Mini Golf Rug

Is this rug a mistake for our kitchen?

I kind of love it but at the same time worry having to put yet another thing together will result in some kind of murder-suicide at the homestead.

In other astroturf news: we're playing with the idea of making a large, low, big square flat box (kind of like a cookie sheet made out of wood), planting grass, and making our alleged "balcony" a 3x3 lawn for the summer.

Finally, furniture stops making our lives miserable...

After a hellish week, we initially planned on spending our first apartment Friday on some kind of a date - movie, dinner, exploration, etc. I got out of work a little early, so I rushed home to start getting the backing onto our massive IKEA HOPPEN - I thought it would be a nice surprise for Sue, since she could then finally start putting her stuff away in earnest.

Sue came home, and we got into a little furniture-building frenzy. After a few hours and exactly 48 screws we had all our furniture built and all our clothes put away. It was a spectacular bit of teamwork.

Saturday morning was equally positive. Raymour & Flannigan delivered our furniture at exactly 8AM. While they didn't deliver our sofa, they did deliver a lot of seating and, yes, TABLETRON. We Swiffer-ed, I fixed the media center, and now I have the 4 food groups (Wii, PS3, XBOX, HDTV) and a place to consume them. We have lighting, we have clean floors and, finally, some bit of peace.

We still have a to-do list, but it's substantially shorter:
-Rugs
-Sofa
-Microwave
-Cable / Internet
-Food That Is Not Horribly Unhealthy

Ikea Is Causing Me Tremendous Stress

At first, we planned to avoid Ikea entirely.
Then, we found some things that looked nice, were cheap, and were solid *in the store*.
I thought building Ikea furniture would be fun.
It is not. It has been incredibly stressful. I have traced the source of this stress in an effort to let it go:

I've been hypersensitive to the noise I'm making because our irrational downstairs neighbor complained about the noise of us moving boxes into the apartment. As a result, I only constructed the furniture to the extent that could be done quietly, which meant that I did not put the backing on any of the Ikea furniture we made. This decision was made because I had not yet realized that the backing is essential to stabilize Ikea furniture.

I put together our media center, and put the TV on before the backing. Last night, Sue and I started to fasten the media center's backing with nails, and found that it didn't line up on all four corners. We *thought* this was because the backing was not cut properly. We were wrong. The backing was not lining up because the weight of the TV - without the backing - had caused the media center to buckle in the middle. Of course, I didn't realize this until after I had put about 15 nails into the unit. I'm now going to need to take all the nails out, take the TV off, and redo the whole thing OR just try to live with the bent media center and attempt to reinforce it. The latter may result in an eventual collapse and destruction of my TV and other media stuff.

I'm sick of building furniture and this is, as previously stated, causing me stress.

So: hypervigilance about noise led me to unwittingly build the furniture incorrectly which caused damage to the furniture that I must either attempt to repair or live with and simply *hope* that it does not collapse and destroy all my media equipment.

At some point, this will get easier, right?

Fight week 2009!

Over lunch I went to Century 21 with two of my lovely co-workers to pick up curtains and a duvet and a host of other boring items.

While on line, some sort of alteraction broke out between a customer and a cashier. As far as I understand, the customer hit the cashier. All we saw was the cashier charge out from behind the counter wielding a stapler yelling "I DON'T CARE I'LL GO BACK TO JAIL!"

I didn't even know people said that in real life. We had to smush into a corner of pillows to avoid stapler related fallout. It went on for quite some time and was awesome.

This Man Stuff is for the Birds

I got entangled in a little event last night that I'm throwing in with the rest of our new-to-NYC experiences. I have been thinking it over nonstop since it happened, and naturally hindsight has shown me that I made some bad decisions.

Sue and I went shopping last night a few blocks from our apartment, paid the $4 for delivery, and walked home.

About one block from our apartment, I saw a guy yelling at a woman who appeared to be his wife. He was a white guy, taller and bigger than me, in a suit and overcoat. The woman was much shorter, and thin. As we approached, I saw him grab the woman by her neck and throw her up against a store window, screaming at her. He then yelled, "why do you make me do this to you on your birthday!?" He smacked her in the face, elbowed her in the stomach, and choked her. It was like something out of a movie. There was a look of absolute terror - but not surprise - on her face, and absolute rage on his.

I was shocked, but probably not as shocked as I would have been if I weren't a city n00b. I've prosecuted a lot of domestic violence cases, and seen the aftermath of evil men doing evil things to women because of their culture, BAC, or plain-old pathetic insecurity. Seeing it in person, however, was new to me. The sheer horror made me feel compelled to get involved in. At first, I was the only one who seemed to feel this way.

Bear in mind, internets, that I am by no means a fighter, much less a macho-guy.

This is what I did:
I walked up to the guy, got in his face, and started yelling at him.
While still holding her by the neck, he turned and told me to "get the fuck away, or he'd fucking stab me."

For some reason, I decided that this guy probably fit the profile of the "typical" domestic abuser - tough on women, but not tough with men. So I didn't back away. I stayed in his face. I honestly believed that this guy would not touch me, much less stab me. Adrenaline-fueled logic, clearly not holding up to appellate review.

I kept some distance, pulled out my cell phone, and started to visibly dial 911. I continued to stare the guy down. For what it's worth, he did stop hitting her. He told met to "put the fucking cell phone away." I did not. At this point, a second guy noticed the commotion and joined the yelling and cell-phoning.

He tried to intimidate me by yelling, which probably works for him with his woman. I kept eye contact and stared him down. Lots of threats but, thankfully, no action. He let the woman go. He walked past me, threw a shoulder at me while he went, and just walked off. The woman followed a few feet behind. The other guy called 911, and we went home.


I remember hearing Sue, at one point, yell "Gui, stop, I can't afford to pay the rent alone." lulz.




This is what should have happened:

A *slightly* better course of action would have been one in which I kept my eyes on his hands instead of maintaining eye contact. After all, eyes don't stab people, hands do.
A *moderately* better plan would have been to yell like crazy and draw more attention to the situation, so it wasn't just me vs. him initially.
Probably the *best* course of action would have been to walk around the corner, call 911, and just stay out of sight until the NYPD arrived.


The Aftermath
Upon reflection, I realize that I shouldn't have proceeded as I did, and apologized to Sue. In my line of work, I don't make many decisions based on adrenaline; certainly none that involve physical danger. Lesson Learned.

We went back to the apartment and built an Ikea table. Manly enough for me.

Bonus: Our kitchen table is also a transformer, although it is not Starscream. I don't even know what they name their transformers in Sweeden. TABJLESUUTRUN or something.

Let Me Handle The Gadget Posts, Cupcake

...because a simple one-liner reference to TABLETRON does not do it justice. The table, being constructed primarily of future and magic, gradually transforms in a three-step process. The transformation is extremely rapid, but I have provided images from a recent test taken with a high-speed camera.

Behold, and let TABLETRON's awesomeness be hewn into your mind!


This is the table in its normal form:




Approx. 1/3 transformed:

Approx. 2/3 transformed:



Fully transformed:

As promised, we murdered Ikea. Ikea went down fighting.

We've been in the apartment "officially" for about three days, and this is the first morning we both got up and went to our respective jobs instead of blazing out to LI to pick up more stuff and go on our daily death march through Ikea.

The last few days are admittedly pretty boring to everyone except Gui and me; we're both hyperventilating over having a place to live but now being completely broke. So read or do not, there is no try, and it's all good either way.

How we got stuff into our building: we double parked (three nights in a row) and then unloaded things from the truck to the lobby at a dead sprint through the snow (also three nights in a row. Ask me why it's cheaper to start a lease in January). Then one of us protected the stuff while the other made trips up and down to the apartment and threw things in until the lobby was clear. Rinse, repeat. We've been taking a lot of Advil.

Getting that mattress in was the easiest thing we did. It was early on, and we still had some energy, no injuries, fair levels of hydration and a lot of adrenaline. We folded it in half, stuffed it into our tiny elevator along with ourselves, and just shoved it into the apartment. I hit my head pretty badly on the low ceiling at our upstairs doorway but whatever. Rally. We both hit our heads at various times during the weekend. I am covered in bruises from places in our apartment that just reached out and smacked me before I realized they were there.

So on our first night there we threw the mattress upstairs and agreed to clean the apartment like we were hiding a chainsaw murder. This included much on the knees Cinderella like scrubbing, some chemical burns to my lip where I accidentally brushed it with some kind of industrial cleaner, some definite lung scarring from inhaling the aforementioned, and occasional gasping fresh air breaks on the balcony so that neither of us passed out. We cleaned for four hours and then went to a party in Gramercy, a neighborhood that undoubtedly has the highest per capita meathead to civilian ratio on earth (with the possible exception of Fort Lauderdale during spring break). We went home on the 6 around midnight. It was nice. We are old.

The next day we set out for and accidentally purchased furniture that would pass in pretty much any abode populated by adults. This was fortuitous, as we nearly purchased a leather set that probably would have been better situated in more specific places Populated By Certain Consenting Adults. Places that are legal in Nevada. You get it. Our exhaustion may have clouded our judgment when we were discussing why a room full of polyurethane coated bonded leather was an "awesome idea."

So instead we got this set for downstairs, in a nice, easily washable but still non-brothel friendly taupe microfiber. We got the sofa, love seat, chair and ottoman, all matching, and are having it delivered because we are on the brink of death after the weekend.

Still mourning the loss of our bionic bed storage, we also got this transforming coffee table, which Guido has named "TableTron." Click on "more views" to see how the top pops up to form the table on which we will eat most of our meals, should we ever be able to afford food again, and where we will play on the internet and spend quality time not developing carpal tunnell while playing XBox.

And then came Ikea.

Stupid Ikea with its unpronouncable, unnecessarily umlaut laden and consonant heavily named "furniture." Stupid Ikea, with which we have furnished the rest of our apartment. Stupid Ikea, at which we spent more money than we should have on a non-bionic bed which looks lovely, fits in our nook, but required a Home Depot run to make usable, and is now set up in such a way that I have to vault over Gui to get out of bed at night, which is bad for both of us, especially when you've been poisoned by the neighborhood pizza and are severely unwell. See: last night.

But I like our bed. I do.

I really need to get down to lawyering and billing for my time for the day, so here's the rest, in short, more or less. Everything hereafter is in black-brown unless specified otherwise.

This is the entertainment center on which Gui's giant TV now rests and in which his myriad electronics will soon live. These are the end tables on which our drinks may rest without coasters, because they were only $13 each. These are the dressers which will flank the entertainment center, a) because our apartment has no storage and b) when I say "will" and "flank" I mean "well, we thought they would" until last night when we realized they might not both fit without completely blocking our staircase to the downstairs, and closing off the entire room like some awful post yuppie Swedish version of the Count of Monte Cristo. This one is still a work in progress. This Ikea stuff is remarkably heavy.

For our middle floor, our kitchen, now known as "Middle Earth" we got this table. It expands. We have not built it yet.

For the bedroom, we got this little guy for more storage, and this big guy for way more storage. We got the Hopen with mirrored doors because I found walking out of the apartment every day with absolutely no idea at all what I looked like to be very disconcerting. The big wardrobe is a medium wood color of some sort. No one cares. I know.

There's a ton of stuff in the kitchen, 99% of which is not food. We're going to try to remedy that tonight.

And that's where we are. The couches come this weekend. We need rugs post haste because our already uppity neighbors already hate us. We need lamps because Gui has been assembling brown-black furniture in relative darkness, which is really impressive but probably not a good time.

I want to buy this apartment so we never have to move again. Gui and I generally never fight (it's a mellow acceptance thing we've developed over time, not a sick Stepford icy silence building resentment thing) but this whole move has worn us down to our last nerves. We need a break. And pre-assembled furniture.

Never again!

EPIC SHOUT OUT to Gui's brother JP, who gave up his entire MLK day off (and last day of law school winter break) to run around to a ton of stores with us, then came to our apartment, lugged around all of the things that were much too heavy for me to move alone with Gui, and then stayed and put the stuff together. The kid is a saint. There is not enough beer and pizza in the world to issue a proper thanks.

PS The Bob-o-pedic is hotter than sleeping on the surface of the sun but very, very comfortable. Not as stanky as expected.

PPS We got a giant smiling monkey face for our bathmat and a matching monkey wastebasket. I love it.

Measure twice, future mod once

I am sad to report that our much beloved and 100% future modded (and of course not yet purchased) Bolero bed does not fit into our bedroom by 3/4 of an inch. We could theoretically throw it in the middle of the room and not put any other furniture up there at all.

Or we could stuff it into the 64 1/4 inch alcove that perfectly fits a queen bed but not a queen bed with an epic hydraulic system. If we can get the bed stuffed in there, we can fit a middle school marching band in the rest of the bedroom. More specifically, we can have a separate work space for Gui's beautiful table, a wardrobe, something to stuff our clothing into, and enough room to move around.

Or we can have the Bolero bed and nothing else. So we're going in a different, less epic, non-hydraulic direction.

Lesson learned. I apologize for my hubris regarding my secret adult race car bed and the fact that you don't have one. Now I don't either.

In better news, we got our keys tonight and had a lot of fun measuring the apartment, airing out the feet smell that pervades the fridge, and picking out furniture that actually fits into our place. Turns out the bedroom is smaller and more weirdly laid out than we recalled, but the living room is bigger and squarer, so we're investing our hydraulic bed money into a bigger and more comfortable couch.

Also, thanks to everyone who wrote to talk about the Bob-o-pedic! I read about the stank online and evidently a lot of you have fought the beast as well. I will Fabreeze the bejeezus out of it tomorrow if we are able to physically get it into the apartment.

Tomorrow: clean out the three years' of stuff that has turned my civic into a one seater and pack it up with other stuff, meet gui, pack up some more stuff, hit up the Door Store, Ikea, Fourtunoff and Bob's to pick up the mattress, find out how much a Bob-o-pedic actually weighs (Gui estimated 200 pounds, which is probably spot on, accounting for my lack of upper body strength), clean some stuff, head out to a birthday party (and maybe my co-worker's band's show, to which I would really like to make it), and then, drum roll please:

Not take the LIRR home in the middle of the night with all of the hurling fighting flirting 18 year olds. We just going to take the 6 train "home." It's awesome and scary and kind of hardcore all at once.

Gui and I were having the worst time with our conflicting work schedules and my insane commute and my getting sick all the time and us never seeing each other. Lord knows this is going to be a hell of an adjustment but we literally haven't been together for something that wasn't a family event or major holiday in months. Just hanging out in a barren apartment tonight measuring things and being the fools we are for 90 minutes was terrific.

Note to other people who are moving into a place gradually: garbage can, toilet paper, tissues, cereal, tooth brush, plastic cups, cleaning supplies. Bring these things with you the second you walk in. Otherwise you're going to be stuffy, skeeved, hungry, and using the neighborhood Starbucks bathroom until you get yourself together. Trust me on this one.

Gui, I love you. You rock so hard. You won't believe how much fun we're going to have, how many cookies we're going to eat, how illegal it's going to be when we grill on our so-called balcony, how great our bed will be when the stank airs out, how fun it's going to be to cook grilled cheese sandwiches in the giant wok once we learn how to use the stove, how comfortable our couch will be, and how I am going to completely change as a person and suddenly learn to love being clean and tidy.

We are unspeakably, unreasonably, undeservedly lucky.

PS we're keeping the rest of the apartment pretty understated and classic, but I'm desperately drawn to the Pottery Barn Kids Star Wars bedding set. I love it. My mom (who loves Star Wars nearly as much as she loves Lord of the Rings) found them and they are worth getting excited over.

PPS my parents bought us a Tassimo and a bunch of cleaning products and important apartment stuff, a good deal of which relates to cleaning. My parents are awesome. Gui, my mom bought us three different kinds of bleach based abrasive cleanser, a swiffer, and a ton of other things that make other things sparkle . Welcome to the family. You love cleaning.

PPSS my parents were caught by surprise by the speed of the move. Join the club. Moving into this apartment has been like getting hit by lightening.

PPPSS sleeplessness has returned. Advil PM is a joke.

Yep. Dumb dumb, dumb dumb dumb dumb

Pulled the trigger on the queen size Bob-o-pedic. Our choices were to have it delivered next Saturday or pick it up tomorrow and move the thing ourselves. In our infinite wisdom and rush to move, we have elected to pick it up, throw it into Gui's Bronco, find somewhere to park the Bronco, walk the mattress God knows where on 88th street, and carry it up five flights of stairs.

We totally win at life. Anyone know how much these things weigh? Or the number of a chiropractor who hasn't been repeatedly sued?

Also, the exhaustion is starting to show. When I was getting off the phone with the sales rep from Bob's I accidentally told her I loved her.

We are about to do something dumb

We're buying a new mattress. Gui has a lovely pillow top queen mattress but from the box springs underneath it has developed something known as the Taco Effect. You start off sleeping on your own side of the bed, but as the night goes on, some incredible gravitational force in the center of the mattress pulls you into the middle whether you like it or not, and whether or not someone else is already occupying the space. The alternative is sleeping on your side right at the edge of the mattress with an arm or a leg thrown over to anchor you in place. This results in numb shoulders, back pain, and an overall sense of anxiety because even while asleep you still have the sense that you're clinging untethered to the side of a mountain.

So we need a mattress to go on the hydraulic Transformer bed of ass kickingness (side note, I LOVE that bed. It's like a secret race car bed for adults. Does your bed have a hydraulic system? I did not think so). We're toying with the idea of buying the much stigmatized Bob-O-Pedic sight unseen based entirely on online reviews. You will be surprised to hear that we cannot afford the $6000 Dux Bed (at least not yet, bitches). I am again adopting the "how bad could it be?" attitude that has been the hallmark of every nearly catastrophic decision we've made during our Hey We're Adults Let's Live Together In Sin apartment journey. I'm talking about You, evil hungarian apartment with toilet peep show skylight.

We'll see. Bob's is apparently good with returns and lately I have been so exhausted that I feel like I have mono again, so at this point I could probably sleep in a meat suit on a bed of pirhanas and be ok.

Would anyone smarter than me (that's, I guess, everyone) like to weigh in on this issue? No comment will go unconsidered.