Fainting Couch Saga

Let's start in the recent past. Here is the state to which our beloved fainting couch had been reduced: foam and batting popping out all over. Are we the worst stewards of home furnishings ever? No! It is a Velveteen Rabbit kind of thing--the fainting couch had been loved enough to become Real. Here's the passage:

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

The Velveteen Rabbit, or How Toys Become Real, by Margery Williams

So as I was saying, the FC had become really very very Real. Here are a few scenes from that becoming:




It was time to care for our old friend, in hopes that it would be here for Ira to enjoy, too! At the MCC Sale in September we bought some upholstery fabric from the fabric barn, and eventually bit the bullet and had it reupholstered.

In the meantime, our old dishwasher, which had been moved into heavy service after Ira's arrival, died. So on Friday it went the way of old appliances (hard to love them into Real-ness)...

...with just a nod of the head to the newly arrived (on the same day) FC, as they passed, so long neighbors but never acquaintances.

Fainting couch restored!!!

How wonderful to be able to pile onto our old friend once again. A Mission Accomplished moment.

Many thanks to June and her family, who made it all happen!