Ah, memories

I'm dying to blog about couches, but I'm going to hold back in order to recount the first evening that we spent in our new home alone. (Obviously we flooded the place and rigged it with booby traps in the event of an incursion by hapless burglars). I'll hold off on couches for now and just bask in the glow of the memory of our first night....Awwwwww. Refer to picture of baby panda above.

Spending your first night in a new home:
Your significant other is wearing something gauzy, vaguely reminiscent of romance novels, but as we know, the romance novels got them from somewhere. And tonight, you realize that they have taken them from your life. Her/his long hair is pale in the softened glow of the room, and it falls like water across her bare shoulders, paler still. The moon is low and heavy. It’s light is gleaming across the long oak boards of your new floor.
You lie down together. Your feet are warm. The mattress and the bed are new. And you realize that buying this house and everything that comes with it is a new spring time in your relationship. You pull your lover close to your own body, smooth curves and hard lines blending together like water coming together with other water. You own a new home. You have done this thing together, achieved the American dream.
Okay, as it turns out we couldn’t actually get a new bed in time. We also couldn’t manage to get our box spring upstairs though mild moving attempts were made.
Mover 1: Maybe if we turn it this way. (Grinds object into new stairs).
S: Stop.
Mover 2: Maybe if we just push it up on your side. (Takes a large chunk of plaster from newly painted wall).
S: Stop.
M: Maybe if we lie down on our backs and push it up with our feet and pretend like it’s Superman it will fit.
S: I guess we’re just not getting it upstairs.
M: It hurts when you shoot down my ideas.



So, we weren’t actually sleeping in a brand new bed. We were camping out on the floor like a couple of Bohemians. Though I believe Bohemians were having a bit more fun than we were. Needless to say we eventually drifted off into the thick arms of sleep, dreaming wholesome American dreams of apple pies and cigarette trees, our two bodies warming the small space between us.
Oh wait, that’s right, let’s tell it how it really was.
S: Go down stairs and get a mop! (Bright lights flash on).
M: (Running downstairs to get a mop) Note: It’s interesting how when you are wakened up from a dead sleep at two in the morning how quickly you’ll obey directions. Usually I’m like a petulant child. S should probably start waking me up at 2 A.M. for all of our conversations as I’m seriously ready to obey. Anything to go back to sleep. Aside complete.
S: (Mopping the floor in the bathroom) The toilet is leaking.
Yes, that’s right. The beauty of home ownership. The very first night that we spent together, we spent mopping up the floor and figuring out why our toilet was leaking. I encourage anyone who is thinking about buying a home to listen to this cautionary tale and just say yes to condos!
After that I proceeded downstairs to admire the water stains that were appearing on our ceiling and to wipe the water off our living room floor before it warped. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on who you are in this scenario, I had previous experience with water in an upstairs room. I’m sorry Eddie’s parents. I know you guys didn’t like me anyway, and I’m guessing the water in your ceiling didn’t help. I didn’t have my contacts in. I’m blind without them. If I was born two thousand years ago I’d have wandered off a cliff at age seven. Aside complete.
And somewhere around four A.M. when we settled back to sleep, I waited patiently for the voice over to start. For a narrator to describe how we’d really learned something our first night together, that somehow, the leaking toilet and water stains had brought us closer together, that we understood the gravity of this decision even more. I waited for him to describe how a relationship is like a house, how you work really hard on it, that it’s a labor of love. The fan blades turned blankly above, casting shadows on the bare walls.
Perhaps we did learn something, or perhaps we just muddled our way through the night. I suppose, like most of life, it’s just a matter of how you choose to view it. Goodnight moon!