Daily Archives: August 1, 2006

Word for my day: mephitic

Posted on by

Gore Vidal wrote in tribute of the recently deceased Barbara Epstein (The New York Review of Books: Barbara Epstein (1928-2006)):

    Ultimately, in fact, she could accept almost
    anything in the way of a point of view if she was convinced that it was
    expressed in good faith: needless to say, she had a difficult time
    dealing with the baroque lies of the neocons which have made mephitic
    the swamps of bookchat.

I had to look up the word "mephitic," which was Dictionary.com/Word of the Day on June 23, 2001 in dictionary.com. One definition is "offensive to the smell; as, mephitic odors."

All that pain at Ikea was worth it…mostly

Posted on by



All that pain at Ikea was worth it...mostly

Originally uploaded by Raymond Yee.


Laura and I made a trek to Ikea to buy this Galant Table. I didn't want to go, but the many months of having our laser printer' sitting on the floor had to come to an end. The afternoon was more stressful than I had anticipated. When we had to figure out whether a long shelf could fit in the back of our car, I panicked and declared that we most certainly needed to come back another day with a rental U-Haul. I was wrong; the shelf did fit snugly. I was happy to get away from the lines and the crowds.

Unfortunately, when we got home and began to assemble our table, we realized that we were missing a necessary frame. Argh! Injustice! I called the Ikea help line to complain that the woman who filled out our cash&carry order neglected to add a frame. I tried to get the clerk to send us the frame but to no avail -- of course. Fortunately, Laura had enough sense to get me off the phone. She just wanted the table.

We went back to Ikea to get the missing frame. Of course, we encountered another very long line. Why couldn't Ikea just take our order on the phone and have us swing by to pick it up directly? No, if you want to buy Ikea, you must submit to the unforgiving discipline of Ikea.

In the end, we were very happy to bring a bit more order to our apartment. But can I forgive Ikea? I'm sure I'll go crawling back to that den of just-good-enough furniture within the year's end.