Starting the punch list

Of course anytime you buy a house, once you get moved in you see the flaws. One flaw—and I’m not quite sure how we’ll fix this one—is that the microwave is mounted very high up. I’m sure the previous owners did this to keep the bar/counter area as open to the living room as possible, and I’m a fan of that. After all when you live in about 1000 square feet, the goal is open and airy. However, I’m 5’5” and while I can manage to microwave small things safely (say a cup of water or a bag of popcorn), I really can’t do much else. See?

I mentioned the drunken dresser on Sunday and thought you might like to see a picture of the damage. What isn’t coming through in the photo is how if I barely touch it on either side, it sways. A lot. I thought I could move it a tiny bit down the wall yesterday without damaging it further but all I did was hasten our next trip to Ikea. Instead of replacing the dresser, though, we are looking into wardrobes like these systems.

And finally since this blog is named kitties kitties kitties I figured I’d better include a current picture of the kitties. I took one of Chloe too, but really all she does is sleep curled in a little ball or else perch on my lap—very sweet but it doesn’t make for interesting pictures. All three have calmed down a lot and very quickly too. After the peeing incident last Friday I really thought we were in for a long time of crazed/bad cat behavior.

Much better

Saturday's move went much better. In fact the only glitch (if you can even call it that) was that since we were the afternoon move for our movers, they didn't get to the old apartment until after 4 PM.

Getting our furniture in here seemed to calm the kitties a lot. We still have boxes stacked everywhere, but I think they kind of like that. I've seen various kitty combinations on the different box stacks.

One big breakthrough occurred yesterday. Ben had told us that when his family moved from Lawrence KS to Detroit, his two kitties completely forget they didn't really like each other. Similarly, I've seen Chloe gradually warming up to the boys and yesterday we found Chloe and Wally nearly in a kitty pile.

Finally, Kent's dresser will not survive this move. He bought it when he got to Boston since all our things were in Kansas City. While it looks nice enough, it's a pretty cheap dresser from Ikea. He didn't put the back on it—he says not having a hammer made that impossible. During the move, pieces started dropping off that thing even though the movers had it well-wrapped in some kind of industrial saran wrap. It's standing in our bedroom leaning about three different ways.

The head mover said he knew it was from Ikea, that most of their furniture never survives a move. That's not what they are intended for. You assemble them and when you move, you leave them. I think it's not just that the item is cheap but also because Kent left off the back since my identical dresser came through just fine. Oh well. We'll probably still get another one because they are inexpensive, roomy and look good. Only this time, he'll put the back on it.

Ug moving

Depending on when you asked yesterday, I'd have told you the move was going well, was OK or was really a complete pain. This morning I'm squarely on really a complete pain.

To start, one of the kitties peed on our bed before we'd even started loading up the car. We are pretty sure it was Eddie, although as stressed as all three are I wouldn't be surprised to find out otherwise. So one of our featherbeds was ruined as was a pair of sheets. I say this because I ran down the street to the dry cleaners to see if they could clean the featherbed and the owner told me he no longer had machines big enough for them. When I asked, he said no one he knew had any. Well I'm not going to lug around a peed-on featherbed so out it went. The sheets were old and were destined to become paint drop cloths shortly, just not quite that fast. And now I need to find a replacement for drop cloths.

On the bright side, the rain held off until after we'd moved four carloads and were done for the day anyway.

Last night was not fun. When Eddie is stressed, he talks a lot and very loudly. So he told us all night long how displeased he was with this whole situation. He'd come get under the covers for about three minutes, spring out as though shot, run into the living room and start talking. Since we only have boxes here at the moment, the sound just reverberated.

Right now at almost 6 AM, Eddie is still talking and I'm not sure how he has a voice left. Wally is hiding in a box, and Chloe is being the sweet good kitty she always is.

The movers come today to get our furniture out of Saint Botolph (we were not moving a hide-a-bed down three flights of stairs, into a truck and then into this place). Then Wednesday the rest of our belongings from Kansas City get here. So I fear the kitties won't be able to get settled for another week.

Cats are unsettled

I'm packing up things in prep for tomorrow's closing and our move out of Saint Botolph. They're running around, playing tag, startling at the least sound and generally acting like freaked out cats. Poor kitties. I want to tell them that by this time next week, life will be a lot calmer but of course words don't mean anything to them.