Homaha, Part II

I should also mention one little detail before moving further into the story.

How many of you have ever driven a truck into a house before? Show of hands?

Nobody?

Okay, fine.

So it's just me then.

While backing the truck into the driveway (trying to get it straighter) I went a little too far, the gas pedal was where the brake should be, and I rammed it into the balcony of the house in Newton. Not too hard, mind you, but enough to break/splinter the already falling apart wood of the balcony in one little place, and bend up the metal sheeting under the carpet on said balcony. It was barely noticeable, and didn't even mark the truck. The balcony was always rotting and half-falling apart anyway, and had been since I moved in.

No, I didn't mention it to the landlord. You wouldn't notice it unless you stared right at it or were looking for it, and if he does notice it sooner or later, he'll never know when or how it got there (since he wasn't around when it happened, and is so rarely in the neighborhood anyway). It was very minor. Eh. If I lose some more of the deposit for that, it's totally on me and my own stupidity. If I don't? Huzzah.

Also, before I go forward, I'd also like to say that my allergies have kicked in full-force tonight, four days after moving here, as a somewhat large cold front has moved in and brought rain with it. My sinuses are feeling terrible -- like, sinus-infection terrible -- and they're steadily getting worse as the night moves onward and the rain begins to fall. My face and teeth hurt again, and I don't like it. It's that nasty nerve pain from swollen sinuses around my teeth that just isn't pleasant no matter how you slice it, and it's more than likely been spurred on by the move, the lack of sleep, the amount of work I've been doing (all of which wears down my immune system) and the different weather systems/climates here in Nebraska compared to Kansas. I've taken what pills I can for it, but it's really not getting any better or lessening any. It's rather unlike me to develop a full-blown sinus infection in less than twelve hours (as I was okay this morning when I got up), so I hope it's just weather-related and that it passes quickly. I can't be bogged down by sickness when I have so many other things to do in the next week.

Anyway. To continue the story...

The drive to Nebraska was a very long one, punctuated by the fact that it was already getting hot when we left Kansas and nothing could be done about it. You can run the air conditioner in the car all you want, but when it's sunny and that sun hits the back seat where you have cats in their carriers, no amount of air conditioning on an almost six-hour-long drive will keep them cool. Pete was panting by the time we reached Concordia, the 1/3-of-the-way point, and there was nothing I could do. They still had to be in their carriers for several more hours even then. We stopped briefly there and in York, as per the usual, but luckily we did catch a break -- it became more and more overcast the further north we drove, and the cats got a reprieve from the sun once the cloud cover took over.

As for the cats themselves, each time I stopped or started the car's movement, Sadie would cry out and howl a little, and then I'd talk to her for a few minutes and she would stop and be okay. Maggie slept almost the whole way, as did Pete. I think all of them were the cat equivalent of being shell-shocked; they were already scared and somewhat traumatized as it was from all of the things happening around them. Mind you, this was to be expected -- they hadn't been anywhere but inside the Newton house for five years. They probably don't remember the other places they lived before then, and if they do, it's a very faint memory. They haven't been in the car or the carriers since moving in there, either, and it was probably really scary for them to see their home emptied...and then to be boxed up and taken away from that home forever, even though it was me and Daisy who were taking them.

When we arrived in Omaha at our new place, it was mid-afternoon -- around 3PM or so. Daisy's father and one of our friends helped us unload everything, something that took many, many stressful and work-filled hours. Mama was here as well; she put together our table for us and kept an eye on the apartment while we left its door open for easy in-and-out access with all of the furniture and dolly loads. By around 10:30 or so, hours after the parents and our friend had left, we had everything in the apartment -- entire rooms filled with boxes from floor to ceiling, furniture haphazardly arranged just so we could get it in there and worry about it later, yes, but we had it in there -- and we went to put the ramp up on the truck and close it up for the night.

Now, I'd rented a 17-foot U-Haul, and had paid full price for it (almost $400 total, not counting gas -- Daisy got the gas for it) and with a 17-foot U-Haul truck loaded to the brim (because it was), to get things in and out it has a retractable steel ramp. A big, heavy, retractable steel ramp. The ramp has to be out at all times when you're loading and unloading, because well, otherwise you can't really load or unload anything. And the truck's back door won't close when the ramp is down and extended. So we had to put the ramp up, close it up, and then park it in our complex's parking lot for the night before we could take it to the drop-off point in the morning.

The ramp wouldn't go up. It was stuck.

Motherfucker. What can go wrong *will* go wrong, right?

We tried wiggling it. We tried moving it up and down. We tried pushing up and pushing down on it, shaking it side to side, getting underneath it and messing with the latches. No dice. The ramp wouldn't budge.

By this point it was getting really late, and Daisy and I were doubly exhausted from working for essentially 48 hours straight and making the drives down and back up here.

"There's a U-Haul place down the street," I said, which was true -- about a mile away there's a big U-Haul location. "Call them and see if there's someone there who can come up here and fix the ramp on the truck, or at least see if there's something actually wrong with it or not."

Because, of course, it's not like we can take it down there.

What I really wanted to say was don't tell them we broke it, don't give them my account number or the truck number, just ask if there's someone who can come up and fix it.  The truck had already cost enough money -- if we had someone come up here, I didn't want them knowing anything about me or knowing my account number for the rental, as that would give them a way to remotely charge us more for a "service call" or some shit like that.

She called somebody at U-Haul, got transferred around several times, and then her phone battery died. She plugged it in and called back, and got a guy who told her that it sounded like the ramp had gotten off-track. We went downstairs and he walked us through how to check it and what to do to get it back on-track if it was indeed off. While she was on the phone with him and I was following the directions he relayed, the ramp dropped down and locked back into place, and I was able to slide it back up and in under the truck.

"We're not touching that damned ramp again," I said, almost crying with relief and fatigue.

Daisy thanked the guy on the phone very graciously and hung up.

And we were then done.

She moved the truck across the parking lot, and we went back upstairs. A wave of great relief washed over me. It was over. This terrible, painful move -- in which I'd suffered a facial injury due to a doorjamb, had injured my shoulder/bicep badly (and then re-injured it twice more during continued moving) and had backed a truck into a house...it was all over. Everything was inside. It was done. I'd barely slept. Aside from a handful of almonds and that aforementioned (in the last post) Subway sub, I hadn't eaten anything in 48 hours. I was very addled, very sweaty and achy, and the most physically tired I'd been in a very, very long time.

As for the cats? We'd made sure everything they could get into was closed up, but they were still so scared and traumatized that they didn't want to get out of their carriers even though they'd been opened and they'd been "free" to roam about the laundry room, get food and water, use their pan, etc since around 3PM. Pete actually got out of his carrier and snuggled up with Sadie in hers. They didn't want to move. At all. I felt so bad for the poor little babies.

We did have to move them into the bathroom and put them in the tub, in their carriers, when we had to bring in the washer and dryer (the last two things we unloaded), but we moved them back into the laundry room afterward. They still didn't want to move. We left them in there with the door shut, as there was still stuff strewn around the house and we were pretty sure at least Sadie had peed on herself inside her carrier due to fright, and we went out to get Night Flight Pizza for dinner. At 1AM.

Because I'd been so stressed out and so busy, with very little sleep, my hunger didn't kick in until it was all done. That's how my body and mind works a lot of the time, to be honest with you -- if there's something to be done, and it's a lot of work or stress to do, everything else is shut out or turned off, physically and psychologically, until that task is completed. That's why I couldn't sleep even though I was extremely tired and sore. That's why I hadn't been hungry even though I hadn't eaten in two days. Those urges get pushed aside when nothing else can be done but the task at hand. Since the task at hand -- at least the hard part of it -- had been completed, my hunger and fatigue came roaring back. Daisy said she wanted Night Flight (which I probably would've suggested anyway) and so that's what we did.

Upon returning home, we made sure the cats would be clean and safe in the new place by...well...giving them baths. Individually. We needed to do this because of the pee issue. Pete didn't pee in his cage (Pete was the best of all three of them, actually, at adjusting to everything going on) but we were pretty sure the girls had, at least one of them anyway. So we gave them gentle, warm-water baths in the bathtub in "my" bathroom, only using a thumbtack-sized bit of body wash to lather them up and rub them down. They were really good; they took it well. I think it's because they were so tired, scared, and stressed anyway that they didn't want to put up a fight.

After we held them and let them dry (again, individually), we rubbed them down to remove any excess water and hair, talked to them sweetly to help calm their nerves, and we let them out one by one to explore their new home and gather their composure.

Let me tell you -- they adjusted really well, really quickly. Once they were dry (or dry enough, anyway) they got comfortable in the house really fast. They love the new furniture that Daisy got, and they found new sleeping spots and hidey-holes really quickly without us having to worry about them. Also, interestingly enough, they haven't fought once since moving in, and they've been more lovey than ever -- especially with Daisy, which was incredibly surprising to me. It's a night and day difference compared to how they felt during the move and during our bringing things in and out of both places. Now, several days later, they know where everything is, know where they can hide and sleep comfortably, and have once more become completely normal and at ease.

However, even though everything was in the house and safe/secure, we still had to take back the U-Haul and we still had to unpack everything. How did that turn out? Well, that's a story for the next post.