Non Productive

The day following my last blog entry I was hit on the side of my head with a big rock (or, more accurately, a chunk of concrete) about six inches in length when some kid threw said rock/chunk at my car and it came in through the open passenger side window and struck me. ( I was going 50 mph ) Car is fine. Head is fine. I actually wasn't hit that hard. It seems to me it was about as hard as it could be without seriously hurting me, but as it was it nearly knocked me out, and gashed my head so that I required stitches. I say stitches but I got staples. Now I look sort of like the victim of an office copy machine collating task gone horribly awry. The good news is the healing is probably 80-90% done, and the staples are coming out tomorrow. Yay.

Never saw it coming.

So, slightly out of sorts, I didn't get much accomplished this week as far as my move in December. I thought about stuff though!  Which counts. I have a plan for the kittehs, who unfortunately will remain in the Midwest. I hate doing that. I have a friend in California who I think is mad at me, but no one wants to move two cats 1,600 miles, or whatever, and if you've ever apartment hunted, you will realize that two cats will cost you plenty in terms of extra deposits and "pet rent." (Don't get me started on that. It's right up there with "application fee" on the bullshit scale.) There is also the issue of a mild (I guess) cat allergy I have. The last time I lived without a cat in the house was 1984. Since that date, I have taken roughly 12,045 Claritin or Claritin substitute pills to keep my head clear. That can't be good for me. At any rate, I'm anxious to get off of it. I can't help but think my flagging immune system will get at least a slight boost by me taking cat dander out of the equation.

My last, recent, move leaves me with a minimum amount of extraneous crap, so I actually believe I can get rid of it before December. At this point, I am leaning heavily toward getting rid of all regular furniture and moving with just my belongings and clothes. It doesn't really sound realistic, but I have a platform bed that breaks down into fairly short boards and lots of hex wrench fasteners, and a couple of antique drawleaf tables (with chairs) that also break down and can be boxed. I doubt I will be able to move in just my car, but maybe a small trailer . . . ????  I dunno. Needs more thought. I can always hire it done and to be realistic, again, that's probably what will wind up happening.

The really crappy Kansas City summer we are having this year only strengthens my resolve to move to California. It will be hot where I'm going, but . . . I'm not even going to say it. Here, we reached 101 degrees today, and it was a very humid heat. Not a dry . . . well, I'm not going to say it.

Kadima: The Meandering Line of Life

A lot has transpired here since my last blog post. I was just reminded how long ago that was. Summer arrived, the hot weather tethered behind. The thunderstorms, the humidity, then the shimmering, still, broiling hot afternoons followed by sultry nights and blazing mornings you just can't seem to wake up ahead of. I take my daily walk in the mornings in a desperate and futile bid to "beat the heat."

Bees, by the way, whether regimented beekeeper bees or feral bees, swarm in the spring, before the summer heat. A new queen is created deep inside the honeycombs of the hive, and the old queen takes a big percentage of the hive's members and they swarm off to a new home. They only go maybe 50 yards, though, that first day, and settle in a huge, frightening ball hanging from a tree limb or the eave of a tall house, maybe. Here they stay for a day or two, at the most, and then off they go, suddenly, over the horizon, as it were, and find their new permanent home, much farther away.

In the same way, once I had spent a year in my old house alone, I sold it and moved--not too far away--to an apartment just over the state line, in the adjacent city. Here I stay for a short time.  That time is already half used up--I've been here six months now, with another 6 months to go before the lease is up. And like the swarming bees, I'm ready to make another move, this time much farther away, to my (next) permanent home. So a couple weeks ago, once I realized that all that was necessary was for me to decide to do it, I decided to move to northern California, to a small college town in the Great Valley, a very few hours drive from my old home in Palo Alto which I left over 40 years ago. So, an old familiar place, yet a new place.

I'm a lot more streamlined now than I was when I moved from my house. I still have junk--don't get me wrong--but not as much, now, and I should be able to trim down to the clothes I normally wear and my favorite or necessary things, like a hobo with a bag tied to the end of a stick, (if said bag was, oh, about fifteen feet in diameter, perhaps suspended by some sort of small portable crane.)

Again I am putting items on Craigslist and giving away other stuff, and coaxing and cajoling my son into taking all the things of his that he once thought I would store for him in perpetuity. The most difficult thing is that I am trying to find a new home, or homes, for my two cats. I hate to remove them, like this, from my life, but I don't want to move them to California, and the reality is that I'm allergic to cats and have been taking allergy medications daily since 1984 when my wife and I adopted Roscoe, our first cat.

Note to unsavory characters and evil hackers scanning my text from afar: none of my passwords is "roscoe." But, you know, knock yourselves out.

So, fingers crossed that we find good, loving homes for my cats, Uma and L-Bot. Maybe with sort of gentle kids, or with yards populated with endlessly fascinating bunnies that nonetheless have lightning fast reflexes. Maybe with at least one little kid who can appreciate the aloof but sincere companionship of these familiar yet strange creatures.

More as it develops.