We Made it!

Whew! That was a pretty drawn out moving experience. First off was killing my last day in Seattle. Chuck left Monday morning at 4am. I suppose I intended to sleep in, but after spending the whole weekend (and most of the previous week) packing, selling last minute items on craigslist, giving stuff away... I ended up staying up. It was that or continue to have nightmares of finding a hidden room in our apartment containing piles of crap that I absolutely had to find a place to pack in the trailer for some unknown but very important reason. Plus the sky was really pretty as the sun came up and it was going to be my last Pacific NW sunrise. I walked to Kerry park.

I walked a lot on Monday, met some people for lunch, did some shopping, got a haircut. Inevitably purchased some yarn. I should've know packing away all of my knitting projects would just be an excuse for some emergency stashing. Gotta have something to do on the plane, right?

Tuesday morning was the day of the flight, and the second night sleeping on an air mattress in an empty apartment. Shortly after I woke up I deflated the air mattress to pack for the trip. Well...that upset the cat who was already not too happy about the lack of anything familiar in the apartment. She expressed this by peeing in her carrier. I don't know if that was sort of marking it (this is mine, you are not taking this away too!) or just very confused and upset, but I'm sure it was the last straw for her. I guess that was fine, after that her bladder was empty for the rest of the journey and I could sort clean it up easily while we were still in the apartment, though I was in such a hurry. We sorta smelled like cat pee for a little while.

She did get some drugs in her food that morning (just one spoonful, since we hadn't succeeded in giving it to her in pill form, it got sprinkled onto food. However, tried to feed her as little as possible so she didn't have anything to...ahem...poo, or vomit.) And I think that stuff really worked. We had experimented with it a few days before and it seemed to make her really happy and relaxed. So the first cab ride, which was the one I was most concerned about, was really not bad at all. All of our previous attempts without the drug to transport her in a car to get her used to it had pretty much failed...ending with something gross happening right when we pulled up to the apartment. But she was fine.

All the lines, check-in and security were pretty rough on her, as she informed me several times that she just wanted to at least sit down. But she wasn't very loud and didn't act too unsettled or anything. She did have to come out of her carrier and go through the metal detector with me, but she did fine. It actually may have been the quickest I've ever gone through airport security, I had a new found skill at quickly removing and replacing my shoes...and packed so that I didn't have anything else to deal with. The TSA employee commented that he couldn't imagine traveling with his cat, and people around me were all very curious what happens with a cat (she definitely does not go through the x-ray machine!)

So calmed down a bunch once I was able to sit down at the gate. A nice woman came over and talked to me about cats and was very impressed with Lucy's calm. Lucy talked to her a little bit, she likes to talk back to people, but again, not very loudly. I waited until the end of the line before boarding. And the flight was perfectly alright. She made a little noise on the plane during take off and landing, but the people around me didn't even realize I had a cat with me until I pulled her out from under the seat at the end of the flight. I am curious what they thought I was doing sticking my hand down into my bag about every 10 - 15 minutes though. Lucy stayed awake the whole flight but didn't look too upset, just kind of sat and watched everything. Taking off was worse than landing (she scared me for a moment looking like a frightened woodland creature) and she didn't like going under tunnels here in Chicago on the cab ride in. But she was fantastic otherwise!

Of course, once we got here it was another empty apartment, brand new...with strange noises of the El outside. She was pretty freaked out and hid in the bathroom most of the rest of the day. Too afraid to eat, actually. Poor kitty. Chuck, who was driving our trailer of stuff across the country, ended up unable to make it that evening as planned. Another night alone in an empty apartment...the air mattress and sitting on the floor was becoming pretty painful after night #3. And I needed to entertain myself so I did more walking to check out the grocery shopping options around our new place. Fortunately on Wednesday Chuck finally arrived, we got out new furniture delivered (Cb2 bed & mattress and dining room table, so we didn't have to move a mattress again) and I had a level other than the floor to sit on! Yey!

Our place is still a mess now, but it's already pretty comfortable nonetheless. We managed to get the kitchen boxes unpacked (wow we have a lot of kitchen stuff!) and then walked over to Grant Park to eat at the taste of Chicago. Wow. We knew it'd be nuts over there right before the fireworks, but it was intense. Surely the largest bottleneck I've ever experienced. But people were friendly and civil and we got some vegan BBQ and sweet potato pie. Then we quickly got back out of the crowd and returned home to see what our view of the fireworks was like. Just a sliver between buildings, but it was pleasant.

So Happy Fourth! We will surely be spending the day unpacking, maybe taking a trip over to ikea or something to help us get settled. Before too long we need to do some exploring. I live here now and I still haven't taken the El. (though I know which line has advertisements for Wall-e on it and which is advertising google!) And I think we'll try checking out Taste of Chicago again when it isn't so crowded. Eli's cheesecakes has a booth...cheesecake is one of my non-vegan weaknesses...and it's supposed to be the best....but we might just go back for more vegan soul food. It seems like a fun event, probably more so when not absolutely jam packed.

Oh, and Lucy seems really happy with the new place now too, she really cheered up as soon as Chuck got here!