Up the Staircase

Unpacking the Important Stuff
Only One Picture Today - They're Kind of Busy

I re-learned a possibly age old lesson yesterday. Carrying furniture up a staircase is entirely more taxing than carrying it down. I know that serves as a blinding flash of the obvious but somehow it surprised me. I came home from work intending to return all of the furniture that was displaced for the now completed first floor project. Most of it ended up in the basement, much to Buddy’s consternation. Moving it down a month ago seemed fairly easy so I didn’t worry too much.

I should have. Buddy felt it was his role to pass up and down the stairs in an agitated state while I was carrying the loads up. This led to a serious counseling session after which he voluntarily spent the rest of the exercise in his unlocked cage. I gave up the process when I’d reached the 70% mark because they was no pressing reason to conclude last night and more importantly – my back was killing me. It was good to see a semblance of normality return to the first floor although it will take my wife’s late March return to re-establish all aspects. I’m just not that gifted in the home decoration arena. Tonight I should finish off the move which would include the jungle of household plants that threaten to engulf my bedroom. At least those will be moving down stairs.

While I’m whining about this minor inconvenience the New Jersey contingent is making real strides in their much larger challenge of moving into their new home. My daughter and granddaughter gave me a video tour of their progress so far and I was impressed. I felt a real sense of joy seeing them settling into their first ever home of their own. My daughter made her first official commute into the city yesterday and that went well. Wingman wasn’t available since he had a job interview but it was obvious he’d spent the entire day doing the lion’s share of the unpacking. As I said yesterday, this brought back a lot of memories of the Army lifestyle where this unpacking ritual happened every couple of years.

The Birthday Boy

I also checked in with video calls from the Favorite Son and ABFA who were celebrating Riggins’ first birthday. That dog hopefully realizes his good fortune to land in a household where he is routinely worshipped. My wife videoed in from Panama to complain about the heat and insure her plants were making the transition upstairs without major injury (to the plants – not me). I could actually complain about the heat here today with temperatures in the 60s. It somehow feels unseemly for a mid-February day but I’ll take it. It’s always fun to watch New Englanders emerge from their winter isolation, even for a day.

As my life is finally is settling down a bit, I’ve gotten back to reading a little. I happened upon Stiger’s Tigers by Marc Alan Edelheit from one of those ubiquitous Amazon recommendations based on my reading history. I thought I was going to be reading a book about an officer in the Roman legions. I was, kind of, but then the first elf showed up and none of the geographic references made any sense to the Roman world of the Mediterranean. By the time I figured out this was a full fantasy world with the structure of the Roman legions transposed into it I was hooked. Edleheit shows some real flair for bringing the day to day life of the Roman legionnaires to life. The titular Stiger is a hard-bitten officer, accompanied by an Elven buddy, given an impossible task with a poorly trained unit. I’ve already started the second book in the series which tells you the Amazon ambush was more than effective. I love it when I find a new author.

Today’s Soxfather’s Sister’s morale photo injection: