the ocean

Last week Ian and I travelled to Quincy for two days to pick up a bunch of my grandparents' old furniture from storage and bring it back to fill up some of the many empty spaces in our new home. It was, frankly, quite a production. We had to rent a Penske van from a very chatty lady who felt it was necessary for us to know the entire history of the van, as well as the entire history of her apparently sometimes contentious relationship with her boss. We had to fill that van up with beautiful but long-neglected midcentury modern items, which also entailed cleaning off archeological-level layers of dust off said furniture. And then Ian had to drive that van five hours across the state (plus a fifteen minute break at Hardee's of Springfield) whilst I watched him worriedly in the Prius' rearview mirrors. Oh, and there was also all the lifting. Turns out they made furniture very solidly back then, which explains why it is still in good shape today but also why my back hurts.

Anyway, we got some nice items to show for it. The big priority here was my grandmother's desk, since my office has been completely empty except for several boxes of CDs we cannot part with for emotional reasons. Now I do not actually have to work from my bed, although I probably still will sometimes. We also brought back a cute bookcase with a sliding glass front and a giant dresser for our guest room, in case anybody decides to bring every item of clothing they own for a visit. There were also some odds and ends. For example, the bust of Mendelssohn my great-grandmother bought my mother as a child because my mother wanted a Beethoven one (like in Peanuts) but my great-grandmother thought he was too ugly. Mendelssohn was definitely more of a looker; shame about the music, though. Also: boxes of books and records (non-fiction and music, not like "books and records" in the Sarbanes-Oxley sense, law nerds), some beautiful paperweights that could also double as murder weapons in a pinch, and a toy cash register that presaged my own stinginess as a child. Treasures all, I assure you.