The Phoenix Has Landed

Here I sit in my new living room under the starlit skylight watching my old TV on my new cable set up.  Okay, I can't really see through my new living room skylight right now as the light is on inside, but tonight as I lie in my bed I will see both the moon and the stars through my bedroom skylight from my sloppily made bed under my handmade blankets.  I crochet.  Did I forget to mention that before?

I now have tile floors and my feet are constantly filthy.  Why didn't I know this about tile?  When I had carpet, it kept my feet clean, now my feet are cleaning the tile instead.  I'm thinking of investing in a steam mop to take care of the first layer of dirt for me.  Unless someone tells me they're all shite and I may as well use a kleenex and spit.

There have been worse moves in the history of the world.  Does any relocation ever go smoothly?  My highlights involve The Cat, The Girls, The Movers and The Stupid Cat all over again.

First of all, I should tell you, my cat is a bit of a moron.  She can be incredibly sweet and the best cuddler in the world, but common sense is not her friend.  Any kind of sense is not her friend.  She is always in hyper-survival mode, all the time.  Things she is afraid of include, but are not limited to, the vacuum, men, the sound the the toilet flushing, random body movements and looking at her funny.  I wish I was kidding.

So, as you can imagine, me packing and cleaning the old apartment kind of put her on edge.  But the cherry on top of her psychotic sundae was sticking her in a travel bag on Wednesday afternoon, then driving two hours north in the hot sun to a hotel.  Even though I'm about the only person in the world she trusts, she totally wasn't talking to me by the end of the day.  In fact, as soon as I let her out of the bag that night, she slunk under the hotel bed and stayed there. 

I couldn't sleep, that night.  I fell asleep at midnight, woke up at 2am and spent the next four hours trying to get back to sleep / reading (Covet by Ward).  Polly poked her head out from under the bed a total of three times, for about 10 seconds each, then hauled ass under the bed again.  She didn't drink, she didn't eat, she never used the litter box.  I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd found her tits up under the bed from the stress of it all the next morning.

If only I was so lucky.

No, indeed, she wasn't tits up.  She wasn't under the bed at all.  She wasn't in the bathroom, or behind the couch, or under the chair.  You know where that little so-and-so was?  She was IN the effing boxspring.


I'm gonna tell y'all a secret.  A big, ol', don't-tell-anyone-this-is-the-Internet secret.  I destroyed hotel property to get her out.  Oh, the shame.  I called her, I begged her, I poked her, I hit the mattress and under it with a broom handle - but the dumbass was so traumatized she didn't move.  She just curled into a little furry ball and stuck in her spot like glue.  So I had to rip the underside of the boxspring open to get her out.  Then hauled ass out of the hotel because housekeeping was knocking and I had to get me and my illegally-checked-in cat, out.

So we bundled ourselves back into the stuffed, hot car, called the new landlord, and in a hopelessly naive and misguided move said, "We're leaving the hotel, can you meet us with the key?"

Wouldn't you know it?  The chicks who were supposed to be out yesterday, were still in.  They were SO in, that at 11am, their place looked like mine did a week before I moved.  Some things were in boxes, all the furniture was still there, clothes were still hung in the closet.  Really, Phoenix Chicks?  Really??

But I have a psycho cat, and it doesn't really matter how unprepared the soon-to-be-former tenants were, I CANNOT keep trucking the cat around.  She will die, if for no other reason that I will have to kill her.  So we arranged for me to leave her with food, water and litter in the bathroom and I walked out leaving my cat behind in my new apartment that was still populated with its old tenants.

Then my landlord showed his true gentlemanly side, put me in his car, and drove me around the area to show me the town.  He also took me to lunch with two friends of his.  After which we retired to his house and sat on his couch watching TV while I petted his dogs and he silently fumed about the squatters in his rental.   

By about 5:30pm I was tired of the waiting.  Even if the Phoenix Girls did get out, there wasn't going to be time to fully clean the place before I took possession.  So I took myself to a hotel for the night (yes, the landlord paid) and abandoned Captain Psychotic to her bathroom haven.

The next day the movers were supposed to deliver.  See those little words in the previous sentence "supposed to"??  *sigh*  They "forgot."  No worries.  I was a day behind in the move-in anyway.  Thank God the only schedule I had to keep was my own. 

So I spent an hour on the phone negotiating with them to get my furniture delivered.  In fact, because they forgot me, I insisted that I get a fresh crew that would have energy to deliver at an upstairs unit without going at half speed because it's 100 degrees and their second delivery of the day. To be fair, they didn't deny culpability at all, and gave me a break on their charges when they did deliver.

It was literally a case of a day late and a dollar short.

All good now, right?

Except one of my windows doesn't have a screen, and I took a nap on Sunday morning then woke up on Sunday afternoon missing my cat.  I tell you, after all her shenanigans I was so tempted to not even bother looking for her.  But my responsible pet owner side insisted I put in a token search.  So I alerted my new neighbors, and spent the rest of the night calling and calling and calling for her.

Imagine.  Six weeks of arranging my world so the cat can stay with me.  Paying extra for deposit so the cat can stay with me.  Turning down and rejecting good living situations so the freaking cat can stay with me.  I'm in my new home for forty-eight hours and the cat jumps out the window.

Twelve hours later Polly showed up again.  I don't know where she was.  I don't even particularly care.  She was back, and this time I was the one that wasn't talking to her. 





Just Finished: Definitely Dead
Just Finished: Bad Moon Rising
Just Finished: Covet
Just Finished: The Mommy Bride
Just Finished: Her Baby, His Proposal
Just Finished: A Woman Without Lies
On Hold Until I Get It From My New Library -  The Boy Who Never Grew Up
On Hold Until I Get It From My New Library - The Screwed Up Life of Charles The Second 
Currently Reading: Fantasy Lover