"The Departure."

Yes, yes. I am the world’s biggest slacker. I haven’t posted here in ages, and everyone has been asking me about my massive life changes, how everything is going blah blah.. so, all I can say is: Careful what you wish for.

So, it started when the packers came to put everything we own into one cardboard box or another. Don’t get me wrong; I am definitely appreciative of the moving service I got set up with. I wouldn’t have survived the stress otherwise. But something about strangers fondling my every possession is enough to make anyone crazy. It was a crazy day of overseeing them, “This stack, NOT that stack” etc (had to leave some stuff behind for Ryan to get by) and by the end I was exhausted. It was only noon. It took 2 people a mere 4 hours to pack up my entire life.





The next day the movers arrived, semi-on-time, but not without drama. It appears that the driver clipped a low hanging cable line in my neighborhood and ripped a bundle of cables off of someone’s house. Of course, the cables were not hung to the specified legal height for just such an occasion (they don’t make these things up for fun, you know), but that didn’t stop the hapless homeowner from running down the street after a 50’ moving truck screaming that the driver owed him money for the damages. A bit afterward, the driver arrives at my house, and tells me that he clipped a line, but he didn’t care because the line was supposed to have 13’ 9” clearance, and didn’t so he has no responsibility. His moving helpers arrived, and the show went on.



After about 30 minutes of extremely slow progress inside the house, there was a knock on the door. The (now cable-less) homeowner had called the cops and followed the moving truck to tell them where to go. The cop was trying to cite the driver, but the driver told him that the homeowner would have to take it up with whatever company installed the line. It was classic “its not my fault” syndrome. Another hour of my life down the drain.

After a few hours of even slower progress, (Yes I admit it was hot that day.. but damn!) and one bitter fight with the (barely-smart-enough-to-keep-breathing) driver on how to dismantle a desk (“I took all the screws out but these 4, and it still won’t come apart! I need your permission to break it”) and a few near impossible physical feats on my part (flipping and dismantling my desk with one hand while on the phone with ryan on the other while the driver keeps telling me over and over that the desk is glued and I can’t possibly take it apart without breaking it, the movers finally finished, I signed the papers and was glad to see the last of them. All I had left to wonder now was… will I ever see my stuff again?

I cleaned up the house and rearranged the remaining furniture into some semblance of living quarters, got the stressed out dogs re-situated and moped around my once beautiful house.

That night I packed my suitcase for two weeks, and spent my last night in Atlanta.

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The trip to California was not uneventful either. For those of you who have traveled with a cat, or any animal for that matter, know, it ain’t easy. I pre-read all the information that delta had to offer on their website, and made myself a checklist to get the cat through to California. I put just enough stuff in my carry on (pan, litter, food, treats) to last him for two weeks until the real stuff arrived, put him into his crate and off we went. At check in the (very nice and accommodating) gate agent lady tells me that only two live animals can be in the coach cabin on any given flight. Luckily, there was only one other one checked in at the time, had I gotten to the airport and both spots had been full, I would have been in the pit of despair. One hurdle has been overcome. Next she tells me that his plastic crate that I carried him in from the house will not fit under the seat and that I would have to go buy a soft one from the luggage store. I looked around for a full 30 minutes to find the place, and finally stumbled upon it after asking my 5th airport information officer in a row. The place had ONE carrier left. $60 later, I was on my way to overcoming my second hurdle… a suitable carrier: check. Now, I needed to move the spawn of Satan from one crate to another in the middle of an over-crowded airport. I went for it, and luckily he was in shock, so the transfer was uneventful. Off to security.

Before leaving I asked the gate agent if I would have to put him through the scanner. She said no and that I’d just pass him along the side, and that would be fine. Thinking my hurdles were done for the day… I semi-merrily proceeded to security. The line was long but not suicidal. I finally got up to the thing and I started to pass the cat round the scanner to the guard on the other side, where he then informed me that I had to remove kurillin from the crate and walk him through the checkpoint with him in my arms.

You have got to be kidding.

Take him out of the crate?! In the middle of the airport? Yep. You heard it right. I had to take a wild animal (with razor sharp claws) out of confinement and walk through an unfamiliar environment with him in my arms and somehow manage to get him back in the (now scanned) crate on the other side. I complied. I took him out, got a bone-crushing grip on him, and started to walk toward the checkpoint. “no” the guard said… “What now?” “Shoes.” He said.

You have got to be kidding.

Removing my shoes with no hands, putting them on the conveyor belt with no free hand, and trying to get everything together on the other side. Not my happiest moment.

Luckily kurillin was paralyzed with fear, but not after digging 8 claw sized holes into my chest, I got him back into his carrier, got all of my shit together and finally made my way toward the plane.