It has been a really rough 48 hours. Hopefully our ordeals are over for the time being. I don't feel like spending the time to go into minute details at the moment so I will be brief.

- The cats screamed most of the 10+ hour trip into the city

- The vet gave us Valium for them which apparently doesn't work on cats as well as it works on people or as well as the veternary sedative I had for Oliver last time so they just got crazy instead of sleeping.

- Oliver peed in his crate on the way there. We had to hose him off with water bottles and the poor cat had to ride first inhis own urine and then cold and wet for about 3 hours.

- We were barely on time and almost in the city when we got turned away because trucks can't go through the Holland Tunnel. We had to go to the Lincoln Tunnel, getting lost once and having to call our broker for directions back to where we were supposed to be. This added an hour to our trip.

- Once we got here our once normal cats had been tranformed into feral beasts. Even docile Byron was hissing and spitting and growling at everything.

- (Minor but still adding to the bad list) We got dinner at about 9pm, starving by this time, at the Indian place up the street and it was the blandest Indian food I've ever had.

- Between the city noise (we're on the block with a firehouse, on a bus route, and it was trash pickup night) and Byron screaming we barely slept at all Tuesday night. Byron was so crazed we had to put him in his cage (after he slashed up Patrick's face) and face him against the wall where he cried himself to sleep and so did I.

- Wednesday started OK but then we found out that due to our broker telling us the wrong thing we now owe the balance of our September rent ($800) today, not on the 15th. So today we have to scramble to open bank accounts. We also can't have satellite TV so I had to rearrange all our scheduling so now cable and internet will be installed a week from tomorrow.

- I spent 2 1/2 hours at the DMV and all I have now is a temporary license until they mail me my new one. The DMV truly is purgatory.

- We had a harrowing trip trying to return the Uhaul, which had to go back to Manhattan, involving much yelling (at Uhaul) tears panic attacks and turning down 5th Ave the wrong way (ie - facing traffic on a one way). We did manage to finally return the truck this morning but not before we got a $65 parking ticket.

So. Hopefully things get better from here on. Because at many times iin the past couple of days we have wondered why we did this and thought we'd made the biggest mistake of our lives and wanted to go back to our nice apartment in Cleveland with all of our friends nearby. We will stick it out - we have to. I just hope it gets better.

As a note - we have no internet access at home until next Friday (the 9th) so please call our cel phone numbers to get in touch. And Kerry - thank you very much for the card - it's perfect! I taped it to our fridge.

I also wanted to say to Mary, in case yoou're somewhere with internet access and can read this, that I've been thinking about you a lot the last few days and hoping you're ok. I know for all my complaining that your situation is much worse (the radio said the mayor isn't letting anyone back into the city). I am hoping for the best with regards to your house and your job and everything. If there's anything I can do from afar please call.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'llbe able to get online again tomorrow. |