right now i am stuck because i don't have a saw. on friday i went to buy one but the shop was out of what i had in mind, a small hobby saw. i literally butchered my lounge chairs, black leather numbers from an unknown era, disassembling, slicing into foam filling, cutting good bits of leather out to keep... (not good when i'm supposed to get rid of things!) now i need to cut down the frames so i can bin them. they're well built, i can tell ya.
there was a sofa, too, and they all first belonged to my grandparents. my grandma used to push the chairs together, facing each other, to make a playpen/bed/boat for me and my cousin when we were little. tuesday was popcorn and cartoons day. at some point the seating arrangement moved to our house. then we got a new (vintage) sofa but i ended up with the chairs. they were big and boxy and quite ugly but so comfortable and, well... understandably i had grown fond of them over the years.
their time had come, though. generations of cat claws and occasional pee and vomit had done the leather in. and they were just too heavy for me to move or lift for vacuuming. and have i mentioned the lack of space? so i decided the humane way would be to put them down myself. i unscrewed countless screws and discovered a long-lost ruler, a glass pin needle with a yellow head, and a mini band-aid in its wrapper in one. nothing but dog hair in the other. the dog being amatso, my grandparents' great dane who passed in the late eighties. he was big and drooly, with floppy ears and sad eyes and a tail like a whip. his sidekick was a coyote-like mutt called ressu. i walked them with my grandad often, before school. i had forgotten that, but now i can feel the leather leash in my hand and both of their furs, one coarsely fluffy, the other short and smooth...
oh, the memories furniture can hold... needless to say i'm not just plain chucking the chairs. in addition to the buttons and bits of leather and foam (good quality, needful things) i'm keeping the screws and corner bars, and bits of the board with nice unlaquered veneer because i still secretly hope to meet my carpenter who'll build me things, apparently. and i'm keeping the seat cushions, they just need reupholstering. but it's emotionally tasking to let go and i don't need this to drag on and on just because i can't get the last pieces apart. but my life comes with certain conditions and one is that every step must include a setback, especially when i'm doing something that already really challenges me.
so today i'm on the prawl for that saw, watch out.
