Back To Cats

It has been a while since I wrote about cats. Last night Carmen reminded me of one of the most intensive cat juggling episodes of my career- a three-week car trip from Massachusetts to Albuquerque.

After the huge ordeal of packing two sixteen foot PODS, dispersing the rest of our crap, cleaning the apartment and cramming the car brim full of easily accessible stuff, it was time to load up the kitties. Luckily, my cat juggler's eye had noticed when spelunker Remus J. Lupin snuck into the end of a rolled up area rug. I was able to magically produce him when Carmen asked where he was hiding. Poor Yin was out of places to hide. We packed them into their carriers, packed the carriers into the car, and off we went. The date was June 24th, 2009, four years and two hours after Carmen's arrival in Massachusetts.

For the first hour on the road, we heard the constant whining of two cats: "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" Not for three weeks, kids. We bought gas in Sturbridge, before jumping on Interstate 84 toward Scranton. When we were ready to go again, I grabbed Remus from his carrier and sat in the car with him. He dove for the floorboard and stayed there. Carmen then handed Yin to me, and Carmen got in the driver's side. This system seemed to work. The whining stopped, and all I had to do was prevent Yin from meandering over Carmen's way while she was driving- a cat juggling trick if ever there was one.

We spent the night in Scranton. This is where we learned that we needed to use those extra motel pillows for the purpose of sealing the gap under the bed between the bed base and the wall, where both kitties immediately scurried.

We settled into a routine on our second day. Pack them in their carriers until lunch time; let them out in the front seats while we ate lunch, with the litter box and some water on the floor on my side; pack away the litter and hit the road for the long afternoon. A cat juggling extravaganza in busy, noisy parking lots with two ultra-hinky kitties.

After three days on the road, we were ready for a week in Georgia with my parents. We were able to let the kids explore the cabin, and renew their relationship with Mr. Butter. But by the time they got over the shell shock of the road trip it was time to pack them up again.

It was the fourth of July when we spent the night in Biloxi. Not only were there amateur fireworks around the motel, there was a horrendously violent hours-long thunder storm that knocked out the power for several hours. All four of us were miserable.

Then there were four days in Crosby, Texas with Carmen's family. Cat jugglers they are not. Cat jugglers don't leave doors ajar. Cat jugglers are ready to block cats when they open doors. Cat jugglers don't keep caged birds in accessible locations. I was a busy boy, trying to keep the kids fed, scooped, out of harm's way and away from the caged birds. It was a long four days.

The next two days on the road were surprisingly uneventful, considering we had a pink-haired, cell-phone-texting thirteen-year-old girl riding with us. The worst of it was Oklahoma City, where we hit rush hour traffic, the temperature was 105 degrees, our hotel reservationist gave us bad directions, and the room on the third floor never did cool down. The best thing about Oklahoma City was when we got on Interstate 40 westbound the next morning, and the GPS said "drive 435 miles and exit right." We did.

We were many days in Albuquerque before the kitties settled down. But settle down they did, and I'm back to just routing juggling. Whew!