We haven’t had as much snow this year here at our home near Castlegar as usual. So it was no real surprise when we got a bit of a dump of the white stuff last Friday. Waking up to a marshmallow world is not entirely a bad thing.
We also finally got that ‘comfy chair’ Irene and I have been wanting to add to my office space. There is a little story behind that as well.
The snow falls lightly…
We had about 20 centimetres of snow on Friday, January 31. This is a pretty ‘normal’ snowfall here: something we usually get four or five times each winter. But thus far we’ve only had two such winter wonderland moments this year. The grass has even peeped through the snow cover a few times.
Snowfall like this means a bit of work. I don’t hate it, although I generally resent any extra activity that disrupts my mostly sedentary lifestyle. But the white stuff does have a lovely effect across multiple senses: I appreciate it before and after the work.
I’m not really expecting much more in terms of major snowfalls this season, although that is definitely not guaranteed. Usually the weather starts to turn increasingly mild as February progresses. Nature is always full of surprises, though.
A comfy (and stylish!) chair…
My office space, which is basically a ‘suite’ over our garage, has been a mess since we moved to Castlegar. A dozen or so packed boxes, things scattered randomly where space allows, miscellaneous work-related artifacts… not what I envisioned at all.
In January I started putting a dent in the backlog of organization tasks I have for the space. But there was one irritant in the furnishings that Irene and I have been ‘discussing’ for quite some time: the (not so comfy) chair.
The discussion
When I set up my working office I allocated an empty space to ‘a future comfy and stylish chair’. I do this kind of thing on the regular: mentally allocate an empty space in the house, and express my intent to Irene regarding populating that space at a future date.
I try to express to my lovely wife a vision of what I want to put in that space which Irene may or may not agree with. Generally she remains silent on her opinion and just quietly nods.
Irene (and nature) abhors a vacuum
The problem comes when the time between the space being allocated and its ‘one day’ population spans a long interval. I defer populating the space until conditions like finances and other priorities around the house have been dealt with. Combined with my legendary procrastination this means years pass without my planned action occurring. The space remains empty, its promise unfulfilled.
This emptiness seems to aggravate Irene. At some point she will fill that space, often with something that offends my sensibilities. For example: there is a chair-sized hole in the room, and now it is filled by a chair. That chair is ugly, uncomfortable, and generally doesn’t fit the ‘vision’ I had, but yes: it is a chair.
Now, in my thinking at least, there is no space for the chair that I actually want. There is an unsatisfactory chair that needs to be removed if I ever want that ‘better’ chair- and we all know that objects at rest tend to stay at rest. Irene’s perspective is that she saw a problem and fixed it: a chair exists in the space once assigned for a future chair.
We’ve had a similar discussion in the past about my ‘planned’ pool table, space for which has been allocated three times now in two different homes. In the more general case: Irene sees an empty space allocated for ‘a thing’ and fills it with some other thing. Problem solved: empty spaces are for filling, and now it is filled.
Love finds a way
Generally, over the long term at least, Irene and I find compromises that work. Our love is not one from fairy tales: we disagree, sometimes with raised voices and the occasional cuss word. But we do work things out.
In the case of the my office space, the vacuum-filling chair was decidedly uncomfortable. Stiff upright back, no reclining, limited padding, a bit too narrow- all the downsides rolled into one piece of furniture. Irene may not be big on aesthetics, but comfort is a priority she can get behind. So when our finances aligned she agreed to allow me to replace the temporary ‘vacuum-filling’ chair with one I actually wanted.
There was still some friction in the process. The big issue was convincing Irene that my aesthetically pleasing choice was also comfortable. We had to see the thing in person, and she had to sit in it and grant approval. I found just such a chair and my love granted her consent.
The chair arrives- and the people rejoiced
The new chair arrived this past Saturday. I had to clear snow another time to facilitate the good gentlemen from Home Goods Furniture getting safely to the door after an additional four or five centimetres fell overnight.
Since its arrival the chair has received repeated kudos for its comfort from both Irene and our cat Samira who lives in my office space. The chair also makes me quite happy: it has the somewhat ‘rugged’ or ‘craftsman-like’ charm I was aiming for with real wood arms instead of the ‘poofy’ recliners you usually see.
For the curious, the chair is a La-Z-Boy ‘Eldorado’ model. I like leather and it is a surface that makes tidying up cat hair easier, so that’s the material we picked. It does not rock or swivel because Irene dislikes chairs that do those things. It has a high back to support our aging necks and is wide enough for my somewhat portly frame.
We also paid extra to have the undesirable chair removed so I don’t have to deal with it any more. Not only was there no disagreement on this point, Irene even suggested it herself. Good riddance to that space occupying bit of furniture irritation, I say.