convoy!

27 hours in a penske moving truck with derek and three cats, while hauling a car trailer. there is a new respect in my life for truck drivers. i'm still seeing the little white and yellow lines of the road in my vision. i started to become convinced that by travelling on easter sunday we would spot jesus in the desert hanging out at a remote truck stop and drinking mountain dew, maybe having a cone at the dairy queen or something cool like that. alas, only one stop had the ambience that would have provided the resurrection, and it was more deliverance country than holy land. (insert banjo music here) derek spotted the easter bunny running across i-40 and we saw tumbleweeds that don't involve cat hair.

while most of the trip was blissfully uneventful, we did have on near death experience near barstow and a lot of meowing. okay, so the cats did do better than expected. they wore themselves out from crying and wiggling around oklahoma city, only to wake up here and there each time we stopped for gas. somewhere in new mexico we got them all out in a rest stop ladies room to see if they would use the litterbox, but the only one interested was stuart, and he only wanted to roll around in it. dizzy had an accident - the poor thing had to get a bath her first night here - and got her sheets changed in arizona, and bubba mostly spent time flinging himself against the side of his carrier. he has, since getting to the new house, eaten approximately his own body weight in science diet. the other two are just happy to get any food by the time he's done gnawing away.

they are all gassy. very gassy.

our limp little bodies are still recovering as well. we got all the stuff into the house yesterday and i did a good deal of unpacking last night. it almost looks like people live here! i should get organized by the end of the week. we're off to find some storage for derek's office stuff later today, so it's more hauling tomorrow. i'm gonna be so damn strong this month from lifting all this stuff. it means i can have as many cookies as i want, right? as a side note, it's always helpful to have the same size boxes for moving and to label them when taping them shut. oh, and jenny is so right. if the box says kitchen on the top then put it in the fucking kitchen when you go inside with it. now i just have to figure out what to do with all these empty boxes.

our new place is on the second floor and even has a nice porch out front. there's a decent view of our street and all the people walking their dogs. the kitties love their new front door... it has a screen so they can get some air. the place has mostly wood floors and tile, which is always better than all carpet. kind of the setup that tim and mary had in their duplex, only with windows than can open and get great air flow through the place. it cracks me up that we have heat and air conditioning in the house, including an extra window unit in the bedroom. we barely used both of the window units in our other place, so the thought of ever turning it on here makes me want to hurl. out of curiosity, i decided to risk my own welfare and was quite promptly reminded that we'll be needing a really good water filter system. BLECH! how do they fucking live with this shit?!? and speaking of water, we'll have to do a commando-style rigging of the shower head. it keeps making me think of that episode of king of the hill where they have to get a low flow toilet... does it count as low flow if you have to stay in the shower four times as long just to rinse off and get clean? if anyone out there has a shower head that can put out more than 2.5 GPM with some good pressure behind it, we need your help. damn, i knew i'd miss my bathroom, but not for so many reasons. rebecca is now the the proud bearer of a shower with the most water pressure ever. it's not even on the high setting, which is kind of like getting sandblasted clean. let this be a lesson to cherish your water pressure. i just wanna get clean, damnit! on the good side, the toilet seems to be a contraband item and works pretty well. i'm sticking it to the man on that one.

wanna know about the driving? yeah, of course you do. it's the main attraction here! i have managed to not get stuck in a major traffic jam OR come to a dead halt on the freeway just yet. right, see, that's been two whole days! woohooo!!! we went to get my car from across town yesterday and it took over an hour to get into north hollywood from redondo beach. to be honest, i kind of lost track of the time. it could have been the novelty of being in a new place. there were a lot of different neighborhoods and winding roads to distract me. when we got out of the cars, i did notice a persistent off-kilter vibrating in my body, like you get when you jump off of an elliptical training machine. it made me feel frenetic for a while. is this what it feels like to be holly?

there are a lot of things here that are just like anywhere else. culturally speaking, it's the little things that make the difference. not a big suprise there i'm sure. ever notice the most random bits about a place when you go on vacation? that's all the stuff i'm noticing right now, which makes me sounds like a remedial yet pedantic jackass. dogs in dresses! palm trees out your front door! houses built on steep hills! construction with no noise! oh, and derek took the liberty of ordering some "oklahoma chili" when we went out to eat yesterday. DON'T EVER BE THAT STUPID! we could only suppose that they could try to call it that because someone mailed them a can of wolf brand from oklahoma. one phenomenon that i had not expected? there are people walking down the street in my 'hood. yes, walking! i'm sure it's just to get to their cars, but it's hopeful enough for now.

off to see what the new week brings...