Recalcitrant Furniture

It was a very nice coffee table at one time.

Carved wood, lots of glass, it looked nice in the library which is a symphony of blue and brown for the most part.

Problem was, it was big. Worse problem was, it had a bum leg.

Well, it started with one bum leg. Every once in so often, Sweetie or one of the kids would bump into it, and the leg would fall out from under, and the consternation was loud in the land as I would run in there to grab it, jam the leg back in, and clean up whatever fell off of it.

Eventually it happened so often that another leg went bad. Then, when it got knocked into, we would sometimes hear the tinkle of glass along with the wailing and yelling. First one small piece broke, and I put a mirror over it, because beveled glass is too expensive to replace. It looked fine, especially with the globe on top, reflecting beautifully.

Then another piece cracked. Later another broke. Finally, yesterday, the longest piece of glass ended up in half, and I called "Uncle!"

Bigger Girl picked up the broken pieces, and I grabbed all the whole plates of glass and set them aside. Then Little Girl and I hauled that recalcitrant piece of furniture to the curb, I threw the broken legs on it, and set the glass out with it.

Good-bye coffee table. You were useful while you lasted, but I am not sorry to see you go.


Today is:

Awa Dance Festival -- Tokushima, Japan

Grouse Day/Glorious Twelfth -- England; Scotland

Her Majesty the Queen's Birthday and National Mother's Day -- Thailand

International Youth Day

Lights of Isis, Ancient Egypt

National Toasted Almond Bar Day

Old Time Farm Day

Sewing Machine Day

St. Porcarius' Day

Vinyl Record Day

Zaraday a/k/a Zarathud's Day -- Discordianism


Birthdays Today:

Pete Sampras, 1971
Skip Caray, 1939
George Hamilton, 1939
William Goldman, 1931
John Derek, 1926
Jane Wyatt, 1912
Cantinflas, 1911
Joe Besser, 1907
Alfred Lunt, 1892
Cecil B. DeMille, 1881
Edith Hamilton, 1867
Katharine Lee Bates, 1859
"Diamond Jim" Brady, 1856
Robert Mills, 1781


Today in History:

The last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic Dynasty, Cleopatra VII Philopater, allegedly commits suicide by asp bite, BC30
A conjunction of Venus and Jupiter occurs which may have been what the Bible calls the Star of Bethlehem, 3
Crusaders win the Battle of Ascalon, 1099
Juan Ponce de Leon arrives in Puerto Rico, 1508
Chicago is founded, 1833
Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine, 1851
Asaph Hall discovers Deimos, 1877
The last quagga, a subspecies of zebra once plentiful in South Africa, dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, 1883
Hawai'i annexed by the US, 1898
William Somerset Maugham published "Of Human Bondage", 1915
Alleged date of the first Philadelphia Experiment test on United States Navy ship USS Eldridge, 1943
Echo I, the first communications satellite, is launched, 1960
The first free flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise, 1977
The IBM Personal Computer is released, 1981
Canada, Mexico, and the United States announce completion of negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 1992