Yesterday Ted and I went shopping for a new couch. We currently have an Ikea denim couch that I bought in 2007 for about $500. That was my budget in 2007. It is definitely time for a new couch. Actually, it was time about 10 minutes after the Ikea guys delivered the denim one back in 2007. I had moved into my apartment in South Carthay very unsure about whether Ted would join me there. He was living in San Diego at the time and we were driving back and forth every weekend. He liked to tease me and tell me at times that he wanted to be with me and that he had been looking online for architectural jobs in Los Angeles. A few days later he would tell me that he wasn't sure, he always wanted to live in Manhattan and so that was still on the table. In fact, for a few months, I stayed with my mother so that when Ted moved to LA, we could pick out an apartment together. Finally I decided I needed to move on my life, with or without him. So, I found this apartment on La Jolla Ave. and moved in.
A few months later Ted moved in (I kind of thought that as soon as I started moving ahead "without him" that he might feel a little less threatened). When he moved in with me, he also moved in with all of my stuff. Not one for material stuff ever, I have never really lived as an adult. My furniture (and wardrobe mostly) is made up a hodgepodge hand-me-downs and nothing really goes together. If you know Ted, you know he is a little fancier than me and has an eye for details and has really good taste (as evidenced by his choice in wife.....but I digress). Anyway, he hated the couch immediately....it is small. It is too low to the ground. It is SO uncomfortable. About a month after he moved in we decided that it really stunk and we carried it down our long narrow staircase (no easy feat) and out onto the street and tried to strap it to the top of my CRV (something else I bought in the early days with Ted that he wishes we could get rid of). Once we got down there and tried hoisting it on the car, we realized this plan was never going to work and so, we just kept the stupid couch. Getting it back upstairs was as much of a nightmare as bringing it down was. When we think about this ridiculous hour or more of moving the couch outside to the street and then right back up again now, we laugh. Ted says it looks like I was about to blow a gasket....I was sweating, bright red, losing patience. I agree that it was certainly not my finest hour(s).
By now there has been a lot of history on this stupid couch. Houseguests have slept on it. Countless hours of television have been watched on it. Dogs have napped on it. Cats have peed on it (or rather, one cat has peed on it and I have washed the cushions....so don't get too grossed out former houseguests). Maxie has "watched" football with his daddy on it and been nursed on it and been cuddled on it and has spit up on it. There is actually a little patch of Maxie spit up on the back of the couch. This patch of spit up is what has me irrationally clinging to this atrocious piece of furniture. Nevermind that I have three freezer sized zip lock bags of Maxie's dirty clothes saved in his room. I am clinging to the physical evidence that he existed, that he was mine, that I was his mommy, that I was A mommy.
The good news is, we found a really nice sectional from a better place than Ikea. I am actually excited to sit on the new couch. I spend HOURS on my couch. Not only do I watch tv on the couch, I blog from the couch, I work from the couch, I nap on the couch, I eat meals sitting on this couch, I snuggle with my doggies on the couch. It'll be good to be comfortable while doing all of these things. For those of you looking for "news", this is about as good as it gets for now. For everyone else - I bet you didn't think I could write THAT much about a stinky couch.
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YES! I hear you on the couch. We got ours from Value City. They were a set. They weren't cheap at around $2,000 but 4 years later and they're in rough shape. We keep sheets over them except when company is here but they still pick up every speck of dirt and they're sagging. But Toby spit up on one of the cushions and no one has the heart to clean it.
Someday, I am going to spend $1500-2000 on a couch alone. It will be big, it will be pricey, and it will last me for 25 years. I'll still probably keep Toby's loveseat, though. Why not? Just another sign he was here.
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