Just We Two - Journey into Madness

I’ve been playing with some new toys, and someone named Linda has been helping me to play.

Am I still alive?  Miss Patchy suggested the title for this page, but I don’t really know what it means.  She says that a journey is like a trip.  Well, what is a trip?  Anyway, we had an awful ordeal, Miss Patchy and I.  We were put into our boxes every morning and taken to the car to roll away somewhere.  It was so scary!  Sometimes I tried so hard not to get into the box, but Miss Patchy said that Mom and Dad will always win that fight, and she was absolutely right.  I hated all those little houses where we lived for the night.  They smelled funny and they were small, and I just wanted to be back home, where I felt safe.  I hated rolling in the car, too.  Mostly Miss Patchy and I slept when we were in the car, so I don’t remember a lot of it.

First, there was all the packing away of familiar things, and the loss of our furniture.  Where did it go and why?  Now I understand it a little better, since we seem to be at home in a new place.  It is much bigger than those little places where we stayed the nights.  I feel a little safer now, except for the other cats who also live here.  The one named Mr. Purr is very frightening.  He says he is the boss here and I need to just stay out of his way and do whatever he says.  Miss Patchy says that she knew him a long time ago.  She didn’t like him then and she doesn’t like him now, but she’s not really afraid of him.  She fights with him, although not so much anymore.  She is very brave.  I wish I could be like her.  One reason I don’t like him much is that he yells all the time.  Miss Patchy said that he didn’t used to yell and that maybe he can’t hear too well.  That might be right, since sometimes I come right up to him and he doesn’t notice until he actually sees me and then he is very startled.  Wow!  I would hate it if I couldn’t hear.  Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all.

The other cat is called Millie and I like to intimidate her.  Miss Patchy said that’s what I do, but I don’t really know that word.  Anyway, when we meet, I hiss at her and she mostly runs away and I chase her, except for sometimes when she hisses back.  It is fun.  Sometimes, Millie even comes right in front of me, teasing me.  It’s a good game.

At first it was very cold in this new house, and Miss Patchy and I spent a lot of time in a wall, refusing to come out, even sometimes we didn’t eat.  That is very unusual for Miss Patchy, but not so much for me.  Finally, things are getting warmer, and the windows are open sometimes.  The windows here are much different from home, and there are a lot more of them.  They look different, and there are a lot of things to see when I look out, plus they are easier to get to.  There are lots of birds to watch.  I wish I could get to them, but again, there are screens, and I can’t get out.  I have to be satisfied just to watch and switch my tail, thinking about what I would do to them if I ever caught them.  When I look out the windows, mostly all I see are many brown stick-like things.  I’m not sure what they are.

What a terrible ordeal we have gone through.  I just can’t stop thinking about being in the box for so long and staying in those horrible little houses.  Some of them were not so terribly bad, but they just weren’t home.  Some of them smelled very bad and some were not very good.  Some were not too bad, but home is best.  Will we ever be home again?  Miss Patchy says that we probably won’t ever be in the Phoenix home again.  She has some experience, and thinks that we are probably in our new home now.

I was very frightened the other day.  Once again, we were put into the boxes, both of us.  We went to the car and rolled away.  I thought for sure we would end up in one of those awful little houses for the night, but instead, we went to see the vet.  Almost as bad, but at least we went home when we were done there.  The vet poked and prodded until I thought I would go crazy.  Then she gave me a shot.  Miss Patchy got the same.  What is happening now?  I think we have to go back again later on.  Mom and Dad are talking about flying somewhere.  Well, we don’t have wings, so I don’t think we will be flying anywhere any time soon.  I talked to Miss Patchy about this, but she says I shouldn’t be so sure about things.  She says that Mom and Dad have talked about flying here and flying there, and they don’t have wings.  Hm-m-m-m!  We will have to think about this for a while to see if we can figure it out.

Maybe if I play with some toys, I can think better.  My mind will be clearer.

Regards,

Mina

Where To, and When?

Well, I have had a good nap, so I can continue with our adventures.

Finally, one day, Dad was in the garage, giving stuff to people who gave him pieces of paper, when Dad brought home something behind the car that he called a trailer.  They started putting the taped up boxes in it, and when it was starting to get dark, Mom made us get into our boxes and put us in the car!  We were getting seriously frightened by then.  Some people came, gave Dad some more pieces of paper and took the rest of the stuff out of the garage.  He closed the garage door and locked up the house.  He and Mom got into the car (which was stuffed to the ceiling with things, including us), and off we rolled.  It was like being in a closet or something.  Mina and I were facing each other, but there was all kinds of stuff covering our boxes.  It had already been dark for a while, so we didn’t roll for very long.  We stopped so Mom and Dad could eat something, and then we rolled on for a little while.  Then we stopped and slept in a little house with just a bedroom and a bathroom.  It was nice to be out of the boxes, but it was a strange place that didn’t smell like home.  We snuggled with Mom and Dad.

In the morning, they put us back into our boxes and we rolled off again!  We continued to roll all day long.  I was not too scared, as I had done this before, when Cherokee and I moved with Mom from Massachusetts to Phoenix.  Mina, however, was quite concerned.  She couldn’t understand being shut up in her box for so long.  I told her to just go to sleep, and she would wake up when it was time to get out of the box.  We both slept, and went into another little house called Texas.  It was quite late in the day already.

The next day was a repeat of the previous day, but this time the house was called Austin.  Mom and Dad left us in the strange place all evening, and went to her nephew’s house, where they ate a wonderful dinner.  We just had dry food!  The house we were in was very old and not in very good condition.  Mom said that the only thing good about it was that it was cheap.  Again, we spent only one night there.

On the following day, Mom said that they had to change their plans.  They wanted to go see her sister in Florida, but she said it was way too hard on Mina and me to keep going for so many days in the car.  Yes!!!  Finally, she was thinking of us!  She said that we would turn north and head straight for Massachusetts.  Massachusetts?  Didn’t we leave that house once, a long time ago?  Anyway, we got into the car again and that night we spent in a little house called Arkansas.  Mom said there had been an accident on the freeway and the traffic was stopped.  They decided not to go on to Memphis, and stayed in the little house right by the freeway.  It was much better than the house called Austin.  I was really going stir crazy, and had to see out the window or die!  Mom helped me to get into the window, behind the curtains, and I stayed there for a long time, just dreaming of freedom and maybe being home again.  Mina was just trying to get attention all night and woke Mom up.  Dad spent some time on the computer, since the house had something called free WI FI.  Neither one of them slept very much.

They said the traffic was much better the next day, and we reluctantly got into the boxes.  Mina fought very hard against it, but I told her it was useless.  Mom and Dad are bigger than we are, and they will always win!  Mom kept saying that a storm was coming and that we needed to keep ahead of it.  She thought maybe it would not come quite as far as we were, but we kept on rolling.  We stayed in a little house in Ohio.

When we went to the car the next morning, it was pretty cold and I was shivering.  Mina complained of the cold, too.  She made a big show of not getting into the box this morning.  She hid behind a piece of furniture and Dad had to pull some drawers out so he could get to her.  She was pretty mad, but after the car warmed up and we were ready to sleep, she calmed down.  What else could she do?  Mom said it snowed a little while we were sleeping, but fortunately, I didn’t see it.  Mina wanted to know what snow is.  I tried to explain it, but she didn’t really understand.  On we rolled and rolled.  Would we never get out of that car and living in the little houses?  Mom said that we got to a house called Niagara Falls.  It was so terribly cold in the bedroom.  I shivered and shivered.  We snuggled a lot.  Mina went under the covers.

In the morning, the room was finally warm, but then we were stuffed into our boxes and taken out to the cold car.  How much longer? I have resigned myself to the morning ritual of getting into the box.  Mina, on the other hand, it getting worse and worse about it.  She hid deep under the covers, but Mom and Dad saw her easily as a big lump in the bed, and picked her up.  She fought and fought getting into the box, but, of course, they won and in she went.  The car stopped a couple of times, but eventually we got somewhere with people who hugged Mom and Dad.  We got out of the warm car into the cold, but then we went right into a house.  It was a pretty big house with just one problem – there were other cats there!  I think I know them.  They are called Mr. Purr and Millie!  I believe that I knew them in the Massachusetts house.  I thought I was rid of them forever, but here we are again.  However, if this house is called Massachusetts, what happened to the other one called Massachusetts?  I am beginning to wonder about this.

The next morning, we did not get up and go into the boxes.  We did not get into the car and roll.  We ate breakfast and hid.  We found a nice, quiet place in the wall in a bedroom where Richie (Mom’s grandson) lived.  I remember him from when he stayed with us in the house called Phoenix.  We were so scared that we would have to move on again, that we hardly ever came out of the wall for days.  Sometimes we didn’t even eat.  Did I say that?

Well remembering all of this stuff has made me very tired.  Nighty night!

Yours,

Apache

Chaos

I’m just up from my nap, and feel the need to get on with this blog.  As I’m sure you’ve noticed, neither of us has written anything for a very long time.  All has been chaos in our house, at least as I understand that word.

Neither Mina nor I have been able to understand much of what has been going on.  Shortly after Mom had her second hip replacement, Mom and Dad decided that we would have to move – again!    Where to this time, I wondered.  In order to move, they decided that they must sell everything, except us and their clothes.  So, once Mom was feeling okay, she began to sort things out.  This was all interrupted by Mom and Dad going away – again!  They left the house one morning and didn’t come back for nearly a week.  The neighbor came in to feed us again, and to clean our litter box.  Did they think of us while they were gone?  Did they go somewhere, or just stay out of the house for that week?

When they got back, they talked about something called a reunion, a cemetery, old friends, old houses, and other things, including a beach, whatever those things are.  They talked about eating some places and driving around.  I’m glad I didn’t go, since I would much rather take a nap.

Of course, the sorting began again, and Mom began to set things up in the garage.  She set up the folding tables and put a lot of stuff on them.  She kept finding more and more stuff to put in the garage, until you could hardly move in the garage.  She got really tired do all of that, but she kept on going, until there was no longer any room for anything.  Finally, the day came when the door to the garage was constantly open, our litter box and food and water dishes were upstairs, and a lot of people came into the house and were looking around.  This went on for two days!  When it was over, things apparently went back to normal.  But not quite!  A lot of things were gone that had been in the house before.  Even some of the furniture was missing.  The curio cabinet and the entertainment center had disappeared some time before, when someone came to take them away.

There were a few more days of that type of activity over the while, but things remained pretty much the same, until one day some people came and took away the couch, the liquor cabinet, the bedroom set, and the wonderful computer desk and one of the office chairs.  That was a shock!  Mom went out one day and came back with a tiny little thing to put the computer on and things were a little difficult for a while.  A while after that, the garage was open most of the time, and people came and took stuff away.  Mom packed away the china and a lot of other things, and taped up the boxes.  It was getting really scary.  Mina and I had no idea what was happening.  We just stayed close to Mom and Dad and tried to keep warm and comfortable on what was left of the furniture.  They moved the mattress and springs from the bed down into the living room so they would have something to sit on, so we often cuddle there.

One day, when it was pretty cold, Mom went away.  She was gone for a few days and then came back.  She said that her sister-in-law had died and she had to go to the funeral.  I’m not sure what that is, but she was sad for a while.  She said it was an expense she hadn’t needed, but she had needed to go; it was important.  She said it was very cold where she had been, but it hadn’t bothered her too much.  She said that was a good thing, considering what they were going to do.

Oh, I’m getting so tired!  I think I need a nap.

Yours,

Apache