My Kingdom for an IKEA! [In Denver]

Dietche was adamant. “What is it about you American’s and Furniture? It is SOOOOOO EXPENNNSIVVVVE”

Dietche and her Family were in Boulder for over three years from the Netherlands on a Work Visa, an opportunity for my kids to learn about Dutch customs (and make some forever friends), and for them to learn about America.

One thing we learned is the Dutch like to change their living environment often, at least once a year, and they depend on a single, primary source to do this well but affordably: IKEA.

My wife loves IKEA so much, when we went to visit Grammy this summer in Northern New Jersey, she penciled a day to visit the IKEA built by the infamous clover leave highway juncture of Rte.17 and Rte.4 in Bergen County, New Jersey.

ALEXANDER’s department store commanded the North West corner of this heavily travelled CloverLeaf for years, but in the 1980’s fell into disrepair and finally was boarded up. My last visit last century to Alexander’s found if transformed into rows of folding tables piled high with discount clothes, and people wearing discount clothes were rummaging through them.

Donald Trump, riding high on a sparse quarter of profits from his sporadic casino business, engaged the city of Paramus about developing the lucrative acreage into a mall, but came away from the experience (with the Mayor of Paramus and his Brother who owned the Bergen Mall directly across the highway) announcing in the papers ‘Paramus is the most corrupt town I have ever seen.’

Yet corruption has an enemy, it is capitalism, and the tax base Paramus’s boarded up Alexander’s was losing over the years was more than a Mayor and his Brother could defend, but they needed to fill the lot with an alternative to a Mall, and the wily Dutch made the move.

Spend the day at a Furniture Store? I thought, but as a smart husband I don’t question itinerary. Write that down dads: Don’t question Itinerary.

And she was right. Plenty of easy parking. Escalator takes us up to the entrance, and right there is …. Is… MY GOD….. they take the kids????!!!!! For a whole HOUR, you can leave your kids with nice older women who supervise them in a play area. SOLD.

Then there is the actual STUFF IKEA stock. Sofa’s and shelves and things to make your house look and feel cool, all cheaper than anything hawked on Craig’s List. And smart stuff, stuff like the Japanese figured out for Automobiles back in early 1980’s, like cup holders, but at IKEA it’s for your HOME. The shrinkable hanging closet caddy made of netting and a single open holes for holding shoes, socks, toys, shirts. The Table that bolts to a wall for folding up (Perfect for tight NYC studio living or the kids room in a house). Oh, heck you go find out the rest. Plus there are inexpensive adornments, artwork, hangings, all the stuff Dietche wanted to make a change every spring, you know, change the darn place we are in with the kids all the time, CHANGE. With an IKEA in town it’s easy. With American Furniture stores, it’s a second mortgage.

But the wily Dutch don’t stop there. The hours is up, we have more stuff in our cart then can fit on the return plane flight, and we have to get the kids. At the exit is IKEA’s Swedish cafeteria! For the price of a Big Crap, IKEA provides a plate of 15 Swedish meatballs steamed, with 2 red potatoes, string beans and a refillable drink. We fed Mom, Dad, our 2 kids a filling wholesome meal for $15.

So back in Boulder, CO, we are working to get an IKEA here, ASAP. IKEA did answer our email, they WANT a store in the DENVER area, but finding a lot big enough for the IKEA footprint is tough, and I’m sure, like Paramus, NJ, there is vested interest in keeping IKEA away from Denver consumers. So be it, I am currently looking for a lot near DIA big enough for IKEA, and will keep them posted.

Barney Moran

Grateful Dad

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Chocolate Egg Choking Advisory

If your child is of eating hard food age, please review this advisory from DADTALK about kids choking on Chocolate Eggs:

http://dadtalk.typepad.com/dadtalk/2007/07/is-this-candy-a.html

Dead Goldfish

DEAD GOLDFISH

We want to assist the kids in learning. We want them to have fish. We wait until the day they come home from a play date, having seen a peers pet turtle, and ask for the turtle [or if your living in Boulder, a Red Necked Leaping Lizard who eats live Grasshoppers from Mongolia, sold only by the 4 ear-ringed proprietor of the alley pet shack open at random hours and smelling of Patchouli, sea salt & algae].

“Fish” of course, you answer. “A Goldfish.” Thus the balances, between helping our kids learn, and reducing the steady supply of feces this whole parenting scheme generates.

Caring for Fish is good for a 9 year old. She learns about creating an environment. Controlling it with adjusting chemicals and testing PH and ammonia. “What’s ammonia?” the 9 year old asks. “Pee., the fishes Pee” I answer. This is my passive aggression for all the years the kids left their feces in the toilet bowl for my unasked review of their excrement. ‘See! The price must be paid for Pee.!’

There is slow dulling of our personal cultural senses as we are forced, over the years, to view the human experience as hosts to these youngin’s, running around chewing carrots and oblivious to the mess we pick up in a never ending stupor.

“Just like my childhood” I joke to my Neighbor Andy, as he fishes through a box of Knee Protectors because our 6 year olds are complaining about the ‘fit’ as they roller blade. “Dad bending over, spending hours trying to find just the right sports gear for us.” “Right” Andy answers, “My dad would pull up to the 7-11 with our car full of 4 boys. We would ask, “Can we get something? He would give us his one squint-eyed no of a look ‘are you nuts?’, and disappear, returning with his pack of Camels .” My dad left before I turned Two, I just remember one day the long hairy tattooed arm was no longer stretched across the front seat of the car, and mom was driving.

Meanwhile we wait a day for the $80 worth of tank, filter, rocks and bubbling dinosaur head to settle and the water to warm and de-chlorofy. Then the $4.00 Pop-eye Goldfish is purchased and named “Lou Lou” for a friend gone to Europe, and placed in the tank, where it happily swims, frolics, eats food and nibbles the gravel until day 10, when it floats, normal but not moving, its orange/black/white skin turning whiter by the minute. Its dead, but the Pop-Eye’s still stare, and the 9 year old wants to know if it’s her fault between the tears.

Learning time again…..