Phase I: The Chair
Like most families, I suspect, we had seating arrangements in my house. They shifted around some after I left home and my mom acquired various ailments, but we still had territory. In later years, Dad staked out one corner of the couch and occasionally the chair near the tv, while Mom took over the recliner near the window. As her mobility decreased, Mom's chair became a sort of command center in the living room. She had an organizer with her stationery, stamps, pencils, pens, address book, her calculator and checkbook. There's a phone on the table beside the chair, along with a lamp, a box of notepaper, a cup full of pens, and a powerstrip behind the chair. Handy stuff gradually accreted near the area over time: a box of tissues, a wastebasket, stacks of catalogs for handy phone ordering, stray slips of paper with various important numbers, her Bible study books.
By the time I went through her organizers, she had piles of those free labels charities send you and her own address lables. In the course of gathering up her checkbook receipts, I pretty much emptied out the organizer and dumped the blank slips of paper in it. Now I've taken over the chair, which is a comfortable place to work on my laptop and has a handy phone line nearby. So now the chair's surrounded by my stuff: cellphone, laptop, PDA, lip gloss, tea mug, hand lotion. Empty beer bottle. Tissues.
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