The Chair (Sort of OT, but it gets there)

My 94-year-old mother moved into a long-term care facility a few months ago.
She realizes she needs the help, and is very contented to stay there for the
rest of her life. My sister, who lives near where she is in Alaska, has
been helping her dispose of things she doesn't have room for in her new
home.

Many years ago, I had expressed a wish that she leave me her grandmother's
wooden rocking chair. She asked my sister to ship it to me. Since they
live in a small Alaska town, sis couldn't just call somebody to pick it up.
She and her husband had to pack it and take it to the nearby dock for
shipping. After two or three weeks, when it still hadn't arrived, she
called the company. Nobody there knew what she was talking about. It took
a couple more weeks to get hold of somebody who found the chair. They
assured her that it would be put on a ship the next day. Sis asked why it
had taken so long to ship it. The woman snapped, "It's only been four
days!" Sis told her to look at the original order again, as "It's been *a
month* and four days."

Last week I got a call from someone who wanted to set a date for delivery.
I had to turn down two dates because of previous plans, but eventually we
settled on yesterday afternoon. It was delivered within the time frame
promised, and the delivery man carried the box into the living room for me,
although he said he wasn't supposed to go in the house. He asked if I had
somebody to help me unpack it. I told him yes, because I had the feeling he
was going to offer to do it, and I didn't want to get him into trouble.

It took me a long time to get it out of the gigantic box, and even longer to
peel off all the tape, packing paper and the blanket they had wrapped it in.
Both the chair and the seat cushion survived the trip nicely, so I set it up
in the living room, complete with cushion, and lugged the box and packing
outside.

Now comes the on topic part. Both Lindy and Nanki-Poo were very suspicious
of the box in the living room. They were terrified when I began cutting it
open and removing tape and packing. They stayed completely out of the room,
and if I happened to come toward them with an armload of packing to dump,
they ran.

My gardener is due this afternoon, and trash pickup is tomorrow morning. I
put the remains of the large box in the driveway, hoping I can get the
gardener to cut it into pieces that will fit in the recycle bin. The cats
totally panicked when I was carrying the box pieces out, but once I was back
in the house, they were fascinated and investigated it thoroughly. I was
out yesterday evening, so I didn't see them discover or investigate the
chair.

This morning when I got up and went out to the living room, I found
Nanki-Poo curled up on the seat cushion of the chair, looking very much at
home. He stayed there until almost 2 PM. By 4:00 he was back, and he's
still there. I guess he approves, now that the noise and mess are out of
the way.

Joy

Joy wrote:

After two or three weeks, when it still hadn't arrived, she
called the company. Nobody there knew what she was talking about. It took
a couple more weeks to get hold of somebody who found the chair. They
assured her that it would be put on a ship the next day. Sis asked why it
had taken so long to ship it. The woman snapped, "It's only been four
days!" Sis told her to look at the original order again, as "It's been *a
month* and four days."

I would love to know what the woman said to that! And I'd also love
to know what happened in the meantime - did the chair take a little
detour through another dimension?

Now comes the on topic part. Both Lindy and Nanki-Poo were very suspicious
of the box in the living room. They were terrified when I began cutting it
open and removing tape and packing. They stayed completely out of the room,
and if I happened to come toward them with an armload of packing to dump,
they ran.

You mean they weren't even interested in a *box*?

This morning when I got up and went out to the living room, I found
Nanki-Poo curled up on the seat cushion of the chair, looking very much at
home. He stayed there until almost 2 PM. By 4:00 he was back, and he's
still there. I guess he approves, now that the noise and mess are out of
the way.

Aw... the chair is now officially yours! Oops, er, I mean *his*.

Joyce

wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

After two or three weeks, when it still hadn't arrived, she
called the company. Nobody there knew what she was talking about. It
took
a couple more weeks to get hold of somebody who found the chair. They
assured her that it would be put on a ship the next day. Sis asked why
it
had taken so long to ship it. The woman snapped, "It's only been four
days!" Sis told her to look at the original order again, as "It's been
*a
month* and four days."

I would love to know what the woman said to that! And I'd also love
to know what happened in the meantime - did the chair take a little
detour through another dimension?

I think the woman excused herself, did some checking, and then apologized,
again assuring my sister that it would be shipped the next day.

Now comes the on topic part. Both Lindy and Nanki-Poo were very
suspicious
of the box in the living room. They were terrified when I began cutting
it
open and removing tape and packing. They stayed completely out of the
room,
and if I happened to come toward them with an armload of packing to
dump,
they ran.

You mean they weren't even interested in a *box*?

For some reason, the closed up box scared them. Then, when I started
opening it, I had to rip off a lot of tape, and pull the two sections apart.
I didn't quit until I was finished. If I had, they might have checked it
out at some stage.

This morning when I got up and went out to the living room, I found
Nanki-Poo curled up on the seat cushion of the chair, looking very much
at
home. He stayed there until almost 2 PM. By 4:00 he was back, and he's
still there. I guess he approves, now that the noise and mess are out
of
the way.

Aw... the chair is now officially yours! Oops, er, I mean *his*.

Joyce

LOL! Right. It's at home, anyway.

Joy

Joy wrote:

This morning when I got up and went out to the living room, I found
Nanki-Poo curled up on the seat cushion of the chair, looking very much at
home. He stayed there until almost 2 PM. By 4:00 he was back, and he's
still there. I guess he approves, now that the noise and mess are out of
the way.

LOL. So good of you to get Nanki-Poo such a nice chair. But don't your
cats like boxes? Mine would have been more interested in the box than
the contents.

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.
Stories and pics at http://koti.welho.com/mkurten/
Pics at http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/frankiennikki/
and http://community.webshots.com/user/frankiennikki

Happy to hear that the chair arrived safely and that Nanki Poo "approves".

My own "box story" isn't as drawn out as yours. We had Mistletoe 2-3
months when she "went missing". My son had bought a 32" Sony WEGA TV
which came in a box that was about 3.5 feet tall. Since he knew he
would be moving and taking it with him, he put the box downstairs in the
big room (where the junk lives). He closed the box flaps and didn't
think any more about it.

Along came Mistletoe the Explorer who jumped over on the closed box top.
That didn't quite satisfy her curiosity so she scratched at the box
top until one of the flaps came up. She must have poked her head in far
enough to overbalance herself and fall in.

A bit later, I was at the computer in the big room and I heard a "Meow?"
I didn't think too much of it and shifted my focus back to the
computer (RPCA, of course!). In a couple of minutes I heard
scratch-scratch-scratch. I looked around but didn't see where it was
coming from. Fast-forward over about 3 repeats of the above. I finally
heard the scratching from the general direction of the TV box. I walked
over and lifted one of the flaps. M-E-E-O-W-W-W!

Needless to say, I opened the box and got "her Missiness" out. I
cuddled with her for a minute or so while she purred loudly. I put her
down and she shot up the stairs to get away from "the box that ate her".


--
Sam, closely supervised by Mistletoe

"Joy" wrote in message
. ..

This morning when I got up and went out to the living room, I found
Nanki-Poo curled up on the seat cushion of the chair, looking very much at
home. He stayed there until almost 2 PM. By 4:00 he was back, and he's
still there. I guess he approves, now that the noise and mess are out of
the way.

Joy

The question you need to be asking is whether Nanki-Poo loves the chair
because he's curled up on the spirit lap of your great great grandmother. Do
you know if she was the type to sit down and rock a cat to sleep?

Congratulations on the chair. I have a wooden rocker that belonged to my
great aunt and then another one that my mother used to rock all of us to
sleep. The cats love both of them.

Julie

"Julie Cook" wrote in
:

The question you need to be asking is whether Nanki-Poo loves the
chair because he's curled up on the spirit lap of your great great
grandmother. Do you know if she was the type to sit down and rock a
cat to sleep?


That's just what I was thinking.

Chak

--
This world taught woman nothing skillful and then said her work was
valueless. It permitted her no opinions and said she did not know how to
think. It forbade her to speak in public, and said the sex had no
orators.
-Carrie Chapman Catt, 19th century suffragist

"Marina" wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

This morning when I got up and went out to the living room, I found
Nanki-Poo curled up on the seat cushion of the chair, looking very much
at home. He stayed there until almost 2 PM. By 4:00 he was back, and
he's still there. I guess he approves, now that the noise and mess are
out of the way.

LOL. So good of you to get Nanki-Poo such a nice chair. But don't your
cats like boxes? Mine would have been more interested in the box than the
contents.

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban. In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.

That was what I expected. Probably their lack of interest in the box while
it was in the house had to do with the fact that a *strange man* carried it
in and put it down there. Quite soon after that, probably before they had
time to recover from the shock, I began attacking it. I was wielding a
knife and scissors, and doing a lot of pulling off tape, which made a
ripping sound. Both of them, but especially Nanki, seem to freak out if I'm
carrying something other than food or a book, and I was going back and forth
taking packing out to put in the trash and so on. I finally pulled the box
apart, putting it partly on one side. In other words, there was a lot of
activity and noise going on around that box. They did show some interest,
although not as much as I would have expected, once it was outside. I was
extremely surprised by Nanki's complete acceptance of the chair, not to
mention his staking a claim to it.

Joy

"Sam" wrote in message
...
Happy to hear that the chair arrived safely and that Nanki Poo "approves".

My own "box story" isn't as drawn out as yours. We had Mistletoe 2-3
months when she "went missing". My son had bought a 32" Sony WEGA TV
which came in a box that was about 3.5 feet tall. Since he knew he would
be moving and taking it with him, he put the box downstairs in the big
room (where the junk lives). He closed the box flaps and didn't think any
more about it.

Along came Mistletoe the Explorer who jumped over on the closed box top.
That didn't quite satisfy her curiosity so she scratched at the box top
until one of the flaps came up. She must have poked her head in far
enough to overbalance herself and fall in.

A bit later, I was at the computer in the big room and I heard a "Meow?" I
didn't think too much of it and shifted my focus back to the computer
(RPCA, of course!). In a couple of minutes I heard
scratch-scratch-scratch. I looked around but didn't see where it was
coming from. Fast-forward over about 3 repeats of the above. I finally
heard the scratching from the general direction of the TV box. I walked
over and lifted one of the flaps. M-E-E-O-W-W-W!

Needless to say, I opened the box and got "her Missiness" out. I cuddled
with her for a minute or so while she purred loudly. I put her down and
she shot up the stairs to get away from "the box that ate her".


--
Sam, closely supervised by Mistletoe

LOL!

Joy

"Julie Cook" wrote in message
. ..

"Joy" wrote in message
. ..

This morning when I got up and went out to the living room, I found
Nanki-Poo curled up on the seat cushion of the chair, looking very much
at home. He stayed there until almost 2 PM. By 4:00 he was back, and
he's still there. I guess he approves, now that the noise and mess are
out of the way.

Joy

The question you need to be asking is whether Nanki-Poo loves the chair
because he's curled up on the spirit lap of your great great grandmother.
Do you know if she was the type to sit down and rock a cat to sleep?

As far as I know, she never had a cat. I guess she does now. ;-)

Congratulations on the chair. I have a wooden rocker that belonged to my
great aunt and then another one that my mother used to rock all of us to
sleep. The cats love both of them.

Julie

Thank you. It's really special, and I would be very happy to have it even
if Nanki didn't love it so much.

Joy