Roundup

I spent yesterday rounding up some furniture and transportation items, including my shiny new car. It is actually four years old, but it has less than 15,000 miles on it (cars owned by senior citizens rock!). I also now have two hand-painted chests which will be very fine end tables for my new couch, a rather majestic screen to divide living and dining areas, and a set of china. I do not have any new wall decorations, as I got into a disagreement on aesthetics with the older members of my family, who cannot understand why I would rather have the many museum prints I have collected in my travels framed and displayed than have a little coffee-colored 11x17 picture of some deer, or photos of paintings I have never seen by people I do not know. It's difficult to explain to grandparents that one prefers giant reproductions of Modigliani nudes to poor shadows of Friedrich nature scenes.