Like Dominos....

It all began with glare.  Simple, obnoxious, I-can't-stand-it-anymore glare.

Our 60" rear projection TV in the family room was basically unviewable except after 10 o'clock at night.  The glare from the windows was making it impossible to see anything during my 10 minute lunch break each day, and something had to change.

Too, the TV didn't fit in the entertainment center from Germany.  John, wanting bigger and better, hadn't considered that the space is only 40" wide.  For the past five years, I have been nagged by 6" of overhang on both sides of the TV stand.

I went to Lowe's to price blinds.  $1,043 for five blinds, and that was at 20% off.

I figured a new TV would be cheaper than that.  I was right, even with the state-of-the-art receiver and new HDMI cables that sly salesman told us we needed to have.

But where to put the old TV?  It just needed a quiet, dark place to retire.

Glo's bedroom.  Her TV was a relic from the paleoneoneanderthalic era.  You know the TV--lots of junk in the trunk and weighing a metric ton.  We would move it.

One problem.

Glo needed a new bookcase in her bedroom.  The back of her small one was falling off, and books were stuffed in any available niche.  Mixed feelings there--glad our family devours books, but feeling disbelief that we were outgrowing BOOKCASES of all things!

With a new bookcase, there was no room for a TV of any kind, or size.

Light bulb.  *DING*

Mark is moving out.  His bedroom has been the bane of my obsessive/compulsive mind since we moved in.  A hole in the wall (artistically cut in the shape of the doorknob), carpet coming up (compliments of the cats' sharp claws and firm desire to get OUT of the room) and mess, mess and more mess.  Why not make it the guest room it's always been when people have come over?  (Subconciously, my mind thought--THAT will teach the boys to leave me!)

Wait.  If it's going to be the guest room (with ensuite bathroom), it needs to have appropriate furniture.

Another light bulb (this one, one of those weak energy savers).

Let's take the furniture from Ethan's bedroom and put it in Mark's bedroom.  That way, there will be no more displacing Mark into Ethan's bedroom, so that guests can have Mark's bedroom with bathroom.

Hold on a second.  I have to think.  I'm getting confused.  I must pause to share a favorite line of my boys.

"So, _______, (fill in name of one of my boys) how did you spend your last precious days with your parents before you left on a journey of self-discovery and independence to the college of your choice?"

Mark's answer:  moving stupid furniture.

Like dominos, it happened (mostly within an 8-hour time period):

1.  Build Glo's bookcase in her room and rearrange heavy German antique furniture.  Brace feet against wall while sitting on the floor with back against furniture to move it.  Can we spell ruptured disc?

2.  Move old TV out.  Another disc bites the dust.

3.  Put old bookcase in upstairs hall.

4.  Bring 60" TV upstairs.  Take up most of hall, so move into Mark's room.

5.  Clean out Mark's dresser.  Take 18 years of memories and stuff the most important ones in a plastic stackable box that used to hold Ethan's deodorant.  Throw out the rest.

6.  Carry old dresser down two flights of stairs to basement.  Hope that some poor, starving child of mine will want it some day.

7.  Move guest room dresser into Mark's room.  Curse under my breath that it has a "beautiful marble top" and antique mirror.  Shove a metal rod up my spine.

8.  Take apart German antique shrank, filled with Ethan's clothes.  I tell Mark "isn't it great that it doesn't have any marble?"  See Mark glare.

9.  Slide Mark's queen-size bed into the hall.  Take apart antique headboard in not quite the right fashion, and feel indescribable pain when the headboard falls on my arm.  Whose stupid idea was this anyway??

10.  Reassemble headboard/footboard in Mark's room using the Tupperware container filled with cantaloupe to balance the sideboards.

11.  Move Mark's bed into Ethan's old room (which will from here-on-out be referred to as the "Kennedy Fortress of Media Pleasure").  Move 60" TV into the room also.

12.  Pass out on the floor of Mark's room while Sirius radio (Symphony Hall) plays on the 60" TV.  Johannah comes in, passes out on Mark's giant, macrophage bean bag while Mark collapses onto DOMO.  We all fall asleep, listening to Leonard Bernstein narrate "Peter and the Wolf".  I know we fell asleep because the last thing I remember is the wolf alive and eating a duck, and when I woke up, he was being paraded through the streets, caught by Peter.  Poor, poor wolf.

When John comes home, bearing stacks of pizzas from Dominos, we enjoy eating it in front of our 42" TV in the family room.  With no glare.