Someone Might Call This Cozy

We have now spent nearly one month in our little, economical hotel room.  We have not kept each other awake — very often. We have not yet begun to climb the walls.  And we have definitely not gotten on each other's nerves.  That last statement is an absolute fact.  Amazing and completely true.  After nearly 30 years together, we can spend almost every waking (and non-waking) hour in one another's company and still really like each other.  This is especially surprising given the fact that Jerry, although possessing brilliant organizational management skills, is a slob, and I am a borderline anal-retentive neat freak.

EVERYTHING IN EASY REACH... BUT USUALLY UNDER SOMETHING ELSE.

We spent five hours at IKEA today.  First, we went to their "Picking Service" with our furniture list (a spreadsheet created by Jerry, the spreadsheet king).  For a fee, they are going through the warehouse for us and loading up everything we've selected. Next, we went to the cashier and paid for everything, including the fee for the picking service.  We then headed over to "Transport and Assembly." For a fee, they will assemble everything.  And for another fee, it will all be delivered later this week (no boxes or packaging left behind).  We made the arrangements and paid the fees.

I HAD MY OWN WALK-IN CLOSET.  NOW I SHARE 4 SHELVES AND 6 HANGERS.

We then had a very good and very unsettling lunch in IKEA's cafeteria restaurant surrounded by bickering adults and screaming children.  If all that — the shopping, the waiting in lines, the shelling out of a boatload of money, the screaming kids, and the bickering adults — hadn't been enough to give us both headaches and indigestion, we then headed back into the store with two shopping carts and we selected sheets, pillows, comforters, blankets, dishes, everyday wine glasses, coffee mugs, and lamps.  Our intention was to hop in a cab with all those goods and take them back to the apartment — which still has no electricity and, therefore, no air conditioning.  We're still awaiting word on when our own stuff shipped from California will be delivered.

LUNCH.  SO MUCH LESS NOISY AND CHAOTIC IN THIS PHOTO.

The most stressful part of the day — other than eating lunch in the middle of an out-of-control daycare center — was buying the linens for the bedroom.  What weight duvet? Why are there so many different sizes of sheets and pillows? Where are the pillow cases for the size pillow we just selected?  Where are the pillows that fit the pillow cases that come with this set?  Is that a top sheet or a bottom sheet?  Does this set come with a duvet cover or a covered duvet?  Should we just buy separates?  What are the measurements of the flat sheet that goes with this fitted sheet?

JERRY'S "OFFICE" AND THE "KITCHEN" AND THE "DEN" AND THE "BEDROOM."

We were so exhausted by the time we finished shopping for linens and then lamps that we could no longer cope with the thought of hauling everything into a taxi and then into a hot apartment.  So we arranged — for another fee — to have those two cartloads delivered tomorrow morning.  We then took a taxi back to the hotel.  As we passed the other shoppers — screaming kids, bickering adults — Jerry commented that if our relationship could survive this, it could survive anything.  But, I already knew that.

MY "OFFICE" (ACTUALLY MY CHARGING STATION).  MY OFFICE IS MY LAP!