Must Be How The Pioneers Did It



Up before dawn and out to do hard labor at the local Starbucks. Washing dishes by hand. Sweeping off the wooden (albeit laminate) floors. Staying up late organizing the walk-in closet. Bruised shoulders from stumbling  through narrow hallways clogged by boxes and boxes of stuff. (I'm thinking of filling out an application for the HMA to audition to be on an upcoming episode of "Hoarders." No. I'm not kidding. Seriously!) Moving is not easy, but it's living without television or the Internet that I find unbelievably difficult. I keep telling myself that this must be how the pioneers on the prairie did it, but I honestly don't know how Laura Ingalls Wilder survived. Not just without indoor plumbing. Let's not even GO there! I just can't. It's the simple things. I'm having Internet withdrawal. No wonder Laura became a successful author of a dozen books. There is nothing else to do! If I didn't have the distraction of the Internet and the television, I wonder where I'd be on my way to successful authorship...please don't say it and burst my bubble.





Nightmare on Jacaranda Lane

It's much like "Nightmare On Elm Street," at least for our kitties. Over the weekend, we moved. We locked all three cats in a spare room with some dry food, water and littler box. They hid in the closet while the movers carried all our stuff, plus a washer, a dryer and a refrigerator, out to a waiting moving van. And then we left. Disappeared. All was quiet. Had they been abandoned? Two of them refused to come out of the closet to find out. The other one had no doubt and hung out by the door to wait until the door was opened and treaties were offered. (There MUST be treaties to make up for such awful treatment. She knew there would be treaties.) When we went back to get them a few hours later, they all wanted attention. The new house was in disarray, but the old house no longer looked like home. Outside the spare room I lined up three cat carriers: one cardboard box, one snazzy cloth "airline" bag, and one hard-sided traditional cat carrier. It was the smallest hard-sided carrier they make at PetCo and it cost $30. Thirty bucks! That's why I bought the smallest one, but while I had saved a few bucks, only the smallest cat would fit in that carrier. And then the fattest cat refused to get into the cloth bag. No way, Jose! It was easier to plop her into the cardboard box and shut the lid. Finally, the big boy cat was shoved into the snazzy jet bag. Face first. He didn't really fit. There wasn't enough room in the bag for him to turn around. I've seen looser fits on a sausage casing. The car trip would only take a few minutes -- we were only going less than a mile, so we tried not to worry. They were safe and would make the passage. My car was packed to the roof with crap -- so the HMA had to drive the catmobile. Three cats, protesting at the top of their lungs, for a mile -- it must've seemed like a 100 mile journey. Word is that it was a lovely symphony. They arrived at the new place and were hustled up to the master suite where they huddled under the bed. Except for the little one. The little one is fearless. She immediately demanded to be let out of the room to explore her new place, and she was the only one who ate dinner that night. She ate so fast that she threw it all right back up in the bowl. By morning, everyone was adjusting. All three cats walked over me during the night while I was in bed sleeping. After the last walk-by, I got up. It was about 5:00am. I stumbled downstairs and put out the cat chow. Everyone ate and then scattered into the darkness. Except for the little one, who stayed downstairs to look out all the windows and attempt to get into the laundry room and the garage, both of which are off-limits for her. Her fearlessness is remarkable. Completely unlike a traditional cat. This morning things are looking up for all three. There have been a lot of exploratory trips and tails are further up in the air than they've been. One of the two fraidy cats was spotted having a long snooze on TOP of the bed. Our long national nightmare may soon be over.