Our New Table An Interesting Tale February 14, 2025 Chris, Lydia, and Max are coming to visit us for a week starting Sunday. We're going to pick them up at Chris' friend Scott's house in the Cities Sunday morning (Scott's picking them up from the airport Saturday night), then after brunch, we, along with Scott, are going to an "Ice Castles Minnesota, 2025" event in Falcon Heights. Having bought the tickets for everyone, I was the contact for information about the event, and so, I received an e-mail with the following: DRESS FOR THE WEATHER Ice Castles is a cold weather event! It is more magical when you are dressed for the elements. Warm clothes (coats, hats, and gloves), layers, and winter boots make for the most enjoyable experience. We also recommend snow pants for guests interested in going down the slides. (Italics mine) BRING A SLED FOR CHILDREN If visiting with young children, pull small kids in a sled or wear your baby in a carrier. Strollers are not permitted in Ice Castles due to the uneven walking surfaces, which is made up of crushed ice and snow. I sent it along to Chris. He replied with the following text: we shouldn't need a sled for the ice castles, the kids can walk in the snow just fine. i'll make sure to pack snow pants and boots for them. (guess we'll just have two suitcases for the three of us) Hoping to help minimize Chris' packing for the trip, Mei-O and I decided we'd go looking for snow pants, preferably used ones from Goodwill or Savers, that they could wear once while here and leave behind, then we could re-donate them (kind of a rental). Dana thought if we could find some nice ones a bit bigger size than they might need right now, they could bring them home for next winter in Somerville. So after our hour-long workouts at the RAC, we popped into Goodwill, which, conveniently, is right down the street from the club. And before even heading to the kids' clothing section, right straight in front of us as we walked in, we saw "the table." We've been wanting one like it for a long time, needing to get rid of our old $20 one that we got at the Salvation Army maybe 25 years ago, which, while it looks nice from afar, was basically rotting away in spots. I had been shopping around recently for a replacement at several furniture stores in town, including Goodwill, and, first, I couldn't find anything the size and style I wanted, and, second, when I did find something close that I might settle for at an actual furniture store, prices ranged from $350 to almost $1,000! So this table from Goodwill, looking brand new, at $29.99 (just reduced from $39.99 yesterday) was a steal! And just perfect! But wait, there's more. The coffee table we have in our living room came with two end tables when we bought it many years ago. Then about twenty years ago, while we were driving northbound on Broadway here in Rochester, we noticed off to our right in the front yard of a house on a side street that joined Broadway, a bunch of tables very similar in style to our coffee and end tables. We stopped to check them out, and sure enough they were the exact same style. With no need for more end tables like the ones we already had (they had two of those), we did buy two smaller ones for about $15 each: So today, finding this $30 table that basically matched all our existing tables so well (it's not a perfect match. The legs are different, but close enough), filled a long festering need of mine, all because we went looking for snow pants for Lydia and Max! Oh, and we weren't able to find any decent snow pants for them anywhere. Goodwill and Savers had some in not very good condition, and retail stores didn't seem to be carrying them now, so close to spring. And we got rid of our old table by donating it to Savers. It's still serviceable for someone to use in a storage room or garage or somewhere the bad top may not make a difference. So, all-in-all, a great day.