Out of the blue, Tim said, "Hey, what are you doing Thursday?"
I said, "Nothing that can't be moved around. Why?"
And he said, "Hallenbeck is doing an estate liquidation at the Oakview Tavern. I want you to go find something nice there and buy it."
The Oakview used to be the fine dining establishment in our town. It originally opened in the late 20s or early 30s. I'd never been there. Money was tight in my family growing up. Tim's a preacher's kid whose parents were pinched even tighter than mine.
I said, "Why?"
"Because I want something from there."
We like our furniture to have stories. The bedroom furniture upstairs is from the furniture company my grandfather worked at. In another bedroom there is a Victorian bedroom set with a matching marble top dresser. It's from the 1860s. The curio cabinet from the funeral home in Youngsville, the hoosier cabinet in the kitchen came from the Hull family who owned that funeral home before the present owners. The list goes on and on.
We have accumulated a lot of furniture and that is mostly my fault. I see beautiful furniture and I want it. My dream is to have a used furniture store. I even have a name for it: 'Begin Again'. I envision it as a place where people can come and buy good furniture inexpensively. It will never cease to amaze me the furniture people just get rid of for no reason other than they are tired of it. And for a pittance too. I think everyone deserves a pretty house, no matter whether they are starting over, or starting out.
It's just a dream I've always had.
But, as usual, I have wandered off topic. Back to the story at hand.
I reminded Tim that we are going to be downsizing. We will be building a house.
He said, "Just go and find us something from there." He thought. "Let's set a limit," and he gave me a number that made my eyes bug. He wasn't talking about a table cloth.
I said, "Tim. Why? What should I buy? I mean, what on earth do we NEED?" And he said, "You'll know it when you see it. Just go and look."
Today, they began advertising that sale on line. I clicked through the pictures and I saw it. I saw the thing that we absolutely would need for the new house, and I wanted it something awful. I clicked through the pictures and found a second thing that would be great to have. I began to feel that old familiar feeling.
While he was waiting for the roof to dry so that we could continue working on the garage, Tim had taken a walk to look for deer. He returned at exactly the right moment. From my perch on the sofa, I said, "Well, I found what we're going for at the Oakview."
He took off his boots and dropped into the rocking chair. "They've got pictures?!!" and he eagerly reached for my phone.
"Yep," I said, "and this is what I am going to try to get." I passed him my phone. He looked at it. "I knew that you'd find just the right thing!"
And we talked about the new kitchen and how that would go perfectly with everything we've already collected. He even found another piece to go with it that he thought I should try to get too. I studied it and agreed that it was a very practical. We would still be under our agreed upon limit.
I showed him the back up plan.
"That's very cool. I like that too." He studied it, and I could tell that he was getting excited too. He zoomed for a closer look. "There's a lot of different places that something like that would fit.
I am playing my cards close to my chest. I don't want to jinx it. Why don't you flip through the pictures and see if you can guess?
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