Tower of Terror

It was about this time a year ago that Nonni moved back into our house while we, along with the doctors, tried to figure out what was going on with her health. Well, one brain/skull/spinal surgery later (last August), she's good as new--at least as good as she's going to get, and flew out of the nest again a few weeks ago.

When she came to live with us again, we had to do a little reconfiguring of the spaces in our house to give her a place to sleep and put her stuff. That meant that, among other things, my cookbook collection had to be incorporated into the rest of the house--somewhere. The only place that gigantamongous book case would fit was in the hall, which really wasn't a bad solution. Until we found out that the Beast had an appetite. For cookbooks. For vegetarian cookbooks, to be precise. I know labs will eat anything, but this one really pushes his luck--and my patience!

For the past few months, in an effort to salvage the cookbook collection, the book case has been wrapped in lovely green plastic garden fencing, with the dining room chairs pushed up against it for insurance. Just a few weeks ago, I came home to find that the chairs had been moved, the fencing unraveled, and at least 20 cookbooks in various states of "chew" were strewn around the living room. Good thing Nonni moved out, because those cookbooks had to be moved back to safety. In an interim attempt to protect them, I moved them into the granddaughters' bedroom, since they don't come over that often until school is out. The size of the piles they made was a little bit frightening. Oh, and that box you see in the room? That's new ones I ordered and haven't even unpacked yet. They're keeping company with the pair of shoes I ordered from Zappo's right before they casted my foot, so I haven't even tried them on to see if they fit. Hope so, because I think I would be stretching even Zappo's generous return policy to try to send them back now!

Anyway, after a couple of good workouts at the gym, it was time to move the bookcase and replace the books. The Husband helped with part A, but wasn't really interested in part B. That's fine, because it was a chance for me to get acquainted with old friends. The only hard part was to keep working, and not sit down in the floor, thumbing through all the cookbooks. Since he had a work function, it was a good night for me to just have my goat cheese and arugula sandwich and move books. It was a lot of work, but I'm enjoying the end result.