another ikea excursion

 

my beautiful droopy sunflowers my cousin cindy sent home with my sister for me. i missed getting a photo when they were bright and cheery.

 

this sunday was another ikea visit. we needed to exchange a window curtain for the correct size and morgan wanted to buy a bookshelf which can also be used as a dresser (i'll have to take a photo to show how it was put together and arranged). 

my unsuccessful selfie . . morgan is getting ready to retake it.

we had several large bags of chanda's winter clothes in the car that had been sitting at home waiting for some nice people to drive them out to her . . so we stopped by . . also, morgan hadn't seen her apartment yet and was looking forward to visiting.

i like her new curtains and the photos that she's hung on the wall . . 

it also was wonderful to see sweet pluto.

poem for a sunday morning and an excursion to ikea

sunflowers

sunflowers in the summer growing,

growing up towards the light;

light and warmth which draws them upwards,

upwards striving in their might.

mighty golden heads with seeds there,

seeds to sleep in winter's ground;

heads which turn from dawn till sunset

following the sun's path round.

by heather thomas, from her book a journey through time in verse and rhyme 

 

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greg and i have been meaning to go to ikea for several months now as we've been wanting to check on their mattresses. ours is in very bad condition. we finally went this morning as we had told chanda we would return two window blinds that she had purchased last month (they weren't black out curtains, which she prefers). here greg is attempting to log onto the ikea return line via his phone. we couldn't just stand in line and wait for a salesperson. we had to sign in online! we were a little frustrated at first as it wasn't working properly, but then finally he sorted it out and we were logged in as being the third ones "on line." it felt very surreal to be physically in the place, but yet have to register online in order to be seen. to complicate the situation, chanda hadn't been able to find her receipt so i was a little worried that she wouldn't be reimbursed, but i made sure that i had her card (from when i had seen her on saturday) and she sent a photo of the transaction on her bank account, which is how the salesperson found the sale in their system. it was interesting - she looked up the date and the amount in the ikea computer and was able to give a full refund. (cons and pros of computer usage!)
 

finally we were able to get our coffee and cinnamon buns . . we had to get the buns downstairs and bring them up to the cafeteria (only full meals were sold upstairs).
 

their pastries are wonderfully cinnamon-y.

reading his book, taking paris, about world war ii.

greg's way of testing the mattress . . ! (i simply bounced on all the beds . . )

 

 

collecting the black out blinds for chanda and the mattress we had decided on for us.

we stopped in bushwick to drop off chanda's blinds and 2 quart pot and steamer i had picked out for her. i got to go upstairs and say hi to pluto who had been napping on her roommate's bed. it was good to give his little furry head a pat and a kiss (though i don't think he really cared - he jumped down to beg for treats along with melvin.)

so it's supposed to be fully inflated by wednesday.

sunday

after church this morning, greg and i drove to ikea to look at sofas for the house . .

we would like to get a sleeper sofa. this one was interesting, but i think we'll go with something more traditional.

this one folds down like a futon. it's too bad the store had it on a platform so we couldn't sit on it . . it also looks quite worn i think!

the ikea store was rather busy and filled with too many people, so we didn't wander around like we usually do (which is a good thing - there are too many tempting items to buy). since we were in brooklyn, in red hook, i suggested we visit mr. wonton in park slope and get chinese food to take home for dinner. we took the route past mazzola's bakery and i hopped out to get cannoli

my favorite cannoli . . their filling isn't too sweet and is very creamy.

 

mazzola's is located on union street and to get to mr. wonton we just continued east towards park slope. after crossing the canal, i wistfully began picking out the familiar shops that we used to pass when we lived in the neighborhood: the casket company (i've always been amused at this), the djembe store and our old auto repair shop (which has since moved). coming up to the intersection of fourth avenue with union, we noticed one particular person who wasn't busily walking across with everyone else. he stood in the center, directly in front of our car. though the light was green, we had to stop. i noticed he held a heavy looking stick in his left hand and i glanced in the side view mirror to see how many cars were behind us, wondering if they would beep which might help get this person to move, but he just leaned into the hood of the car, staring at greg (who was driving) and yelling "why'd you do it" or something like that. it was now that i realized that the stick was a metal pipe and i could feel myself flipping into fight or flight mode . . which i guess was all fight as i didn't move, but simply tensed up . . i remember feeling my brain whirring busily, trying to figure out this situation. meanwhile, greg moved the car into park and the light turned red. the guy moved around to greg's door and . . opened it! yelling the whole time. greg made a motion to pull it shut again, but i think it just swung wider. someone on the sidewalk shouted, "get away from that car," and suddenly there were two cops with guns drawn - except they weren't guns, they were black and yellow tasers. the guy had turned around at the shout and now began walking toward the officers - still yelling. there was a flash and he was down on the ground with the officers astride him, handcuffing him. greg closed his door, moved the car into drive, the light turned green . . and we drove away.

greg calls this adventure our one guy traffic delay. all i could say to him as we crossed fourth avenue and drove up union street, was . . well, you handled that well. it was all we talked about for the next few hours as we looked for a parking spot around the corner from mr. wonton and went in to order our food. oh! and as we drove up union street, two police cars flew by us with their lights flashing and their sirens going . . on their way to back up the officers we had just left. the guy must have threatened others before we even arrived on the scene and someone must have called 911. i guess. i'll be forever grateful to the person who shouted "get away from that car." it reminds me of the time i was walking along an extremely crowded fifth avenue sidewalk in the 1980's and almost stepped off the curb at 59th street into oncoming traffic. someone reached out their arm and stopped me. sometimes a guardian angel is only a whisper away.

just another day in new york city.

 

 

 

 

 

sunday's trip to ikea

 we visited ikea on a search for a bookcase . . 

 i like ikea's coffee and their lingonberry jam . . other than that, their food isn't really the best . . but i enjoy visiting the ikea in red hook. it has such a beautiful view and you can walk along the waterfront. they actually have a water taxi that brings people over from rockaway and manhattan. it's a great ride.

 we found a bookcase we liked in the showroom upstairs (where we wandered around in circles and greg tried to have me only look at bookcases, while i tried to look at everything) and finally headed down into the marketplace to pick it out . . 

 well, the color we had decided on wasn't in stock . . 

a very disappointed man . . 

 supposedly this bookcase was not in stock in any of the nearby ikeas . . we could only order it from the warehouse for a delivery charge of $60.

 we went home . . we didn't order it . . 

instead we walked to the hardware store again to get a different lock (we had tried this on wednesday), hoping it would fit, but it didn't. it was a bust. with two failed attempts we requested a refund. it was not a successful day in terms of house maintenance and upkeep and organization.

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here's the link for our trip to connecticut on thursday . .

looking for a rug

morgana and greg pulled up the rug in the second bedroom yesterday (while i watched the olympic rhythmic gymnastic competition on the computer) and today we drove to ikea to search for a replacement.

 red hook community garden as seen from ikea's cafeteria.

 school bus parking with manhattan in the background.

 eating ikea's cheap breakfast . . (the coffee was actually very good).

and then morgana and i wandered around ikea, getting very distracted and lost, until we found our way to the check out with our three small purchases: a roller to roll off pet hair from clothing, a set of kitchen towels on sale for $2.99, and a package of zip lock bags in two different sizes. however, when the cashier handed me the receipt i noticed that the towels rang up as $7.99. it was the set of orange towels that were on sale, not the blue. stores do this often where their sale information is not clear and  you end up buying something you don't want (i get very annoyed about this). i handed the receipt and the towels back to her and requested a refund. she then had to put in a call to the manager and we ended up waiting fifteen minutes for the refund to go through; not just because there were already problems on other cashier lines, but because the computer my cashier was at decided to freeze up. it just felt so ridiculous and i won't be returning very soon to ikea.

 back at home base . . 

 where a storm had descended on manhattan.

it was a hot day and we had an appropriate summer meal: cole slaw and burgers.

chanda had a little rainstorm upstate before they drove home: