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With all due respect, Mr President, there is no religion whose central *tenant* is anything at all. Please, don't you start.

comedy tonight

(Note: I am not at Skiffy, you'll note. Skiffolk: I am shot up with allergens, and not really suitable company for a crowd tonight. Enjoy it!)

Many months ago, see, the IKEA 2009 catalogue came in. And right there on page ... something-or-other was a rug! that would totally work! in my living room! Rugs are hard for me, see, although I'm learning -- I am allowed to shop for them by myself, which is probably not true of curtains, which you'll note I don't actually have -- and having successfully chosen a rug for my room and a rug for the guest room, I was pretty impressed with myself for having identified a good rug for the living room. Resolved: this was the rug for me!

It was not in at the IKEA. Alas. I did pick up a runner for the front part of the apartment, and determined to get the good rug when it did come in. Which it didn't, and didn't, and didn't. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, I googled the thing and looked for it on freakin eBay, because that's how set I was on that stupid rug and not having to go find another one. Nothing. Bare floor in my living room. Despair.

But yesterday I looked again (and read the Hebrew, remember?), and it was there! At my store! I went by today on my way to my doctor's appointment and bought it on the spot.

And that's where the fun begins, because a 7'x7' wool rug? Is heavy. It is also big, even when it is rolled up. It is big and heavy. It is almost two feet taller than I am, and it is heavy. (I can lift it, so it must not be that heavy, but still.) The word I think I'm looking for is unwieldy. I must have amused the people in the store very much trying to get the damned thing into the shopping cart, and then steering this awkward thing through the checkout, and then ...

Yeah. Trying to get it into my very small car. I should maybe note that I'm driving a Mini Cooper. Mini Cooper is mini. I fold down the rear passenger seat and lean back the front passenger seat as far as it will go, and then I heave (more comedy) the rolled-up rug nose first into the passenger-side footwell, as far as it will go, and thus does the hatchback close with about two inches to spare. Score!

I should have thought about how I was going to get it out again. These things are easier to lift and push than they are to drag and pull, especially when you're trying to pull up because the opposite end is wedged under, say, a glove compartment. I ended up perching on the fraction of the passenger seat that was available to me, getting both hands under the thing, bracing my foot against the doorframe, and heaving as hard as I could. That got the rug out of the footwell and partway out of the trunk. (Thank god the top end didn't just run into the roof of the car and stay there.) I did then have to pull it the rest of the way out of the car (difficult), stand it up while I closed the car (nigh impossible), and then hoist it onto my shoulder (I should have sold tickets). And then carry it up two flights of stairs, with a switchback, this after getting in the front door. Can you reach to put a key in the lock with a rug over your shoulder? I can, but it's hard.

Still, it's here now and it's mine. Now that I've recovered, I shall move the ottoman and the coffee table and sweep under the couch, and then I shall put down rug pads and my new rug!, and then I will just have maybe to get something to put in the (ahem) dining room. And a welcome mat, once I find one that doesn't bug me all to pieces.

moar curling

Up early tomorrow for the GNCC Mixed Championships. Over at the club 7am. But! This is a mere, what, ten miles from my house, and does not involve going to the airport, renting a car, staying in a hotel, being in the Central time zone at all. In fact it's projected to get to 40 degrees tomorrow, which is at least an order of magnitude better than it's been when I've been in Wisconsin. Plus I have the extremely (more than me!) qualified flt as Deputy, and she's conducting the team meeting. This is the kind of Chief gig I could get used to. :-)