Huh. The cuddle couch is only 61 inches long, so if you are over 5 feet tall, it's not long enough to sleep on.

eta:

The colours I'd originally picked out (in store) are a textured sage, with deep purple cushions.

This sounds good, though I like the red too.

It's not supposed to be a bed replacement -- the bed was there because I don't like sofas, and couldn't work out what else to have to sit on.

Yep. It just might make the house guest thing harder, but that's our problem, not yours.

Okay, Hec, by this time of the summer if I were ten, I'd have won about $3 million(imaginary) on a series of game shows that I had a short-lived fascination with that particular summer. About this time of day my mom would show up and wonder if there wasn't "something constructive" I couldn't be doing. Which is when I'd sigh and pull out Nancy Drew or somebody and we'd probably eat watermelon with salt on it, which is still one of my best things ever, and maybe it would be a good day and my brother wouldn't hassle me by messing with my story stash.

It just might make the house guest thing harder, but that's our problem, not yours.

Well, the queen-sized Aerobed isn't affected by the transaction. And right now, that bed just screams bed (and would be wasted up against the wall).

Ah. I didn't realize you had an aerobed too.

Nebbermind.

I say go for the sage with purple.

I say go for the sage with purple.

6-8 weeks, though.

I'll have to go back and have a look, perhaps with one of my cushions.

That sounds like a good plan, bringing the cushions. Like bringing your shoes clothes shopping.

I kind of like the brass knuckles handbag. And I sometimes like the dress over jeans, although I can't figure out how I could ever wear it.

(and would be wasted up against the wall).

Would that I were too.

Summer day in miscellaneous post-early childhood, pre-teenhood.

Smells: The yellowy-green scent of grasses and weeds; a faint overlay of wood slowly baking as all the trees on the hillsides slowly roasted to kindling in the hot sun; baked earth and grit; the clayey/cottony scent of damp beach towels on concrete; the sharp sting of chlorine on days spent at the swimming pool; the clammy scent of algae at the pond.

Sounds: Out in the hills, the near-constant hum of miscellaneous insects, rising to an occasional clicky crescendo; the clackety-clack of the old bicycle changing gears as I pushed uphill; distant traffic muffled by the trees and grasses; the rustle and scrape of dry calloused fingertips across the pages of a book, turning the page, riffling through to see how far the story had yet to go.

Taste: The blissful rush and punch of a swallow of blisteringly cold soda on a 100°+ day; sweet dripping Popsicles; the weirdly desirable gummy taste of a Fudgsicle.

Sensation: The weight of heat, the animal pleasure of lying in the backyard right on the hot concrete, sunlight bearing down and sapping away everything but a pleasantly stoned torpor; the ache and burn of the calves, pushing and pushing at the crest of the hill; sore eyeballs from the chlorine in the pool; the plunge-and-twist of the gut in the millisecond of committing to the jump off the high dive.

Sight: Every last inch of the three blocks between the house and the entrance to the hill trails: scarily intimate knowledge of every line and crack in the sidewalk, the exact location of every wad of gum, every line of graffiti, every hand- or footprint sneaked into the cement, every clump of poppies growing wild, every patch of chamomile pushing up from every crack, all of it.