What new bookcase, you ask? Why, the one we bought yesterday at IKEA, of course. But Mary Anne, you say, I thought you were just going over to help hang some pictures. Ah yes, I reply, that is what I believed as well, but it was all part of Mirna's dastardly plot to abscond with me in her car and coerce me into navigating us to IKEA, where we spent four hours in a rapturous Swedish haze, drugged into complacence by meatballs and lingonberries and apple cake -- oh, that is time that I shall not see again, my darlings, no, not soon, not ever.
The cute little plant greenhouse I bought there is helping to console me for this fact, though. Plus the spoonrest. Plus the mortar and pestle, which we've needed (and lacked) forever. Plus the goofy brass chest that we had absolutely no need for whatsoever, and its matching mirrored wall sconce. Plus the adorable ladybug umbrella for my two-and-a-half-year-old cousin Ashwini from Boston, whose dad was conveniently at my aunt's house yesterday for complicated reasons, where we retired after we escaped the wiles of IKEA, for rice and curry and yummy curry-filled fried rolls.