Where Bloggers Live: Favorite Piece of Furniture

Welcome to my first post as part of the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live! I am lucky to have joined a terrific group of bloggers who give a peek into the places and spaces where they spend their time.

Today's topic is Favorite Piece of Furniture, and I didn't have an immediate thought about what I'd feature for this post because I'm not a fancy furniture type person. But when I mentioned it to my husband, without hesitation he said, "Oh yeah, so the cat table, right?" And yes, he is right!

About 30 years ago...I must have been in college but home for the summer...I was living with my parents in my hometown, population 15,000, in Oklahoma. (I would say "small town" but it was stuck in an awkward transition from blue-collar town to suburb, and people from true small towns would scoff at the characterization). This was back at the tail end of the era when people still sometimes operated their own small businesses in a town's downtown area and could halfway make a living doing so (something that mostly exists now in cozy mysteries and Hallmark movies). One of the shops in our downtown was a store that primarily sold health food/herbal remedies but also various pieces of home décor, gifts, and so forth. I had (have) some food sensitivities and liked (like) tea, so my mom and I shopped there periodically for special supplies.

WELL. One fated afternoon at this little health food shop, I saw something that about made me lose my mind...yes, the cat table. So perhaps it wasn't really a "table" per se. It was this gorgeous stripy wooden cat!

This was in the pre-rabbit period of my life in which cats were my absolute favorite animal, and stripy cats my favorite of the favorite. Look at this sweet face!

Of course I fell in love with this cat, but it cost $50 (which is over $100 today) and I didn't have all that much money. I mean, I did have $50, but not $50 to spend on a whim. So as tempted as I was by this kitty, I walked out of the store without it.

I rode in the passenger seat thinking about how much I loved that wooden cat, and a block from home said, "Mom?" She said, "You want to go back, don't you?" And I said, "Yeah, I really do."

That is a prize contender for the best $50 I ever spent.

Now why do my husband and I call this wooden cat the "cat table"? In my bedroom, my bed was in the corner with a wall on one side and a heating/cooling vent on the floor on the other. There wasn't room to have a bedside table there because it would cover up the vent. (The only thing that got to cover up the vent was our beloved grey stripy cat Tiger.) But the wooden cat fit there perfectly! It was low, and small, but had a flat back that was just the right size to place a coaster + glass of water, a box of Kleenex, a lip balm, and my eyeglasses on it at night. Thus, from its first moment in my life, it served as the most amazing possible bedside table.

I'm not sure that I ever risked taking it with me to my college dorm, but it has accompanied me in all my moves since then: three different apartments in Austin TX; an apartment in Winston-Salem NC; a condo in Minneapolis MN; and now my apartment in St Paul MN. I would wrap it up carefully in a blanket and transport it in the back of my car (not in the moving van), and other than a loose leg (that could be glued more securely to the body) and a few chips on the nose, it's still in great shape. And somewhere along the way, "it" became "he."

I currently do have a bedside table...well, no, my husband has a bedside table and I have a metal TV tray that I use as a bedside table. (I warned you that I'm not a fancy furniture lady.) I'm kinda old at this point to be reaching down so close to the ground for things during the night. I mean, seriously, I stretched in a slightly inadvisable way last week and spent 3 days sitting in my recliner watching TV because my neck and shoulder hurt when I moved. Sigh. So the cat table's days as a bedside table are over. Now he lives in the living room next to the sofa on an end table (that is actually a patio table because, all together now, *not fancy*). Here you can see him standing guard over a small collection of rabbit salt and pepper shakers.

But he needs to be a table, you know? He has this wonderful expanse of sturdy flat back that is made to hold something. Here the little stuffed frog and rabbit are considering the possibilities.

OK, now that's better! The cat table in his usual state...both sheltering the ceramic rabbit figures and holding a menagerie of small stuffed rabbits, frog, and javelina on his back. (It's funny to see the stuffies looking down through the table as though they're gauging the distance to the ground.)

Thanks for joining me on this first jaunt into the physical aspects of this world of my own. Next month's topic is Photo Album, which will give me the excuse to pull out my three albums/scrapbooks.

In the meantime, visit these lovely bloggers as they share about their favorite pieces of furniture today:

Bettye at Fashion Schlub

Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks

Em at Dust and Doghair

Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings

Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style

Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After

Do you have a favorite piece of furniture? A favorite type of animal? A favorite piece of furniture that is shaped like an animal?! :D

Blogs I link up with are listed here.