I was unable to get into the doctor this morning, which means I will have to wait until Friday morning. Happily, at some point in today’s running around a channel appears to have opened in the wax, and now I can hear again. I will continue home irrigation, an odious and messy business, in the hopes of being done with it before then.

Last weekend Viv and I were wandering about deepest Ballard, when we came across a small secretary desk, about two feet by one foot, that we immediately realized would fit well in our living room and displace one of the rickety 1950s TV trays that Viv has been employing a a computer and work desk. Unfortunately, the shop owner was unable to meet our price expectations and so we did not come away with the piece.

Today, as we enjoyed the splendors of intracity traffic in Seattle on the first day of boating season, we passed by a gimcrack shop we’d never ventured into. I told Viv to pull over, and once parked we explored the place. Nearly immediately Viv found a matched table and chair set, rather plainer but probably older than the other one, for well under half the price that we’d been offered at the other place. The tiny chair was quite rickety and not well suited to day-to-day use.

Around a corner in the shop, we found another old chair, this with a home-made cushion that matched one on the small side chair that came with the table. Asking, we learned that the three pieces of furniture all originated in the same home. We asked about purchasing them as a unit, and the shop’s owner extended an extremely reasonable offer we were pleased to agree to. A bit of puzzle-building later, we we had them in the car, and as I write, Viv is seated at the sturdy chair, computer on desk.

Interestingly, the sturdy chair was made in Aurora, Indiana, at the Cochran Chair Company; Aurora is just down the road from Lawrenceburg, the home of several friends of mine from Bloomington, including Matt Uhlmann, Bill Weaver, and John Terrill.