Mental Note

I’ve just had the worst evening and I don’t think anyone will understand.

After attending a craft night the previous evening, I had been motivated to rearrange my scrapbooking supplies. I’d been keen on this for some time as I had been admiring photos of other “scrapping spaces” in many scrapbooking magazines. They all looked so cozy and neat, with their mason jars of ribbons and buttons and brads, shiny work tables, and shelves and shelves of paper. Suddenly, I needed to work toward such a space for myself. And if I couldn’t dash off to Canadian Tire to accessorize, well, I would make do with my shed full of wonders.

In the end, I didn’t transform the room completely that day. I managed to fill the mason jars and arrange a few stickers into page protectors, but I didn’t have a binder for the page protectors, and the perfect shelves hadn’t materialized in the shed, and so my interest waned. Staring at my mason jars, however, I sensed the familiar call. The urge to compartmentalize memories was beckoning. I’d been to the scrapbooking store AND Walmart the day before and therefore had new supplies and tiny photos. In particular I had a new set of chipboard cards that I fancied making into a momento of our recent cross-Canada trip. I gave into the urge and decided to set up at the dining room table.

I arranged bottles, boxes, books and containers until it looked quite nice, in my opinion. While standing back admiring my workspace, I remembered the half bottle of syrah under the kitchen sink, an anniversary gift from a new friend that hadn’t been completely consumed. Perfect. I poured a large glass and padded back out to the dining room table. Setting down the wine, I peeked at the clock and realized that it was almost nine and that back to back episodes of Sex and the City were about to begin. Since our “dining room” is actually cozied into a cubby type space in our living room, the television was right there. I grabbed the remote and settled in. As I perused the guide for the channel, I realized that I was too far back from the television and that if I didn’t move the table I was going to kink my neck. I put the remote down beside my wine and stood to move the table.

About this table. It is a prized possession my mother and I found at an antique store many years ago. It was square, which I loved because it was different, and oak, which I loved because it was oak, and it was carved which I just plain loved. As well, its legs were unique. Instead of having four separate legs, it had two sets of two legs that screwed into the bottom of the table top. It was heavy and different and oak and carved and unique and a steal because it was missing a leaf. I put it on layaway and a few months later acquired my first grown up furniture. Properly assembled it’s rock steady, however, when we assembled it after our move we realized that, along with many other useful things, the movers hadn’t packed all the screws. We got it standing well enough and both made mental notes not to entertain at the table until we made a trip to the hardware store.

The thing about mental notes is that they tend to resurface about two seconds too late. I had just begun to slide the table out closer to the center of the room when I heard a crunch and the table gave a sickening lurch. I held on, thinking in vain that if I could will the table top to land on top of a chair, a disaster could be averted? Everything seemed to suspend for one moment (just long enough to read my mental note) before beginning its slide toward the floor. Down it all went. Jars of ribbon, glue, pens, scrapbooks, magazines, boxes of paper (oh yes, the paper!), my new chipboard book, cutting boards, and, of course, the glass of wine. While still holding onto the table top, I vaguely wondered how much wine a standard glass holds, since at that moment it looked as though an entire barrel had come uncorked in my living room.

It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. The most recent issue of "Canadian Scrapbooker" took the brunt of it. My precious scrapbook was saved thanks to plastic page protectors. Ironically, the only page in my scrapbook that didn’t have a protector over it was one I made to remember a wine festival I had attended. Perhaps I’ll keep that little detail to myself and say that the splash pattern is intentional.

The casualties were: a glass of Laughing Loon syrah, a wine glass, and several sheets of stickers (although the wine was considerate and aimed for the cheap dollar store ones). I poured myself the end of the wine and spent the rest of the evening with Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, Samantha and a power drill, properly assembling my table once and for all with the screws I found in the utility drawer. Purchased by my dear husband, who apparently reads his mental notes on time.

The moral of this story? Never move a solid oak table with a bum leg alone, and when scrapping, drink your wine from a travel mug. I’ll take a (mental) note.