So, last week MHH was in New York. A few weeks before he went, I put out a piteous plea for visitors, which was doughtily answered by Deb and her daughter Isabelle. They came by train, and were scheduled to arrive a bit before lunch last Sunday (a week ago now). MHH's flight was at around 10, and he had to leave for the airport at 7. Having the morning free (well, sort of--I hadn't cleaned the kitchen, gotten the guest room ready, washed the new sheets intended for guest room beds, or anything else, but I wasn't going to get any of that done with Barak and Iyyar to take care of anyway) I decided it was a good morning to go for bagels. I also had to tovel the parts to my new Bosch. So I piled Barak in the stroller and Iyyar in the sling, and off we went.
Halfway there, Iyyar realized that he hadn't nursed in 22 minutes and was therefore STARVING; we stopped off in the JCC bathroom for a nursing break. Then we went to the keilim mikva and toveled everything, including the new milchig chef's knife, which of course I dropped to the bottom of the mikva. Ever tried to retrieve a very deadly knife from the bottom of a keilim mikva with a little baby strapped to your front? No, I thought not. Barak, who had not yet had breakfast, tried very hard to be patient with all of this, but it was well past 8 and he was getting hungry. By the time we got to the bagel store, it was nearly nine. And what did I see in the parking lot of the shul across the street from the bagel place but--a rummage sale. With two couches visibly for sale.
A digression: my friend Cecilia says that you know you are an adult when you live in more than one room, do your laundry without quarters, have your address printed on your checks and own furniture you neither inherited nor assembled yourself. In that last category, we have very little; I don't think it makes a lot of sense to spent a lot of money on furniture when we have kids and a cat to destroy it and are hoping to make aliyah, which will require ditching most of it anyway.
Our living room, as of last Sunday, had, in the way of furniture, many many bookshelves, some kitchen chairs, and one small couch that sits two uncomfortably and sags under the weight of anyone heavier than Barak. I have been scoping for a new couch for quite some time. I did not want to spend much money on it (see above) but did want something clean, not smelly, and comfy. Clearly, I had to check out the rummage sale.
So, within feet of our destination, I asked Barak to be just a little more patient, and went over to the parking lot. They had couches. They had two. They were both nice. I found someone who was working the sale, told her I wanted one of them and agreed on a price ($75). Just then, Iyyar woke up AGAIN and demanded nursage AGAIN, IMMEDIATELY. So we went inside and nursed, and soothed the savage baby, and came back out, at which point there was someone else agreeing with a different person on a different price for that very couch. Oops. He looked rather distraught when this was made clear, and I looked at couch #2 and decided it was okay, so I let him have couch #1 and took couch #2.
Of course, not having intended to buy a couch, I had no checkbook and no idea how to get it home. But I guess I looked trustworthy, so I was told to leave my name and phone number and get it out of the shul by Shabbos. And then, on the way out, I saw the toy section, and one of those Little Tikes cars that Barak loves so much at other people's houses, and it was five dollars, so we bought that too, and a new-in-the-box toy jigsaw for good measure. I gave Barak the saw, and we went and had our bagels, finally, and Iyyar slept through the whole thing so I actually got to eat.
Getting the couch home was too much of a saga to go through here, but it made its way into our living room 45 minutes before Shabbos, and Barak, who did not see the living room with couch until Shabbos morning, greeted the discovery with, "Wow! Couch!" and then, "Wow! CAR!!"
It all looks much more furnished and homey now. I mean, what's a living room without a car parked in it?
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