to ask my mom what their names were.
So, yeah, I can hast a chair nao, and have a story to go with it too.
A link, a link! Because I'm a moron, and can't figure out how to embed video.
This is copied and pasted from the video description:
"On Friday, the weather told my girl and I that it would be nice and sunny on Saturday. IT LIED TO US. We had planned to shoot down to the park near my condo, lay out a blanket, and then eat lunch while watching the river people frolic in the water. As it turned out, the water came to frolic on US when it became obvious that it was going to rain that day.
Unwilling to be defeated by some downcast skies, we decided then to have our picnic indoors instead, trying not to cheat and using only the things we were going to bring with us anyway. As it turned out, all we forgot were the napkins, and we weren't messy eaters then anyway. Too bad about not having ants or squirrels though.
In the end, the clouds were a tease, and only threatened with a few sprinkles of water instead of actually out and out raining. We both say we could have taken it on, but oh well.
In the background is my laptop playing some generic classical music for 'ambience', and, very faintly, my brother playing Resident Evil 5."
On Saturday, after going to Mass with the family, we ran down to mom's place to hang out a bit. While there, I had a twinge on my back, and asked Allie to knead the area. Well, whatever she did, it loosened up all kinds of tension in me, as the next day, I woke feeling more physically relaxed than I had in a good, long time. I mean, I was always pretty calm and laid back, but the body can harbour all sorts of subconscious tensions and knots that don't get noticed until they are removed.
That, and the rainy weather, which I have always loved, combined to make our visit to her parents' place, where I have always seemed to be fully at peace in, an incredibly restful one. Her mom made us a traditional lamb cake, which was both very cute and very novel to me.
There, Allie was gracious and wonderful enough to tackle the rest of the knots in my back, surprised and a bit disturbed that she wasn't hurting me with her ministrations, even when I asked her to use her knuckles. Not only did it not hurt me, it was just what I had been needing for a good, long time.
The next day at work subjected my muscles to all the usual twists and stresses, but they somehow slid off better, and I coasted through the day on a cloud of pleasurable limpness. If nothing else, Allie may have a very promising future ahead of her as a professional masseur. Exclusively catering to me.
And there you have it, Best Weekend Ever, topping what already seems to be an obscenely long series of Best Weekends Ever.
I'm going to play Team Fortress 2 now. I didn't get to play any over the long weekend, but I really wouldn't have it any other way.
Godspeed! X3
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