IKEA is open in North Carolina

Lindz and I visited the new Charlotte IKEA store. It is grand and glorious, and it was crowded. Not once, not even once, were we out of earshot of a crying child. It was still the IKEA experience, but with the overcrowded amusement-park element added. One child was shrieking as if someone was sawing his arms off.

We got a cabinet for the television, something we had been talking about for a long time. The old wire shelves that housed the tv and stereo are gone, the last vestige of our leftover furniture that looked more appropriate for a college dorm. We're trying to make it look like adults live here.

Speaking of adulthood, why is it so hard to make a living? I'm very thankful to have a job, and particularly thankful to have moved from a lame job to a better job in such uncertain times. But it's sucking the life out of me. It's too bad one has to spend so much of one's life toiling as opposed to enjoying and creating. It's still early days, but this new job is definitely demanding. It's quite a bit better than the alternative.

I hope it gets better soon. Perhaps the U.S.A. will regain a bit of the backbone that it has always bragged about having. Some new roads, bridges and windmills might be a welcome side-effect to all this spending.

But enough about my struggle with the malaise of a broken world. How about some lamb?

This was an end slice. Deeper inside, it was stuffed with pureed dried apricots, rosemary, almonds, garlic, and I can't remember what else.