IKEA Is Swedish for Crap

Yesterday was Sunday and I decided the lesser of two evils in terms of weekend days to go to IKEA in New Haven. Where to begin? First, the traffic was still pretty heavy even though it was a Sunday. Second, I hadn't slept well so never a good idea to go shopping when you're tired. Third, it's IKEA, the place that lures you into buying crap just because it's cheap. Oh and the kicker? It was almost lunch time, and what was once only a handful of food trucks has turned into a mini-Austin, Texas food truck fest.

I went in search of very specific items like a new duvet cover for the guest room to replace the old duvet cover that ripped in the washing machine. I also needed 2 new pillows and a bedspread for Will's room. Here's what I came home with:

• Duvet cover that doesn't match anything in the guest room (to be returned)
• Bedspread (keeping)
• 2 pillows (keeping, already in use)
• 2 storage boxes that look like mini-ottomans or stools (to be returned, what was I thinking with the white fabric?)
• 4 small plastic bins I was going to use to organize tools in the basement but they don't hold anything (to be returned)
• 3 tin planters that I was also going to use to organize nails/screws in the basement but we don't have any loose nails/screws so I don't need them (to be returned)
• Gray stain to stain my back porch (already stained, looks good)
• Set of three of the world's crappiest paint brushes to apply said stain (1 down, 2 to go)

When I finished staining the porch, Will took a look from inside the kitchen. He said, "I like it. It looks very rusty." Meaning rustic. #epicfail

I've decided IKEA should install a mandatory meditation room directly in front of check out as part of their corporate social responsibility. All IKEA shoppers would be forced to sit and stare at their carts and ask rhetorical questions of themselves like, "Do I really need this lucky bamboo? Am I actually going to follow these ridiculous anime assembly instructions?" No. At least 50% of the time, the answer will be no. 

The long and short of it is, I have to go all the way back to New Haven to return this stuff. On a positive note, it is IKEA so I can get a soft serve yogurt cone for a buck. 

NB: This is a picture of a small child wrapped in a bath mat that makes her look like a polar bear cub. This is what happens at IKEA people.

Can You Go Home Again?

Next week, we're going to Austin for a long weekend. I lived in Austin briefly as a child. My brother was born there. My dad went to the University of Texas. We're going to get the lay of the land, see what's what, check out the bats, etc. The last time I was in Texas was in September of 2010 I was in Arlington, Texas where I was born. I was there to attend my grandma's funeral. My brother and I made a very quick trip home to Texas.

We were living in Austin when my dad left grad school before finishing his PhD. With two little kids he needed a real job and he found one with IBM. I Been Moved. And we did. We moved a lot. At first, we moved in and around Texas. In a way, that was okay because we always had our grandparents living in Arlington. We went to Arlington all the time. I remember the towns on the route from Houston to Arlington. I knew we were getting closer when I heard those names - Ennis, Midlothian, Waxahachie.

Then we started moving out of Texas to Raleigh, North Carolina; San Marino, California; Westport, Connecticut; and finally Weston, Massachusetts. My last year of high school was in Weston, Massachusetts. That was a tough one. After high school, I went to Tulane University for college. I even moved during college - spending my junior year in Paris, France. Then I moved back to Weston, back to Westport, on to DC, back to New York, Raleigh again, and now I'm in Fairfield, Connecticut.

When you move as often as I do, you don't really have a place to call home. But I dream of a home. Some place I could go back to, eventually. Because I don't think Connecticut is it. I hope this isn't it. This can't be it, right?

My current home, Fairfield, is a cool little town.We're close enough to the City to take advantage of City life. We've got live music, some decent restaurants, a downtown and several beaches. I use the term beach loosely because here in Connecticut the beach is on Long Island Sound. It's rocky and the water shimmers with pollutants. But it's pretty from a distance. We lived here in Connecticut for almost 4 years when I was a kid. That was a long stretch for us. So I have many friends here, and I run into old friends all the time.

In September when I was in Arlington, I had this strange feeling about being in Texas. It felt familiar, like I think home must feel to people who lived somewhere all their lives. It was hot, the streets were wide and you could see everything because the land is so flat. Six Flags looked different, kind of small and run down. There are strip malls everywhere, not my favorite. But the feeling was familiar.

I was traveling with my brother Clay, the one from Austin. Clay spent the formative years of his life in Boston, going to high school there and then on to BU. Clay is not a patient person. I think this may be the result of the whole Boston thing. Angriest drivers on the planet, but that's another story.

In my haste, to keep up with Clay and get out out of the airport rental car place, I left my bag of travel sample beauty products in the rental car bathroom. When we got to our hotel, I made a quick trip to the nearby Walgreens to replace said samples. A lady working at the cosmetic counter asked me if I was going somewhere. I explained that I was traveling here to Arlington for my grandma's funeral. She came around the counter and gave me a hug. Let me tell you, that would never happen in Connecticut. Not in a million years. Not if we were being attacked by aliens. And for a minute, I sort of freaked. It was so strange to me that people could be so sweet.

But that's how people are in Texas. Not all of them. And they may not mean it. But they say hello to strangers, they hold the door, they let you pull your car out of your parking spot without blasting their horns. And that feels familiar.

At Granny's funeral, we had the usual assortment of distant relatives, some of them examples of the worst of what a poor education, lack of job options, and growing up in the South can do to a person. But there's my Uncle David in his Wrangler jeans and cowboy hat and boots. Also a product of Texas.

It's kind of a funny story about Uncle David. Uncle David is my mother's brother. My mother that my dad is no longer married to. But Uncle David showed up to his ex-brother-in-law's mother's funeral, drove a ways because he lives in Grandview now. He drove up because that's what decent people do. We were all happy to see him, including my dad.

At the last minute, he became a pall bearer. My dad has replaced all his major joints at this point so David took his place when his knee started to falter, and he carried my grandmother to her grave. After the funeral, we said our goodbye's. David got in his huge truck and drove off. And my brother and I got on a plane back to New York, and back to Connecticut.

I don't know where I'll end up, but I hope I find home some day. Maybe in Austin. We'll see.