Quote of the day:

Things never come when they are expected.
—Agatha Christie

The Tasker came early, went to work right away, and finished quickly.

I had the boxes downstairs in the living room and asked him if he could help me carry the completed bookcases upstairs when he finished assembling them. He thought it would be easier to take the boxes up and assemble them upstairs, but I assured him there was no room for assembly up there.

As it turned out, carrying those completed bookcases (they are six feet tall) up the stairs was more of a job than I had expected, but we got it done.

While he was assembling them I heard him talking on the phone in a language that I couldn’t identify. I wasn’t a Romance language, nor was it Russian or Polish. I thought I might be another Eastern European language, but he was speaking quietly and I really couldn’t hear very clearly, and I’m not really a language expert. So I asked him.

It was Persian. He said he also speaks Russian but his English is very poor. I told him his English is fine. I did not say, though I should have, that I admire people who are multilingual, as I’ve long regretted that I can’t speak more than one language, though I have studied several others.

He said he’s from—and I didn’t quite catch the name of the country and I didn’t want to ask him to repeat it but I think he said—Tajikistan. If I got that wrong, I’m very sorry.

In any case, I gave him a very favorable review on the Taskrabbit site.

Now I have to organize my books and Blu-rays and start putting them on the new bookcases.

That seems like a lot of work.

Work!

Sorry, that was my inner Maynard G. Krebbs coming through.

Here are a couple of the old bookcases that are overflowing with DVDs and Blu-rays.

And here a couple others that are overflowing with books.

I also have boxes cluttering up the hall.

Here are the new bookcases. I can’t get a good angle on them as they’re in that tiny extension room.

Oh, and even though I didn’t add a video of that blasted song, or even listen to the song myself, just using quotes from it in the titles of these pieces has given me an ear worm that won’t quit!