Saturday, September 6, 2014

Changes

What’s better than an old Queen-sized bed?

A brand-new Queen-sized bed, of course!

And what’s even better than a brand-new Queen-sized bed?

I’ll tell you what is even better than a brand-new Queen-sized bed.

A brand-new King-sized bed, that’s what.

So we had one delivered yesterday!

The only problem is that in addition to buying a brand-new King-sized bed we also had to buy a brand-new King-sized mattress and a brand-new King-sized mattress cover and brand-new King-sized sheets and pillow cases and a brand-new King-sized bedspread with multiple matching and contrasting pillows, and brand-new matching curtains and valences as well.

Here is the new bed (the curtains had not yet been put up) :


As a result, I am currently suffering from that old Italian disease, mafunzalo. If I wanted to go somewhere on an exotic vacation like, say, the Canary Islands, I would have to swim to get there.

When your funzalo, remember what Dolly Levi’s suitor, Horace Van Der Gelder, said in Hello, Dolly!: “Money is like manure; it doesn’t do any good unless you spread it around.”

[Editor’s note. Dolly’s late husband, Ephraim Levi, also used to say that very thing, and when Horace said it, Dolly knew it was a sign that they should marry (Horace and Dolly I mean, not Horace and Ephraim) . But I digress. --RWP]

In other news, the eldest of our six grandchildren left last week for his first year in college about an hour and a half from home. He will be followed in each of the next five years, not necessarily to the same college, by our remaining grandchildren until, finally, in 2020, there will be no more grandchildren of ours leaving for college.

Mrs. RWP has decided to observe this great migration by crocheting one afghan a year using the new school colors of each grandchild. She is about halfway through the first one at present. Here is a close-up view of the left half of the work in progress (the right half is a mirror image of the left half) :


As Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say on Saturday Night Live, “It’s always something.”


19 comments:

  1. Obviously the child is going to UGA. Wouldn't Orange and White be better?????

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  2. Mary Z., how are things in Chattanooga (and Knoxville)? Actually, the child (6'3") is not going to UGA (for readers in other parts of the world, that's the University of Georgia). He is attending Lagrange College in Lagrange, Georgia, where the colors are indeed red and black, but the school mascot is the Panther, not the Bulldog! His mama, however, grew up in Tennessee and attended East Tennessee State in Johnson City for two years before transferring to and graduating from UGA. You will be happy to know that his Tennessee grandparents are orange and white through and through!

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  3. RWP, all good in this part of the state, so far. We'll see how it goes through football and basketball seasons. 8^)

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  4. There's something worrisomely Freudian about putting a picture of your new bed on the same post that you put a picture of Rosanne.

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  5. P.S. Why is it called UGA instead of UA? The University of Oregon is called UO, or the Ducks, or the Fighting Ducks, after all. When I moved here and heard that the UO team was the Ducks and the OSU team was the Beavers, I thought I was being kidded because all the teams I ever heard of were named after something ferocious, but I learned that I was wrong.

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  6. PSS. If the UO was named like the UGA, it would be the UOR, which sounds vaguely Communistic.

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  7. Snowbrush, your question about UGA vs. UA is puzzling because while Georgia might have been called UG it would never be called UA, which is the University of Alabama. Oddly enough, the University of Alabama, which is at Tuscaloosa, is not called UAT, but the University of Alabama at Birmingham is called UAB. AU, on the other hand, is Auburn University. UOR for Oregon would be good; I would never confuse it with UAR (the United Arab Republic). But Old Miss is Old Miss and there's nothing either of us can do about it.

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  8. This is a great, great bed.
    I'd need Sat Nav to find my way out.

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  9. What a nice tradition mrs RYP is starting. They'll treasure those rugs and keep them for many years ... Till college is just a memory.

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  10. You need to lie down on a big bed after all that! King size is luxury. We have a normal double but with a king size duvet so there's plenty to go round *laughs.

    Wonderful work on Mrs Rhymes part there, she's creating heirlooms as she crafts.

    My favourite quote from Horace is - "Eighty percent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in danger of contamination." - I love that, and quote it far too often.

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  11. Adrian, you made me laugh.

    Helsie, sweet comment but with a couple of small errors. It's Mrs. RWP (not RYP) and what we call afghans are blankets, not rugs!

    All Consuming/Michelle, It's right up there with "I don't know nothin' about birthin' babies" in my opinion.

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  12. If we wanted to put a King sized bed in our room, we'd have to rent a room stretcher first. And if the funzalo, that's too spendy.
    Mrs. RWP is a brave lady. She absolutely MUST continue once the first granchild receives an afghan or the others will grieve forever that X got a handmade afghan from Grandmere and they didn't.
    I know. I was my grandparents favorite......and they had 14 grandkids. :-)

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  13. Hilltophomesteader, Mrs. RWP absolutely agrees with you. She realized immediately that she (in your words) "MUST continue" because of the reason you stated, and so she has modified her plan. As none of us has any guarantee of living five more years (let alone five more minutes), her new plan is to make all six afghans one after another, without the year's time lapse, using each grandchild's current favorite colors rather than waiting to learn the colors of their college. She also said to tell you that after she is done with all six afghans she may need to put in a request for a seeing-eye dog because of all the close handwork required!

    As for me, I wouldn't be at all surprised if your grandparents told all their grandchildren the same thing!

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  14. Want to here IRONY? I've always wanted a king sized bed. Our dog made our queen sized bed feel like a twin. So...we got a king sized bed, our dog died, and since we each hug our side of the bed (Joe sleeps to the right, I sleep to the left) there's nothing but SPACE in the middle.

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  15. 1. We just got a new bed a week ago. We wanted to switch from a Q to a K, but decided that having to buy all new sheets etc., was not wise at this time. Funza-ohsolow.
    2. When I was a senior in high school, we did a production of Hello, Dolly! Let me know if you want me to sing you a little something.
    3. I love to crochet, but the only pattern I know is the one that your lovely wife is doing.
    4. My oldest will be entering college next year, and I'm just hoping she'll stay under our roof another few years! She has, on the foot of her bed, a blanket I crocheted, in all the colors of the rainbow.
    To sum up: It's a pleasure being in sync with you. :)

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  16. lotta joy, that must have been one big dog! Our 16-lb. doggie died about a year ago; he always started out at the foot of the bed but ended up on my pillow above my head by morning.

    LightExpectations, perhaps it is because of the full moon. I have no idea what that means.

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  17. Congratulations on your lovely new gigantic bed. I love the bedspread colours very much.

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  18. Kate, thank you. We finally got the new curtains and valences put up as well. Dusty blue and pale gold make us happy. I'm sure we will eventually get used to it all, but currently we think we sleep in a mini-mansion.

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  19. "But Old Miss is Old Miss and there's nothing either of us can do about it."

    But do they still wave Confederate flags at Ole Miss games? I know there were complaints, but I never knew how it turned out. I've also heard that there are complaints about Confederate statues in public places. In regard to the latter, I would disagree. It's one thing to object to the continuation of the chief symbol of racism, but quite another to object to historic statues in commemoration of those whom, however misguided, died for a cause that they thought was right, and there was more at stake than slavery.

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone...