So now that the red chair is in its temporary position in the dining room next to the doorway to the kitchen, I keep bumping into it.

To put it succinctly: It’s in the way.

But it does make a great place to dump coats, backpacks, electric guitars and cereal bowls (with the Raisin Bran caked on – gross).

How long will it stay there I wonder. Mrs. Kravitz hasn’t asked about it in days. Maybe on the weekend. I showed it to my lovely neighbor. She may come back.

Someone wrote in to say:

“I think you should keep the chair. Things like that linger with kids. Eventually they will go to college and THEN you can get rid of the chair.”

Spoken from the heart of someone who obviously had something important taken away from them when they were a child. Truthfully, I think everyone is enjoying the more spacious living room. Although Teen Spirit pointed angrily at the Eames plastic chair I put in the red chair’s place and said,

“You don’t expect us to sit on THAT do you?”

I remember when we moved out of our Fifth Street apartment and moved here. Teen Spirit was so upset even though this apartment was an obvious improvement (to us, anyway). He missed the old place so much. He was only three. He got over that when a nice boy named Eddie moved into the apartment downstairs. Then he loved it on Third Street forevermore.

So kids adjust. They really do.

Still, the red chair bump into me, stubs my toe, looks longingly my way overflowing with leather jackets, books and other detritus of life in the apartment.

What will become of me? it seems to say. What will become of me?