Monday night personal

Today was E.'s day off, and his parents took him out to BrandsMart and bought him a 51" Samsung flat-screen TV and a stand to put it on (similar to the one in the photo, but the TV sits directly on the top shelf on its own stand). The shelves are black glass and the dark wood matches E.'s floors.

His father (mom's long-time boyfriend, actually) had wanted to assemble it when they got back to E.'s but was getting frustrated, so E. told him to stop. (E. himself has never assembled furniture before and didn't want to attempt it.) His mother then said to call the old BF to come over and do it (since he's "good at that kind of stuff," according to E.), but E. said he didn't want him "to step foot" inside his new place. (His mother said good for him.)

So I volunteered to go over there after work and do it. (E. knew I was also "good at that kind of stuff.") Yet he was adamant about not imposing on me (he said later, as I was putting the stand together, "It's not all about me"). (See here.)

The directions were pretty easy to follow, and nothing was missing or ill-fitting. I got one piece wrong (upside down - the instructions were a little sketchy on this) and had to unscrew stuff and redo it, but it turned out great. E. was absolutely thrilled. The parts included an Allen wrench to screw in most of the screw-in parts, but I used a pair of wire-cutters E. had (bought by the sister's ex to install the light fixtures, which also look great, by the way) as pliers on the Allen wrench to get everything screwed-in as tightly as possible. (He has to get some pliers.) Fortunately he had a screwdriver, since four crucial pieces had to be screwed in.

I was back home before 9:30 and watched part of Anthony Bourdain's new show. (Was too tired to stay up past midnight and watch the whole thing over.) (I'll catch it another time.)