Yet Another Journal

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» Friday, April 19, 2019

How I Finally Defeated the Frog*

When I began working at CDC, the office was located in Buckhead (formerly the bar scene, now home to high-priced stores and condos), and we were living in Smyrna; it was an easy drive each day over surface streets (including the very pretty West Paces Ferry Avenue, which blooms beautifully in the spring and turns lovely colors in the fall in front of all the fancy homes) to work. In 1999 CDC moved us part and parcel out to Koger Office Park (later University Office Park). You could get there via surface streets, but it took two hours, so the quickest way was via the freeway.

It wasn't ever easy, but those first trips were halcyon compared to the later ones. Every morning it would take a little longer, but every evening it would take a lot longer. The commute weighed on me, not just the time it wasted, but the thought of getting involved in a horrific accident like the ones that showed up every night on television.

2007 brought relief: after a smaller telework test program, a larger one opened up and I became part of it. Once this was in process, James and I went to Ikea and bought a nice wooden desk, red, with a slide-out keyboard tray and wheels so it could be used in the living room and stored in the bedroom. (I never did use it as it was meant to be used; I always worked on my own computer, because trying to see that teeny-tiny laptop screen was a headache [the san serif fonts were bad enough on my monitor at work!]—this is why James bought a separate monitor to telework. Instead I had the all-in-one-printer that I was issued on the desk, and my supplies.) We later bought a beige version of this same desk for the library, and when the wheels broke on the red desk, swapped them out.

Since I've retired, I've wanted that desk out of the room. The damaged red desk got disposed of last year, when I added more bookcases to the library, so the beige desk couldn't go there. What I really wanted to do with the beige desk was to put it into my craft room to have a bigger surface to work on; I have a folding table in there, but the desk was bigger. But this hinged on getting rid of the old loveseat sleeper that ended up in the craft room as well; this loveseat what I used as a seat when I painted or made jewelry, or repaired items. But the seat was never high enough and too soft—perfect for a sofa, but not for a desk chair.

I have tried for months to get rid of it. It's still pretty sturdy, it's not stained, and the mattress is clean; no leaky kids, adults, or pets have ever been on it. Heck, as a sofa bed, I think it's been used twice, once during an ice storm for James to keep warm in next to the fireplace in the old house, and once when Jen and Meggan came to visit and Meg slept on it. One of our friends said they would take it, then realized they had no room for it. But no one wants sofa beds, not even Habitat for Humanity and places that re-home domestic violence victims. After trying two more places on Thursday morning, I finally said "screw it."

Now I'd been cleaning off the desk slowly for a while. As a horizontal surface, it collected every bit of extraneous detritus we could manage, and there was a shelf underneath to boot! The shelf alone had old plastic file folders, magazines, and other items in Ikea wicker baskets. On top there was another basket filled with bluetooth keyboards and power banks and backup drives, a clear lucite pen holder, and a case filled with office supplies I've bought over the years (I ended up buying most of my office supplies, even for going into work, since they never had anything but gel pens which smeared when I highlighted them—instead I bought Bic pens when they were on sale before school started). The keyboard tray had more office supplies: post-it notes and tags, notepaper, more pens, pushpins, paperclips.

The power supplies and backup drives and the folders got put in the bottom cubicle in the chifforobe after I tossed some items we didn't need any longer. I kept the supplies on the keyboard tray "as is," and put the case with the office supplies on the bottom shelf. Finally I was ready to move it.

I've basically repurposed the loveseat as a shelf for supplies. Half of the seat is still a seat, with a pillow, perhaps if I want to chill listening to my records (alas, not my tapes, because both tape players have suddenly died after working properly in December) or CDs. It's getting to the point that the whole deck is a dead loss except for the phonograph. The other half of the seat holds those wicker Ikea baskets with supplies in them: Scotch tape, blank cards, the case with my jewelry-making supplies and pliers. Before I had to turn around to get the tape, or the glue, or a Kleenex off the shelves in back of the loveseat. Now they are grab-and-go.

Before I put the desk in the room, I cleaned out all the junk that was piled up against the record cabinet with the stereo on top of it, and the speakers, and the bookcase all against the far wall. One container was magazine clippings from "BBC Food" that James had worked on and which got shoved into the craft room when we put the Christmas tree up. I put it back next to his chair. Then I put a bunch more cross-stitch magazines into the cabinets, so they didn't take up that space. I also tossed out a bunch of fabric paint. The tubes are dried up and anyway you can't buy iron-on patterns to embellish anymore in the craft stores, not like you could a dozen years ago. That trend has passed. The new office chair I'd ordered for James from Amazon Vine had arrived, so I could get rid of the tottery old kitchen chair that James' dad gave us, and put the new drafting chair James had been sitting on in there instead. Plus I got rid of a bunch of CD cases and rearranged a storage box of scrapbook paper. Once that space was clear and vacuumed, I moved the desk in; I put it perpendicular to the loveseat rather than parallel. The old table was folded up and put behind the door; I will still use it for painting as I'm not about to ruin the finish on the desk! (Either that or I will use a coupon to buy a big poster board at Michael's and cover the desk top with it.)

I tossed a big bunch of papers and a couple of old posters as well.

This was all accomplished on Thursday. Friday morning I got up and had to hustle, since my Three Hours of Meditation starts at noon on Good Friday.

In October 2017, knowing I was retiring in January, I got a child's toy chest from Amazon Vine. It has sat, on the short end of its box in the downstairs hallway, waiting for me to get the desk out of the bedroom. Now I got the vacuum cleaner and gave the space where the desk had been one last pass and then assembled the toy chest. It didn't take me long, even though I started by putting the back on backward and had to re-do it, and had a painful time putting on the lid supports because I had to balance on painful knees. It's a pretty chestnut color called "espresso," and now sits very demurely between the chifforobe and one of my Grandma's old kitchen chairs, which I use for putting shoes on. I left some pens and notepaper with it, so we can write notes without having to run to the craft room for supplies, but eventually I will have two square trays on the top instead (I bought them at JoAnn on Saturday night) holding the supplies for easy removal to get into the chest. Inside I plan to put extra bedding that won't fit into the blanket chest at the foot of the bed, which is chock full with the afghans my mother made for me. (I need to put them out, but don't know where.) I also need to get some cedar squares to put into it to keep the items smelling fresh.

This sounds like No Big Deal, but it has been a thorn in my side for eighteen months and I am so glad it is finally done! It was such a relief to mark this down as done in my journal tonight.

*Supposedly Mark Twain said “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” It was actually said in jest by a French writer and not by Twain, but since then motivational speakers have referred to distasteful tasks as "frogs."