Wednesday's Words for May 27, 2009

I have a new filing cabinet! I’ve needed one for a long time. About six months ago, my beloved came home from work and said, “They’re re-modeling up at the office at work and got some filing cabinets in from another site. There might be one or two left over. Do you want one?”

Of course, I said yes. He told me they weren’t “normal” cabinets. After some pointed questions on my part, I determined that the cabinets in question were lateral cabinets—just the sort I was looking for.

A lateral cabinet would allow me to have one shelf devoted to my own books. Yes, that sounds kind of arrogant, but every once in a while I need to look over and see that handful of books by Morgan Ashbury.

The cabinet arrived Saturday while I was in Toronto attending a social event with the published members of my RWA group. As soon as I got home that afternoon I knew my beloved was napping—the house was silent. I stepped into my office and beheld my new cabinet.

It’s narrow enough to fit into the space I intended it for, where it would replace a dilapidated book case, but it is somewhat taller than I’d expected—it’s just shy of seven feet tall.

The cabinet was also, of course, covered with limestone dust, thanks to having languished for several months in a storage trailer at the quarry.

My husband got out of bed as I was looking at this leviathan of logistical support. “I don’t know how the hell you’re going to manage that top shelf,” he says.
I reminded him that we have a step stool—it permanently resides under the cat window for the convenience of the feline, but can be moved and utilized for brief periods of time by humans when necessary.

Sunday I was up bright and early, ready to get my office whipped into shape. That old book case held a lot more books than I remembered and there were dust elephants (mine are too large to be mere bunnies) everywhere.

“Finding some things you’d forgotten you owned?” my beloved asked at one point. He has quite the sense of humor sometimes. But in this instance, he was right. I’d forgotten that I owned so many motivational books. Most of them were holdovers from our brief stint in “network marketing”. We never did make much money in that venture, but we learned a lot about how to handle our finances, listened to a lot of great speakers and came to own a number of really good books, so the experience had been worthwhile.

I had other treasures tucked away on those shelves, too, like the paper target I’d saved from my trip down to Pennsylvania year before last. Of course, the target—a police issue, in the shape of a man—is covered with bullet holes, and not all concentrated where you might think. I’m not very good with a gun, but I did appreciate the shooting lessons. All in the name of research, of course.

Once I’d sorted, cleaned, and then moved out the old bookcase, my beloved managed to wiggle the cabinet into place, and I began to fill the new shelves.
My daughter came over to see what I thought of my new cabinet. She spotted the stool and said, “I wondered how you were going to manage that top shelf.”

My family takes great delight in pointing out that I am shorter than anyone else over the age of 10. They enjoy teasing me so much that I began to suspect a conspiracy when my son-in-law came over the next day, took one look at the beige giant and asked the inevitable question.

Only one person seemed to miss the opportunity to point out my short comings. When I described the new piece of office furniture and explained the work I’d done to update my office to one of my writing buddies, he never mentioned the over-my-head top shelf.

He only expressed hope I hadn’t, with my cleaning and modernizing, frightened off the ‘inspiration elves’.

Only someone who knows me well would think my suddenly surrounding myself with orderliness could frighten away my muses.
I guess I’ll just have to wait and see if I did.

Love,
Morgan
Feed the flames of your passion…with a novel by Morgan Ashbury
www.bookstrand.com/authors/morganashbury