At 9am I took renter ship of the condo and basked in the subtle details of the art painted or permanently mounted on the wall by the owner, an artist. She even put artistic little painted dots along the edge of all the patio steps for safety reasons. I love how she mounted colorful plates on the fences right in the important focal areas. How lucky am I to rent from a great artist? Very lucky.
Once my sister, Blair, took me back to her place, she informed me that my skinny-legged jeans were unacceptable and that I needed new clothes. She's always going to be my fashion police even when I'm 80! lol She had me try on a few of her clothes, but I eventually pulled out an outfit from my now reachable suitcase. Fortunately, she was appeased by my Anthropology outfit, and then we could go shopping for a sofa bed for my family room.
I don't buy things often, but when I do I buy expensive items. High quality items typically last decades and if you think in terms of price per year, my expensive furniture is less expensive than cheap furniture that lasts 5-10 years. When buying furniture, I also buy neutral, timeless couches and use colorful pillows and throws to add life and current style.
Blair explained as we entered the first high-end furniture store that you should buy a neutral couch and a textured chair for style, as well as do the colorful pillow strategy. She went to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco for a year, so I'm listening to her interior design ideas very closely. We did find a fabulous sofa bed on sale. I guess during tax time the furniture store business gets really slow, so it's a good time to buy.
We did find the same couch manufacturer, American Leather, at a different, less designer, high-end furniture store and it was more expensive! I know where I'm getting my sofa bed. Then we headed to cheaper furniture stores. I could see the seams of the cheaper couches waving and the pillows weren't as snugly fit.
What I couldn't see is the construction of the cheaper sofa beds. I know that my Lazyboy furniture for my former family room had a lot of mechanical issues with the recliners over time. The leather on some of the furniture wore to a different color, as well. The move gave me a great excuse to get rid of it.
Since we were out near Stanford Ranch we stopped by RC Willey to see their couches. We found none of similar quality, so wandered over to the appliance section to look at vacuum cleaners. My Kirby vacuum is about 17 years old and is too heavy to lug up stairs. Blair has a Dyson and raved about it. The one appliance salesperson who was knowledgeable about the vacuum cleaners was called over to help us.
He did a brief sales pitch and showed us the two ball roller Dysons and had us try one. I vacuumed. It was quite maneuverable with the ball roller. Then I pulled the hose section out to see if it'd reach down the stairs. It was a little short. My Kirby has an extra long hose for the stairs, so I may just use that from the bottom floor.
When I couldn't get the hose back in, I became annoyed that the salesperson had taken a phone call once we began testing the vacuum. Another salesperson stood next to me, but didn't offer any help or advice about putting the handle and hose back onto the main arm of the vacuum. My sister got it on, but we didn't know what she did and unsuccessfully tried it again.
In frustration I put both my hands up and said to the salesman silently watching us, "He's got 2 seconds to get off the phone and get over here or he's lost the sale." The guy immediately called our salesperson on a phone call, but nothing changed. We left the vacuum apart and walked out the store. In a time with so many people trying to get a job, I was aghast at such customer service. I still may buy a Dyson, just not from them.
As we drove home we focused on Bank of America's stock going up a dollar---happy thoughts. Then I headed over to my new neighborhood's TGIF party. Most of the neighbors had kids my age. Even so, they were a blast! Most were quite opinionated and brutally honest. It was Aspergers Heaven! I learned so much.
Then I met my neighbor, Dan. That's Dan Lungren, our US House Representative! I explained that I just moved here from San Diego, but I used to sell Camp Fire Mints to Lieutenant Governor Reiniche. He remembered Reiniche. That was comforting. I'm definitely back in Sacramento. Senators and Representatives everywhere!
His wife, Bobby, came and sat at my table and chatted. She is very delightful and made homemade lemon tarts that were quite good. In fact, all the appetisers that people brought were great. Apparently, the TGIF party only happens 6-8 times a year, so I was very lucky. The joke of the night was that it was my "Welcome" party. lol
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