Painting the Pink Thing

But first: my new address!

1030 Lancaster Ave., Unit #309
Rosemont, PA 19010

...Now, the tale of my craftiness! Note: All pictures (except Exhibit B) were taken with my camera phone, which is a very nice phone, but which does not always capture colours correctly or have the best resolution.

Exhibit A: The Rug

This rug is amazing. Nearly two and a half years ago, Ashlea and I were in a little shop on Canyon Road (a strip in Santa Fe lined with galleries), and they had fantastic rugs. As soon as we settled on the new place, she said, we have to go back and get one of those rugs! So we went last week, re-located the shop, and settled on this gorgeous monstrosity. (The first picture is better for scale; the second gets the colours better.)

Upon acquiring the rug, we swore that it would be our center decorating piece. After all, most of our furniture is wood, or grey metal, or white K-Mart bookshelf -- all of which go mighty well with a rug like that. We've acquired two bathmats, both in similar shades of red, and want to get a futon cover that matches the light blue in the weave.

Unfortunately, we had one more thing -- something so big it couldn't be ignored, something so useful it couldn't be disposed of, something we wanted holding up our TV, front and center, less than a foot from where the rug would make its final resting home. We called it:

Exhibit B: The Pink Thing

You can see it there, at the far left of the image. This picture doesn't really capture the weirdness that was the colour, though. It was called 'mauve blush', but it looked like someone had mixed grey and pink together, heavy on the grey. In another situation, I'm sure someone could have put together a very muted decor that made it fit in just fine, except that someone is not we.

D's Grandpa Al, God rest his wonderful soul, was responsible for the creation of that beast, and when she moved to Baltimore, it was bestowed upon me. I love it dearly, and it's great for holding DVDs and video games, but is it ever unattractive.

Faced with this decorating dilemma, Ashlea said, why not just paint the Pink Thing?

Exhibits C-G:
The side you see when you walk in the door (so it's important for it to be cute)
The front (plain-er, so you don't spend all your time looking at the butterflies and not watching the television that's now on top of it)
The side away from the door (my slightly more experimental side, which explains the red ribbons going nowhere)
Signed by the artist, limited edition, 1/1
And with the rug!

We have also, since landing here, acquired: a beat-up old chest of drawers from a thrift shop, a table and chairs from Ikea, a futon frame from Ikea, a bookshelf from K-Mart, and various smaller impliments from various places. Still on the list of things to acquire: more bookshelves!, a little chest of drawers, a no-stick pad for the aforementioned rug, and maybe some other things? I don't know; Ashlea's the decorating guru around here. Those last things to acquire are on the low end of the priority list, so we may just wait until the thrift stores re-stock, then go back and see what they have.

More pictures forthcoming as we continue to move in!

I was warned...

...but warning didn't quite do it justice.

When I went first to visit the PA Lindamood-Bell Center, I gaped. Wow! said I. This place is huge and lovely! There's plenty of room, there's lots of awesome little offices, it's easy to get to, and it's in the middle of everything! I mean, it's near a lot of little places to eat, it's about a mile walk from our place, I could take the train if I were feeling really lazy, and there's employee parking if I feel like driving! They've got a student load comparable to ours in Morristown (30-35 students), but with literally twice the space! This will be sweet!

Then the place caught on fire, and, long story short, they moved out, first to temporary space, then never to return. Instead, they moved to space in a private preparatory school for special needs students. Now, my director told me, it's small and uncarpeted, and also unairconditioned, and at least four people have already quit over this, and did I mention they have spiders? So I can't say I wasn't warned.

The new center is literally three rooms -- two for student instruction, one for three offices and a receptionist. The clinician room is a closet, where each clinician has a hook on which to put stuff. There's a single file cabinet for student files, which works out well, since they can only handle twelve students. There's a refrigerator in the hallway, with a bunch of snacks piled on top. The air-conditioning units are self-contained things that, I swear, look like boxy Daleks. Everybody has to fill out timesheets because the IT guys can't get the card reader networked. And it's all up in a school complex on top of a hill, tucked back in a bunch of woods, pretty far removed from everything, including mass transportation.

I don't say this as a means of complaining. I say it because I'm just thinking, these poor guys! And they've even been settling into this for a month or so -- I mean, I'm coming in after the major crises have been resolved. At least everything is somewhat stable now.

And I start Monday. This is definitely going to be an adventure. Time to put on my best optimistic face!