The couch finally arrived.
At Thanksgiving, the temporary couch at Rockaway had been an air mattress. I hosted anyway. It worked, but a mattress with a valve is not exactly a living-room plan.
By February, I could finally send a different message: “Finally got my Rockaway couch.”
It was a pullout, which meant the condo had an extra bed too. One piece of furniture solved the place to sit problem and the place for a guest to sleep problem.
This was a bigger deal than a couch should be.
The day before, I had run a half-marathon workout from Rockaway. My shoulder hurt when I tried to run faster, so I turned it into a solid tempo run. The boardwalk photo from that afternoon looks exactly like winter at the beach: empty rail, hard gray ocean, and the sun trying to get through the clouds.
That was the version of Rockaway I wanted. Run outside, come back, put something on the television, and have somewhere normal to sit. If friends came, the couch became the bed.
The next day I was already texting that the pullout looked comfortable and that it was time to plan another trip.
The rest of the condo was still arriving one box at a time. A table showed up later that month. Paint still needed a check. I was trying to get a regular cleaning schedule in place.
The couch did not finish the move.
It did mean nobody had to call the air mattress a couch anymore.