Ersatz Design
First, Tay, yes, the one from Kingwood. She's all grown up now, and she's given up that ridiculous Christian Science crap, and she's become a lesbian or so. Her mom came to Pittsburgh today to help her move into the house she just bought, and her mom never really liked me too much, so I'm going to stay away from them until it's safe again. On the other hand, I'd like to see her again soon, and I plan to do that as soon as it's possible.
I hired a bloke from down the street to help me move the rest of my boxes out of my U-Haul truck today, so that happened quickly and effortlessly. Hooray for craigslist.
After that, Debra and I ate lunch and spent a few hours looking for furniture. As suggested by my neighbor Beth, we visited Arhaus and Weisshouse on Highland Avenue, which respectively had furniture that was not contemporary enough and too retro. I wish I could bring myself to spend a ba-zillion dollars on an interior designer, and then everything would just work itself out.
After Arhaus and Weisshouse, we went to Ikea.
I have maintained (and still do) that Ikea sells slightly-better-than-cheap furniture that is largely readily breakable and is not particularly good value in the long run. That said, I spent over $600 there and plan to spend even more there in the next few days. One storage thing I bought had broken pieces, so I'm going to return or exchange it tomorrow, but overall, I'm satisfied with my purchases. Also, the cashier said she had just been in Plano and Frisco for eight days, helping to open the new Frisco Ikea store. Weird.
Oh, and now that I don't live in the suburbs, I am returning to my dislike of them, which is not a really good thing at the moment, since there's a giant shopping center (not unlike all that crap around Preston & 121, for those of you familiar with that area) about 12 miles southwest of downtown, in Robinson Township, that has Ikea and Target and all that stuff.
When we got back from the 'burbs, there was a parking ticket on the U-Haul truck. My first $25 tax payment, I guess. Oh, well.
I am the hero of Valhalla. Good night.