The old wooden folding table belonged to my grandma. I don’t remember her ever using it.

After she moved out of her house and into a retirement home, my sister inherited the table, but she didn’t use it much, either. The table has four wooden folding chairs that tuck beneath it and the whole thing rolls on casters. My husband, Peter, and I are moving to be closer to family and we don’t have a serviceable table for our new place.

“Bring the folding table when you come,” I told my sister. “We’ll use it until we find a new table!”

Peter and I were ready to move our furniture when we learned the moving truck had broken down on the way to our house, delaying the move. So Peter stayed behind to help load the truck when it finally arrived, and I flew ahead to meet the movers. I spent four nights in a sleeping bag on the floor, but when my parents and my sister came to visit, they brought the table.

Peter and I did not spend Christmas of 2019 with my family, but rushed home to see his sister, Lori, who was very ill. We thought it might be her last Christmas. We were wrong. We celebrated the next Christmas with her before she died. And I did not see my family again until this past week, 17 months later, when they arrived with my grandma’s old table.

“It’s been so long!” everyone kept saying.

I got lost leading them out of the parking garage and we ended up taking the heavy wooden folding table on a tour of the neighborhood. The table rattled along on its 75-year-old casters and made a heck of a racket as we rolled by the Church of Scientology.

My dad was laughing. “Do we even know where we’re going?!”

“Do you think someone is catching this on a security camera?” my sister asked.

I felt as if I had not been away for 17 months -- or even a day.

On Saturday, our furniture finally arrived, and on Sunday morning, still surrounded by boxes, I discovered we were within earshot of three churches with bell towers. I sat out on our little balcony in the sunshine and called Peter.

“All the bells are ringing!” I told him.

My parents and sister came to visit one more time before I left, and this time they brought along my brother-in-law, niece and nephew. My niece is completely grown up and my nephew went from being a child to a teenager while I was away.

I had tied brightly colored seat cushions onto the old wooden folding chairs and my mother didn’t recognize them.

“Those aren’t the same chairs!” she said, amazed.

“They are!” I told her. “They just perked up when they got a change of scenery!”

Peter still hasn’t seen this new place we bought during the pandemic, and I know he still has some trepidation. But I am feeling so much better. It is good to be closer to family. We will be able to see more of our old friends and both Peter’s relatives and mine. We’re looking forward to trying new restaurants and riding our bikes and doing a lot of things we haven’t done in a long time.

Of course, there will be things we will miss. But right now, I’m feeling like one of my grandma’s old wooden folding chairs, all decked out in a fancy new seat cushion.

I’m thinking a change of scenery will do us both a world of good.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called, “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

Everyone knows that I am attached to my desk. I would argue I have good reason. My desk is an extension of myself. Whereas other people are attached to their phones, I frequently lose track of mine. (Just writing this made me wonder where it was. Don't worry; I found it.) My desk is my home inside my home.

I hear about people working from their couch or from their kitchen table or even from their bed and I cannot imagine it. My desk is always tidy. I always have fresh flowers sitting on it -- even if it's just a rose from the garden or a bouquet from the grocery store.

My desk came from a junk shop that my parents and I visited a few years ago. It's a child's desk and was painted fire engine red. It did not look promising.

But my dad knocked on the wood beneath the red paint. "It's solid maple," he declared. I bought it for $15. We took it to my dad's wood shop, refinished it, and I have used it ever since. One hot summer night, a fan came flying off the windowsill, making a deep gouge in the top. I sanded out the gouge, but then put water-soluble polyurethane on the surface. That was a mistake. The surface has begun to dissolve beneath my hands, peeling like a snake losing its skin.

So now my desk is getting refinished before it gets loaded into a big truck and taken to our new home. In the meantime, my husband, Peter, said I could use his reject computer desk, which is being left behind.

Peter's old desk had a storage tower on top, which he knew would get in my way, so he removed it. It also had a slide-out thingy the keyboard was supposed to sit on, and that was never going to work, so I yanked it out. Below that was a shelf, which bumped my knees, so I threw that away as well. There was one last brace I had to straddle, and Peter smashed it out with the back side of an ax.

I was still unsatisfied. The little desk rolled around every time I moved. I felt as if I was typing on a boat. "This isn't going to work!" I told Peter, who was doing his best to get his old desk to meet what seemed to me like minimal requirements: a stationary typing surface that my knees fit beneath.

Peter looked at me like I was the resident prima donna, then removed the wheels. Now all that remains is a small, gray box. I think it will work.

Meanwhile, I pulled out the drawers in my old maple desk and I noticed where the wood had warped and the construction was not the best. I wondered if I shouldn't just replace the old desk and start with something new in a new place.

But I remember all the time I've spent at the little desk, looking out one window or another, and I feel as if the old desk and I have too much invested in one another to part ways now. I wiped it down and was astonished how much coffee had managed to splash all over. I lined the drawers with cedar shelf paper and refinished the peeling top.

I'm imagining it in a new place, working on new projects, with fresh flowers sitting on it, and I know it will be fine.

I don't need the fanciest desk in the world. I just need a desk that's all mine.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called, “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

Tanner and Dakota are waiting for me.

They’re standing at the corner of their chain-link fence, watching the sidewalk. They know I’m coming, even if they don’t know exactly when, even if they can’t see the sidewalk very well and can’t hear at all.

Tanner and Dakota are my two oldest dog customers, dogs I give treats to nearly every day. My husband, Peter, has decided against paying the big bucks for high-priced dog treats full of questionable ingredients. He bought himself a dog-bone-shaped cookie cutter, did some research on the internet, and now he bakes healthy dog treats for me to take on my daily hike. As you might imagine, as the Treat Lady, I have a lot of loyal customers.

Some of the dogs have even tracked me to my home. Matilda, a pudgy corgi, knows where I live and pauses every time she walks by with her owners, licking her lips. One day, Snoopy, the giant Bernese mountain dog I meet on the trail, was walking by the house. Snoopy is now almost a year and a half old and weighs more than 170 pounds.

I told Peter, “That’s Snoopy!” and (probably unadvisedly) called out the front door, “Hey, Snoopy!” Snoopy stopped in his tracks and stared.

Darron and Monica, Snoopy’s owners, came and chatted on the stoop, and I thought no more about it. Snoopy, however, has a very good memory.

A few days later, we saw Darron and Monica and Snoopy passing (probably intentionally) on the other side of the street. Not wanting to be pests, we didn’t holler out the door. But we were watching Snoopy staring at our house and walking more slowly. Finally, he came to a dead stop on the sidewalk, still staring at our front door. We could see Darron tugging on his leash, and that’s when Snoopy decided to lie down. Snoopy went on strike.

There isn’t much you can do when a 170-pound dog has decided he is going to lie down on the sidewalk. We saw Darron and Monica’s growing frustration, and that’s when Peter yelled from the door, “Hey, Snoopy!”

Snoopy leapt to his feet and bolted straight to our door, dragging Darron down the steep hill in front of our house. Snoopy landed in a happy, panting pile on the stoop.

“You see?” he seemed to be saying to Monica and Darron. “We had to visit!” Snoopy is a very sweet dog.

All the dogs are sweet. Fergus, a cattle dog of some type, leaps into the air whenever he sees me on the trail and gives me a kiss on the face. His owner no longer says, “Stop, Fergus!” because there is no stopping Fergus from kissing me. Fergus loves the Treat Lady. And I really don’t mind at all.

As we prepare to leave this place, I think of all the dogs I am going to miss and I wonder if they will miss me. But I know there are dogs in every state, in every country, and every dog needs a treat. I don’t think I’ll stop being the Treat Lady, living somewhere else.

Tanner and Dakota are still waiting at the fence. I give them each a treat, and Tanner barks in excitement. His bark is loud and strange because he is deaf, but I can tell he is happy -- even if he can’t see me, even if he’s not entirely sure where this treat is coming from.

“You’re such a good dog,” I tell him, scratching his gray muzzle. “You deserve a treat.”

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called, “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION