Farts & Craps and Ikea Fever.
Our Rhode Island friends Tom & Sue came up from Tucson for the Tempe Festival of the Arts. I enjoy atttending the twice-per-year arts event on Mill Avenue but will confess 75% of the tents do not interest me. But I love the other 1/4. Even if I don't appreciate an art form I do respect the hard work and creativity shown by the artisans of the southwest. Mill Avenue is great, so many places to eat and drink, and the city ot Tempe does a good job.
Saturday we had a nice lunch at Gordon Biersch Brewery. I bought a new cap, a light wool black and white herring bone design. Sue bought a decorative dish and stylish artsy sunglasses. Cheryl bought toffee, soups and dip mixes. Tom carried Sue's crap.
After a day touring the farts and craps fair we came back to 4600 to smoke chickens on applewood and soak in a steamy hot tub. It was a nice day. Libations were involved.
Today's agenda was supposed to be a-lot-of- nothing but Ikea wiggled it's way into our schedule. I blame Tom & Sue. They told Cheryl they were shopping on the way back to Tucson. We do need entertainment furnishings. Of course we had to 'come with' to Ikea.
I paused in the foyer, closed my eyes and took a moment of peace before entering. I know too well the blue and yellow hell awaiting me.
The sensory overload is immediate. The multitude of modular options makes my head spin. The maze of small rooms is disoriemting. I was literally light headed after running circles through the home and office decor. We considered every option to solve our flatscreen TV dilemma.
I really do like Ikea, but there's something about the layout that gives me a disorienting case of confusion. It's like when we were kids and a bigger person spun us on the playground whirly thing, a.k.a. the spin & puke. The Ikea fever dizziness is mixed with kid-in-a-candy-store-wonder at the many desirable designs and innovation of the stylish modular Scandinavian people. When we finally reached the warehouse portion of our tour I was feeling physically ill. I needed fresh air .... not lifting heavy boxes.
When we got home the last thing I wanted to do was assemble the glass and aluminum unit for hanging the TV, but I did. It combined perfectly with an old Ikea TV stand. I hooked up my Yamaha reciever, Sony CD and Blueray, Cox cable and Bose speakers. We added a few square feet to the room by hanging the flatscreen.
We accomplished something on what was supposed to be a day of leisure.
Maybe tomorrow evening we'll assemble an upright DVD/CD storage unit we bought to make some sense of our combined collection of music and movie media.
We got a lot of ideas on the Ikea merry-go-round. We only bought two pieces. I'd like to address our home decor issues one step at a time. Not all our furniture fits the new house.
We'll be back at Ikea soon. Pier One Imports could solve some of our design needs. I like P-1 more than Ikea but they don't sell food. We had Ikea Swedish meatballs for dinner.
In comes the new .... out goes the old. I hope we can get a few sheckles for it. We need to have the yardsale that never happened.