Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig. Good Evening, J.F.

Cat Tower, Fireplace, Open Box, and Window Sill: Ready for kitties before they arrive

We're back from Denver after two long days on the road, a day of packing and loading the truck the day before them, and a couple of days of decompression upon return.  Driving halfway across this country (in any direction) is always enlightening; America is not only not just a single entity, but its various components aren't even the same over even small periods of time.  To drive across such a great distance, without staying more than a few hours (or days, or weeks, or years) in the same place, is to see nothing but the transience of endless road and the imperative meanness of the intermittent stops that punctuate it, but we can still sense the gulf between who we are, and who they are, whoever they are where we stop.  It is dangerous to one's sense of perspective to grow too comfortable in one place, I think.

There were great changes along this road that I've already traveled four times before.  For example, where once there were only coyotes and antelope, I found endless acres of wind generators in the high mesas of Wyoming and Idaho to share their company.  In Boise, the endless road construction along I-84 has resulted in tasteful walling with graceful artwork along the interstate highway.  And, if it were possible, there seemed to be even more power lines leading out of the Columbia River Gorge, more vines in the Yakima Valley, and more tailgating hummers going up I-90 towards Snoqualmie Pass.

Laura driving somewhere ahead of me in the desolate wastes of southwestern Idaho

People say (and I also believe) that traveling with someone is a true test of a relationship, be it anything from a friendship on up.  We had FRS (Family Radio Service) radios, she in her Saabaru, and I in the moving truck, and we chatted back and forth, laughing at the ridiculous, marveling at the marvelous, and bitching at the hummers, with long intervals of silence as we drove in independent thought.  Once or twice, there was an emergency: Zooey just puked all over the front seat, stressed out as she was, which necessitated a roadside cleanup.  "Oh well," said Laura, "I'll buy myself a car detailing for christmas."

We pulled into B'ham relatively early in the day (5:00pm-ish) after an uneventful trip over the pass (thank the gods), but of course it was pitch dark at this latitude.  We let the stressed animals out into the house, which they immediately began to explore, and we moved the few things that we really needed out of the truck cab and the car into the house.   Sleep follows quickly on the heels of a couple of 12-hour driving days.

Now, two days past that, Laura is settling in and the kittehs are acting much more like playful animals, and less like freaked out spasmotrons, and it seems like a good thing.  Now begins the harder task of Figuring It All Out, which I am beginning to think might not be as hard as I thought.  It is dangerous to grow too comfortable in one's sense of perspective, I would say, to paraphrase myself.

Finn's laser eyes weaken your resolve