Painting on my place is well under way and Gawd-willin' it'll be done before the July 4 week-end, and well-dried for the carpeter to do his thing the following week. I also just booked myself for Rochacha July 18-22 to house-hunt.

Independence Air really is incredible. Can it last? I hope so. I just don't see how they can stay in business when they practically give the tickets away! Well, I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope they stay in business at least 'til the end of the year.

The first full day of playing house went fine. I plan to be looking for places up in in Rochester mid-July, so hopefully I will locate something that will do for at least 5 cats and at least one human. This time I know the whole move thing will be easier as it's all neatly packed up in a storage room and already boxed-- makes the whole thing that much easier to consider. In the mean time, my old place is getting worked on and I hope to have it on the market by some time in the first week of July. Price is TBD, but I'll take offers now ahead of time.

Beat the rush, and just send me a check for $1 million and it's all yours. =)

Well, the last two days have been tiring. I have made about 10 trips between my old house and my new home ransferring stuff I am sure I would need, like documents, clothes, etc. It's hot down here in DC as it is in many places in the country and between that and the traffic, ugh, what a pain. Good news though on the cat front: all but two are now upstairs. We plan to move one of the remaining two upstairs tonight. One thing is for sure-- my future here holds a lot of litterbox-servicing and dust-bunny chasing. But it's all for a worthy cause!

Will wonders never cease? Starting at 9:30 and ending at 2:30, somehow nearly my entire cache of worldly possessions fit into a 10x10x12' room, with room to spare, furniture and all. Still there's no doubt I could have easily tossed half that stuff and would never have though twice about it. Those two guys I had come to help me were really great, too. Not an easy job for them I am sure, moving furniture and so on as they do all the time. I have a few smaller things to move to my new home this week-end, like clothes and dumb stuff like that, but it's a drop in the bucket. Next stage is to get the house I used to live in fixed up and on the market.

Oh yeah, another thing I learned today was how long it takes to get a small moving van up to 90. It actually gets there a lot faster than you'd think!

Just kidding. =)

Well, I'll be meeting the movers tomorrow at 9:30 to get my stuff into storage. I hope it all fits in a 10x10 room. I was looking at it all today and wondering if it could. I guess I'll find out tomorrow!

These cats are distressed. One hadn't been out from under the bed in the basement since coming here, though he just, and I mean just, came out to start to look at things. The other three are meowing plaintively at me. Among things like the stress of the change of venue and all, I think it's because they are used to windows and they don't have the kind of windows down here they had at my house. Well in any case, they will really appreciate "modern living" after this experience. Reminds me a bit of life at Scout camp when I returned; my appreciation for hot and cold running water was never so high.

Try not to laugh too hard gang, but earlier tonight I locked myself out of my new home. It took a walk to the retirement home down the street and $85 to a locksmith to get me back in.

And so it goes.

Made four trips to and from my house to my soon-to-be-new home, with the fourth being the cat-transfer. As I write from the basement of this house, these kitties are vvveerryyyy distressed, running about and sniffing at everything, etc. They'll be fine, though... this will be a life-defining experience for them, sort of like going to a foreign country for the first time. As for the catching-the-cat piece to get them here... well, that was interesting. Lotsa fur flew. Tomorrow is more packing and moving but I see the light at the end of the tunnel and it feels good.

Let's just say that if eternity can be defined as two people and a ham, then whoever thinks so has never gone to pack a townhouse and five cats largely on his own.

So here in the final days I need a few more boxes. I go to the "Packaging Store" up the road and find they have large boxes on sale at $3.50 each-- if you buy 10. Otherwise, they are the usual price: $7.00 each.

Now maybe I am out of the loop here but since when did even large packing boxes reach $7.00 apiece?? I mean, really! So being the good Scotsman I am I went to see if I could get them *gratis* over at BJ's across the street. I discovered that indeed I could, provided I showed up early enough-- say, at 8:00 AM.

Now, those of you who know me fairly well know that a few things get me up early enough to beat northen VA traffic in the morning, seeing me out at 6:00 AM to face the madding crowds on their sleepy way to their miserable cubicle farms. But boxes? No, boxes will not do it. I will pay to avoid sitting in the traffic around where I live just to pick up boxes at 8 AM.

I headed back to the Place of Extortion and forked over the 35 schmackers (plus tax, of course) and gleefully headed home, comforting my depleted-wallet-consciousness by reminding myself that tomorrow would not see me among that crowd of lemmings, packed into their shiny metal boxes, all contesting with one another in their suicidal race toward broken dreams and a desperate, mediocre retirement someplace they can't really afford to be. Instead, I would be in bed, perhaps in the company of a cuddly wee gray kitty or two, softly purring at my feet.

Worth every blessed penny.

Well, the first night of a cat transfer worked out fine. She is actually doing much better than most cats introduced to other cats do the first time they meet. But now, what of the other four? There will be a total of seven, count them, seven, cats, in one house. Well thank goodness there's a big basement so cats can get time-outs or for transitional purposes.

All these boxes in my house have the babies wondering, but they don't seem too disturbed that one of the other cats is M.I.A. Perhaps they just figure there's more for them to eat then. =) Speaking of which, I better get something to eat soon, as I have some packing to do today. One day/cat at a time...

The die is cast. I have booked storage space and moving help for next week. Tonight, one of my cats is going to my friend's house. We'll see how it goes-- keep your fingers crossed! I am a lot less worried about the idea of moving cats from one place to another than I am how my precious wee babies will deal with it-- ie, will they be freaked out, even for the short-term? How will they view life from now on as a result? Will they need little kitty shrinks to help them deal with this traumatic experience later in life?? OK, I just gotta get a grip here...

I have a new cell number, too, along with a new cell phone. 'bout time, really. The phone I was using was vintage 2000. It had an LCD and only two control buttons! Ahh, the good old days....

OK, so it's official. No way, no how can I get this house in Rochester. The sellers are getting sued by the would be-sellers of the place they planned to buy-- papers served and all. Not once but twice did their lawyer fax a contract rejection letter over to my lawyer. So at least I get my earnest money back, but there is no gurantee anything else will be returned, such as inspection fees. Let this be a lesson to one and all: nothing's for sure 'til it's signed, sealed, delivered. Well, I actually feel sorry for the seller and the other seller of the property they wanted. They are now going to get into a nasty legal battle over what-- a house? And we're not talking about anything real historic here, just an ordinary house! I am amazed at the trouble people make for themselves. But, it's their lives, let them complicate them.

I still plan to sell this place I live in, however, and so will put most of my stuff into storage and move in with a friend (one with a great love of cats as you can imagine), until the matter of "what to do, what to do," is sorted out. At least I know I can go to any number of colleges around here in DC to start work on my pre-med/med school pre-requisite classes. September is two months off and there's still plenty of time to register for classes. [Of course, it took only a week for my plans to move to Rochester to change, too! Guess I'd better get calling these various registrars and seeing what's what.] Oh yeah, my realtor in Rochester told me that alas, the housing picks are slim at the moment there. Feast to famine!

You know, this'll be good for these cats of mine. It'll give them something new to do with themselves. I will however keep my fingers crossed that they don't get to upset and take liberties with the hardwood floors!

So now I have the entire planned pushed up so that renovations start in the last week of June. Now I just need to find a place for myself and my cats. "Take your pussycats and move to higher ground." The good news is, I think I have a place to go with them. The garbage truck came today and removed the mountain of trash I had so neatly created in front of my house. I think it's better this way, don't you? ;)

This morning I heard Madonna's "Material Girl" for the first time in 15 years on "Mix 106 FM". I actually enjoyed it. It was simple, naive and dumb and yet at the same time, brilliant; I have come to appreciate these qualities in both songs and people. Maybe this helps explain why I started watching the old Space:1999 TV show, too. :=)

Well, I got a VM from my lawyer in New York (note to all you future Donald Trumps: you need a lawyer to buy a house in New York. Apparently, with good reason, too). It seems that if the seller or buyer's lawyer rejects the contract for any reason, the sale contract is void. So I can get my earnest money back but nothing else (ie, cost of transportation, house value assessment, etc.). This is as they say, "the cost of doing business". Well, I plan to ask for it back but no law requires them to reimburse me for it. It's not that much but it's the principle of the thing, really. Well, onward and upward! This week-end's trip to Rochacha will be, then, to find a new house.

In the mean time I have had to call my various contractors and tell them next week's Grand Plans are a total bust. This they are not happy about but it does happen a lot, apparently. Maybe however if I can fanagle my way into a temporary housing situation (my five cats are mere complicator in this fashion; they are after all, very well-behaved!), I can still get this house on the market by mid-July. According to my realtor down here, August is a bad month for real estate in general, though here in the DC area, the scene is more forgiving (demand is the mother of forgiveness, as an economist might say). So in the mean time I am still packing and have a boatload of trash and stuff to move out onto the curb for pickup tomorrow. I did call the trash haulers and warned them of the mountain of garbage I would have in front of my place but they were surprisingly blase about it. We'll see how blase they are when they need three trucks just to do this one place! :)

By the way, comments are now enabled on this blog, by popular demand.

For my maiden post I will commend my ex-coworkers (and you know who you are) for the idea of using a blog to stay in touch with them. I have never been a big fan of blogs but you know, blogs were never a big fan of me, so fair's fair. This blog exists for the purpose of keeping the various and sundry folks I know in the loop about my existence and how it is panning out. Starting today I will update, as best I can, and when I remember to do it, this here blog.

The first thing to report is that it looks like the recent purchase deal for my move back to New York (Rochester to be precise) is going to fall through. I learned this shortly after returning from my visit with the above-mentioned ex-coworkers. It seems the sellers are in a tiff with the sellers of the house they had planned to buy after selling me their place and do not want to back down - which means they are not going to leave their current house by settlement date (6/20). So my plans to close on the place this coming Monday are hereby converted to plans to look for a new place. Just lovely. Well before you all send me notes telling me to sue them, understand that the missus is a lawyer and so it's no skin off her nose to get into various legal paperwork filings. Secondly, I still need a place to live. It could be months before such an issue is resolved and then I'd still have to buy their place. This could put me into December and by then, of course, all the classes I planned to take to cover my pre-medical studies would have started and probably also ended! [For those who don't know, the whole reason I plan to move back to Rochester, aside to be nearer to my folks and to get back into practice shovelling snow from driveways, is to take classes pursuant to getting prepared for medical school. Having blown off serious study in college when I first went, I now must pay the lofty price and see about taking it seriously the second time around. The good news is, there is no entrance exam for the likes of me. The bad news is, I am going back to college at the age of 37. It will feel weird. But that's life!]

In any case after lining up three contractors to refurbish my place, I hope I can fanagle my way into not having to cancel the plans I have to do this work. We'll see how tomorrow goes.