I’ve had a request for pictures of the dogs. This is not a good picture, but they won’t cooperate. 7

The boxes and furniture situation is getting better.

About an hour before my husband got home yesterday we all decided that we had better do something about the extra sofa before he got in.

As #1 daughter put it, “Daddy will freak.”

So she and I and #1 son attempted to put it into his bedroom.

The key to envisioning this process is to remember that all three of us are auditory processors. You know those questions on IQ tests where you look at a shape and say which of the four other shapes is the back of it? Not our strong point. This means that there was a lot of talking.

“We should rotate it.”
“What are you trying to do?”
“We should lay it down and try to put one end of it into the other bedroom and move it back and forth like tacking in a sailboat.”

Then we would all grunt and lift and attempt to make the couch do things which would only have been possible if it had been flexible rather than a wood and metal sofa bed.

Then we would give up and discuss it some more.

Meanwhile, back at the computer, I was engaged in discussions about how many SKUs my client could have for her shopping cart, and at what price, and why I hadn’t received payment, and whether or not another client could get her domain transferred.

I’d huff and puff and lift the sofa and move it around bootlessly for a while, and then Mick Jagger would say I’d got some letters and I’d sprint to the computer to continue whichever conversation it was in aid of, and then I’d go back and rejoin the sofa in the hallway.

My husband came home in the middle of this.

When he sees those shapes on IQ tests, he can readily tell which of the other shapes is the same. He can tell you exactly why each of the others is not the same.

He took the door off the bedroom and the feet off the sofa, had us get it into place, and rotated it right into the  room.

The hard part was when we couldn’t see him, because he never discusses these things. To him, it is so obvious how shapes fit into other shapes that he figures everyone can see it.

So the rest of us were on one side of the upended sofa and couldn’t even see him on the other side and he would 7say “Push!” and we would say, “Push what? Where? In what direction?” and there would be complete silence.

He wouldn’t dignify such a silly question with an answer.

And we would look at one another helplessly and start pushing randomly till Daddy yelled at us.

But it was all done pretty quickly. Then he got inspired and moved more furniture around. He brought a file cabinet out next to the work computer, and stuck the hope chest behind the recliner so the the recliner is now sitting next to the love seat as though it were in a store rather than a living room. The truth is, my husband likes furniture to be lined up neatly around the perimeter of a room. Like a bus waiting room.

I like it to be at angles.

He must have felt that this was his chance.