Divine Providence

I've just got a new TV/entertainment system cabinet because my cousin is becoming a nun!

Uh... I haven't bought it in celebration of her upcoming novitiate.

In August she's entering the convent for her three months of contemplation/extra meditation/xtreme nunning and as such she's been busily giving away her superfluous worldly goods*.

I expect I'm supposed to say I was surprised when she told me what she was planning but I honestly wasn't.

That's not to say I've ever looked at her and thought 'girl is gonna end up a nun'.

She's an attractive, accomplished and personable woman with all sorts of life paths open to her and whilst she's been a practicing Catholic for years she's never been overtly religious or expressed any prior intentions in this direction.

But I can see how it makes sense for her.

And she's one of the few people I know who has the personality, the temperament and the sense of moral responsibility to carry it through.

She's been a teacher for almost 10 years and in that time she's helped a heck of a lot of people, in the course of her work at the school, within her community and parish, and by donating her time to teaching disadvantaged children in other countries on working holidays.

She's been on several pilgrimages with our Grandmother** which I thought she was undertaking predominantly as an aide/chaperone to help 80-to-85-year-old Grandma get around the less accessible parts of the Holy Land, but they obviously stuck with her personally.

She's always been a spiritual person, not a preachy person but an introspective/meditative one and she has a firm sense of social justice.

When I said 'moral responsibility' I didn't mean it in the self-righteousness or blinkered morality way that some might use it, I meant that she is the kind of person to take responsibility for her own actions, to act for the good of others and to take a religious position seriously as an act of service to the community as well as to the church.

I think she'll do well in the vocation if she chooses to take vows and she'll do a lot to help others who need help without asking anything of them in return***.

I'm happy for her.

I am also not unhappy for me and my new TV/entertainment system cabinet.

I've been meaning to get one for ages but never really got around to it...



*most of her furniture, kitchen bits, books and DVDs, anything without deep emotional or personal meaning

**who has entered the pilgrimage phase of being an Italian/Irish matriarch

***up to and including not expecting people to pay lip service to religion in order to receive help, that is not her style

Dream A Little Dream Of Me

Everyone has one thing - mundane and commonplace as it may be - that they dream of having once they have their own place and enough money to purchase it.

Some holy grail of comfort or convenience or straight up crazy indulgence which will complete their stately domain or humble hovel.

For some it might be a state-of-the-art drafting board. For others a futuristic uber-kitchen.

Mine is the perfect armchair.


Now, the armchair pictured might not be the perfect armchair.

But it might be.

Just look at it. Plush. Accommodating. Lots of soft angles to drape limbs across in various configurations.

The perfect armchair is big enough for you to pull your legs up underneath you or cross them in front of you without making you feel crowded or cramped.

The arms are high enough to lean on and in conjunction with the back make a nice corner to snuggle back into.

I'm not worried about being able to touch the floor with my feet when I sit in it because I can't do that with most chairs anyway*.

I am on a quest for the perfect armchair. And one day it will be mine.

The Perfect Armchair, a bookcase and maybe one little table.

What more could a person need**?



*Short!

**There is a possibility that I spend far too much time thinking about armchairs...

I'm Afraid I Shall Be Obliged To Disagree. So Nyerh!

I would like to start off by saying that I always intended to get more furniture.

You know, eventually.

It's one of those grown up things that you do along with getting sets of crockery that all match and getting a full complement of white goods and kitchen appliances that you never use.

I mean I don't need any more, I have a couch to put my bum on, a coffee table to put my feet on, a bed to put my body in and a few other relevant flat surfaces to put TV, books and sundries on and in...

But after having been informed by at least two independent sources - my buttfaced friends... *coff* whom I of course love - that my furnishings give the impression of being constructed mostly of milk crates even when they are not I wonder if I should get around to it.

This presents several difficulties:

1. It is almost impossible to get things up my damn stairs. They are narrow and wrap around the side of the building in a way that makes you rethink wearing a thick jacket let alone carrying anything on the way up. You can't even move something long by carrying it on its end as the vertical clearance isn't any more generous than the horizontal.
   
   
2. One of the reasons I didn't go all out when I first moved in was that I'm only living where I am for my job and wasn't sure how long I'd be there. Now that it's been a year and a half I know I could have done more but how long am I going to be there now? Technically I'm closer to leaving now than I was then and the more stuff I get now the more I'll have to move later and that just seems like a pain in the arse.
   
   
3. I love the character of my place, the strange decorations and cracks and signs of life that it's gathered over the years but given its age (about 150 years I'm told) I'm worried about putting anything too heavy up there for fear of it going through the floor. This might sound a bit paranoid but my friendly and cheerful landlord one day took it upon himself to cheerfully and friendlily point out a spot on the balcony out back where he'd had to mend the floor because someone had gone through a decade or two back.
   
   
4. I don't like buying things just for the hell of it. If I don't actually like them and need them I don't want them in my home. I would resent them and they would make me cranky. I don't care if other people like them, if they like them so much they can bloody buy them and dust them and find things to put on them and avoid covering them with flotsam and jetsam.

So on mature reflection I have decided, bugger it.

I'll get some more bits when I'm good and ready and in the meantime I will continue to spend my money on the important things - food, comics and CDs.

As a concession I will take a leaf out of Fran Katzenjammer's book and utilise Indian throws for special occasions.

If anyone protests I will put the Indian throws over them.

Just let them try to get down the stairs then!