Whirlpooling

I have cried so many times today and yesterday.

It really doesn’t matter why: rowing the Small World out of the orbit it’s had for the last 3-1/2 years is taking a lot of effort and I’m not Wonder Woman any more.

There is so much stress at the moment:

—fear of the unknown into which our blind leap of faith is taking us;

—the mental stress of trying to figure out the “best” response to the hundred new challenges and booby traps that leap out from behind every bush (Chick has likened this to whack-a-mole);

—the physical toll this is taking on our bodies with what we try to do ourselves to minimize the cost of the necessary reliance we are forced to put on (paid) others;

—and, oh Lord, has our little dab of money been leaking out of our shabby, tattered little purse. Left, right, center- the hands are out rightfully claiming payment for what we desperately need them for. But how soon will it all be just gone, a mere wisp of the fading memory of a little blue car?

We just have faith that we are on the path to where we will find safety and security for the Small World. I can only tell you that over and over and over again the last few days I have found pennies, in odd places, in plain sight, almost hidden, sometimes even in pairs as if Snowy has opted to join in on a particular moment of encouragement.

My tribe is unhappy. They’ve been hanging in the big bathroom the last few days as I finally worked on the cat-induced challenge of cleaning out my room (and boxing up another 75 or 80 lineal feet of books). Then they’ve been crated in the large dog crate since late afternoon so that the S. S.t.e.e.m.e.r. fellows could steam it clean as they did before. However, even tho charged, my bathroom was not steamed I found out too late (buried in the boxes and bags of another room with W’s help). S**t!!! So now I have to scrub the worst of it tonight before other tasks so the cleaners will undertake the rest in the morning.

Plus consolidate the remaining “stuff” that we need to have WITH us into the smallest configuration possible for our spaceship. And necessarily we have added the rental of a minivan to accommodate Everything, which I will drive with the cats and possibly the dog. It won’t be as much “fun” driving in convoy, but it’s only for a few days.

As W and I sing and act out, “row row row your boat!”

My neck, arms, shoulders, and back are already wimping and screaming. Think I’m too old to crew!!!

Chick has already called me out on posting to procrastinate, so signing off the phone for now.

oy oy oy

This will most likely be the last ‘big’/'formal’ post for a bit. I will try to do some updates via phone-typing from the road and pending setting up the little mac in the Healing House. We don’t know if we’ll have internet access from there, or what we will find in terms of what we are accustomed to taking for granted.

Chick has gotten a feeling that we will be ‘way out in the boonies’, so that perception has crept in on our thinking a bit, though it is truly hard to imagine that anything close to DC is the boonies.

It just gives us things to think about as we look forward — easier to ponder about such inconsequential things as internet and tv and some promised mice than to take on (yet) the next wave of assault on my unemployed status and what happens when a couple of months  (our stay at the HH) run out if…

So -

update on Minnie’s departure — briefly because it’s too hard: we snuggled and nose kissed for as long as we could Friday morning before Chick and W and Minnie had to get on the road to make her flight. And when they drove away, I ran to the bathroom and threw up even though all that I had inside to heave out were tears.

Chick had the next chapter of ‘nothing’s ever simple’ with this as she had to hunt the air cargo office, which WAS in the boonies of the international airport in Orlando. Then she was told that the pet carrier was just a couple of inches too small for Minnie — the tiniest kitty EVER. However, tiny as she is, Minnie (like Earl and presumably other Abyssinians and derivatives) has ‘giraffe legs’, and when she stands up straight, she can be unexpectedly TALL.

And of course the place had no carrier on hand that could be used as replacement. But fortunately the folks at this cargo service felt sympathy with Chick’s panic, especially after they told her there was no time for her to find a store with carriers, buy one, and get back. Minnie was going to miss her flight. So these people got on all their phones and called around to other cargo offices for help.

One crate was found but was discovered to be wood, apparently not approved by A.i.r. C.a.n.a.d.a., so the search continued. Finally, at nearly the last moment possible, the right thing was found at D.e.l.t.a. cargo, and one of the girls (wanting a smoke break) volunteered to run get it. Minnie, so unhappy, resisted Chick’s efforts to transfer her, but made it on the plane by the skin of her tiny little teeth.

I watched her flight on a flight tracker until she landed. Chick made it home in the meantime after MORE adventures with toll roads, missing gas stations, soaking wet W (who had wailed in time with Minnie all the way down to Orlando, and then a ‘few’ times on the return) absolutely worn out. Chick has been so caring and considerate of my gashed feelings on releasing Minnie and Pearl back to their original mamas; she worries that I think she ‘made’ me do it, but she didn’t; reality did, and the doors opening to make it happen, and the subsequent joy of the original mamas (sigh).

I’ve heard from Minnie’s ‘mama’ of her safe arrival, her subsequent ?????????!!!!!!!!!!!! on her return to a home she hadn’t seen in 10+ years to find ‘other’ kitties and a pinscher who wanted to “play”, but also about the slow settling down of things as she is easing back in to that mix. God bless and keep you, tiny little girl.

NOW we are choking, drowning, freaking over the disassembling of our home — the discarding of THINGS (last night I actually threw away multiple giant black garbage bags of things I’d been toting around for EONS, with almost no backward glances).

Chick is challenged by the fact that W does NOT want to nap ‘ever again’ plus swears he must be held and doted on without ceasing —  as he grizzles and creaks and squeaks. She is a saint! I don’t know how she has done all she has so far.

My issue is fatigue, body ability limitations, and procrastination even as we watch the time tick away before the container arrives TOMORROW, along with some packers we recruited, with loading on Thursday, and carpet cleaners then and cleaning service on Friday. Then we are on the road via Atlanta for the transfer of Pearl before we head truly north.

And there is SO MUCH STILL TO DO!!!! Needless to say, Chick is not especially proud of my decision to pause and post here with so much still to be done in my rooms that only I can be dealing with for many reasons. I think I just want a good sandwich before I head back in there with the diminished tribe wondering what the hell is going on.

I will say that I have put together @150 boxes, getting pretty good and swift as the numbers climbed, wondering if there could be a career in that for me. I have packed up more than …. eight (8) 5- shelf bookcases of extremely massive tomes that are my legacy of my father’s library — on finishing this I will be working on about 6 of those bookshelves of my own library (along with ‘many’ other things), so I must reluctantly bring today’s conversation to a close.

W is helping me write by serenading me in his ‘only dogs can hear it’ high falsetto singing-chirping voice as he bounces on my knee to prove he DOESN’T need a nap (ha). This is such a special little kid even as he demonstrates that he has truly inherited the full dose of the family stubbornness gene. He takes his own counsel on many things, no matter what we ’suggest’ to him.

So — oy, oy, oy. Please keep us in heart and mind and prayer as we flail through the next few days plus a driving schedule that will probably find us,God willing, in Maryland sometime on Monday. Subject to adventures, of course.

W says: Come on, Shu! We’ve got to bust out of this place!

TTFN!

there is no simple endeavor, chapter 5,473

How to ship a tiny kitty to Canada.

— weigh and apply requisite postage to top of head

— buy a bus ticket

— inquire with Amtrak

— contact a pet relocation service (noticing that the $1-3,000 charge does not include actual shipping costs)

— work with her on developing opposable thumbs to facilitate hitchhiking.

Nope.

• plan on shipping from Atlanta airport when taking plush gray big kitty to catch her ride from the international cat show.
• work out with tiny kitty’s former mom that she can accept delivery on that date
• determine airlines that ship kitties to Canada
• go through 5 subsequent telephone numbers and places from Canada to Miami trying to obtain information on how, when, where kitty shipping is handled
• find out that there is an embargo on shipping kitties from Atlanta (too busy with people)
• find out where else in driving distance kitties can be shipped (using A.i.r. C.a.n.a.d.a., renowned for best shipping of kitties and the care thereof during same)
• Flip coin (not really!) as to whether to attempt to ship from Miami or Orlando and then choose Orlando
• Find out that Chick had wanted to slip in a trip to Orlando for this Friday (13th) for a baby shower
• Find out if flight is possible for kitty on that date and at what times
• Find out Friday is possible and she needs to be there at 10 am
• Find out if her former mom can accept delivery on that date
• Find out former mom can as long as arrival not before noon (she does have a job, after all!)
• Find out flight would get tiny kitty to Montreal around 3:50
• Find out quote on price to ship and requirements for shipping
• With agreement from all parties, book her reservation
• Start searching for process on getting health certificate
• Contact vet clinic that absorbed over $2000 about 1 month ago for pet services including full annual exam, shots, rabies, etc. for tiny kitty
• Find out that clinic still wants $75 plus other costs because it’s been a month since she was checked out (!)
• Contact other clinic that tiny kitty and fuzzy blue big kitty have attended and inquire of their costs.
• Their costs were quoted as far less
• Chick calls vet clinic with $75 charge and rips a few slashes in them for overreaching
• Get call back from other clinic with updated quote – $78
• Necessarily make appointment with other clinic for earliest appointment that the Beaches office is next open (Thursday am, 8:30)
• Take tiny kitty in tiny cage with small (but tall for age and appropriately heavy) grandson W under the other arm (while Chick was finalizing the cull for today’s pickup by H.u.b.b.a.r.d. H.o.u.s.e. of donated items and furniture)
• Wait
• Take tiny kitty and small (but etc) grandson to exam room
• Tiny kitty is examined by various souls and charms them all with her jewelbox delicious kitty-ness and sweetness and sleek build
• Tiny kitty passes with almost flying colors (tiny kitty was the only one the vet clinic didn’t target for exorbitant teeth cleaning and tiny kitty needs teeth cleaning), and she has not the slightest trace of fleas on her despite being in Florida where such is apparently expected
• Provide copious amounts of information to administrator who is completing the health certificate form for signature, including shot record and rabies certificate
• Sign in appropriate place as owner
• Hear the administrator say, “Uh-Oh. There may be a hiccup”
• Take a deep breath and forget to exhale
• Hear administrator say, “You are going to have to drive to Gainesville today” (per mapquest and google maps =@2 hour trip each way)
• Hear administrator say, “The FDA veterinarian has to sign and stamp the health certificate”
• Sag,heavily, in chair while noticing that small (but etc) grandson is wet and has soaked his glen plaid pants and that I failed to grab his diaper bag
• Follow administrator and vet tech out to front to pay $78 and accept tiny kitty in her crate
• Wait (and wait and wait and wait) as administrator tries to line up the information about driving to Gainesville and related information as administrator discovers the telephone number on her international health certificate information for the FDA in Gainesville has been disconnected and she makes 13 calls back and forth with the M.a.n.d.a.r.i.n. office of the other clinic as the ‘hmmms’ are batted back and forth
• Look up number for FDA in Gainesville on yellow pages app on cell phone and call it out to administrator but get ignored
• Many moments later administrator calls out (the same) number and makes a call to the FDA to assure it is the right number
• Administrator plugs in address for FDA in Gainesville into mapquest and prints out directions from my house (1 hour 54 minutes)
• Chick calls to find out where W and I are and why we aren’t home yet, getting fizzled when I tell her I have to drive to Gainesville today (the point of having to go being that there is no time for the certificate to be mailed to FDA there, processed, and back to me in time for tiny kitty’s flight tomorrow morning)
• Load up unhappy tiny kitty in crate and unhappy wet grandson into car seat and start driving home while having Chick debate me on the need to get FDA stamp and signature
• By time I arrive home, Chick has called the Canadian embassy and people in Canada referred by the embassy and is hunting up information on the “Canada” website and has been advised that Canada itself does not require health certificate.
• I call my now good friend “Compadre” at A.i.r. C.a.n.a.d.a. A.C. L.i.v.e. (cargo for critters) in Miami and inquire about need for health certificate (yes! you must have! airline requires!) and then need for FDA stamp and signature (we accept what the vet requires; we rely on vet to know what is needed); I sigh because vet office has said I need to drive to Gainesville to get a stamp and signature
• Call the FDA number in Gainesville and follow the prompts to reach the person who deals with pet travel, get voicemail, leave message [still waiting for return call]
• Chick calls FDA number in Gainesville, doesn’t follow the prompts but hits the number for live person, gets live person, advises of our situation and her determination that I don’t need to drive to Gainesville (she worries about me), live person advises her that SHE is correct — per agreement with Mexico, Canada, and the Bahamas, no stamp or signature from the FDA is needed for tiny kitty’s travel to any of those places unless a particular airline requires it and that A.i.r. C.a.n.a.d.a. does not
• Chick glees and I finally exhale in relief and appreciation of her persistence
• Per her suggestion, I contact administrator at the other clinic and share the information we have been told so she can add it to her file and have more updated information than the main office in Mandarin has (making her the expert), and receive thanks for sharing as I give thanks for her efforts to help
• Gather up padding/ blanket to cushion and warm the inside of the tiny crate, find a tiny water bowl, gather up paperwork of health certificate, rabies shot certificate, rabies tag, copy of the ‘work done’ including shots given by the expensive clinic a month ago with tiny kitty’s information highlighted, print out large label of her former and now returned mother’s address and phone numbers, tiny kitty’s name and picture, and my ‘from’ information to affix to the tiny crate with the clear tape I bought for boxing up books, etc. in packing
• Cry, some more
• Feel a tiny bit better reading email from former/now returned mother about how excited and ready she is for receiving the tiny kitty once more into French-speaking climes
• Cry, some more
• Waiting for 7:30 in the morning when tiny kitty will need to be gathered up one last time, kissed and hugged on one last time, crate her, put her in the white car and wave goodbye as Chick and W kindly drive the tiny kitty to her flight… home
• Cry, some more