Starting Over.

Well, I'm back after an extended 'vacation' of sorts. Let's sum that vacation up here:

1. We decided to move to take care of family business to somewhere roughly 26 hours away (driving distance) from our home.

2. We flew up multiple times to the new place, found a place to live - interesting story on that one to be told later (we found it three hours before our plane left, talk about a last minute endeavor).

3. Somehow managed to: fly into City A, drive three hours into City B to take the bar exam, Take the bar exam for two days, drive back to City A and fly home (have luggage lost by airline - thus preventing 6 a.m. departure from home), completely clean house, have emergency car repair work done, and drive 26 hours to new home within the space of five days.

Of course, in the drive here - it was made patently obvious to me by God that I will be a horrible failure as a parent. You see, we have two cats. Since we were driving two cars (which unfortunately were packed pretty much to the brim as the movers forgot a lot of things in closets when they left - although they did not manage to forget to pack four fresh plums and two Granny Smith apples in the boxes which sat on a semi-truck for NINE days) we each were responsible for one cat in the cross-country drive. I took "Weegie", my extremely sociable and calm 22 pound Norweigan Forest Cat. He took the skittish, at times quite rabid psycho cat. I was exhausted from the bar exam and decided Weegie would be the better companion. Note to self, never favor one child over another - you will be summarily punished.

Weegie was extremely upset for the first thirty minutes of the drive, but settled down nicely, and I felt sorry for him locked up in the carrier. Second note to self, do not take your 'child' out of a safety device designed for his, or your own, safety. At first, he just came out of the carrier and sat nicely in the front seat, mewling upon occassion. Then, he reminded me that all good parents must have appropriate toys to distract little ones with for the duration of a 13 hour car ride, and damn it woman - the toys you picked are OBVIOUSLY deficient. He decided that he would much rather play with the gas pedal while I was driving. Once we had a little "talk" he stopped that and pouted in the seat. And then, to spite me, he urinated in the front passenger seat. I truly thought that there was no stench quite like cat urine, but this was to be (quite quickly) proved entirely incorrect.

After I tried soaking up an inordinate amount of cat urine with paper towels, he decided to take refuge in the backseat, in a box of cactus. Note to self (number what is this - twelve?) your child will always find the one thing you do not want them to have, and other people will berate you for abusing them so badly that they had access to such items of destruction.

I roused him from the cactus, pulled as many spines as I could out of him in a rest area (which caused him to meow horribly and passersby to shake their head at me), we got back on the road, now only 45 minutes behind my husband and the incredibly docile and sweetly sleeping other cat.

Once back on the road, it started raining horribly, and someone cut us off. When I slammed on the breaks, the cat meowed something horrible, and then this god forsaken horrible stench took over the car. It was so awful that my eyes were tearing up, and we were a good 45 minutes away from somewhere to pull off and the rain was coming down so hard that I couldn't even crack the windows to escape the smell.

Have I mentioned that this 22 pound cat has extremely long fur, which tends to get quite nasty when he's had diahrrea? No - well, trust me. It's bad. He then proceeded to crawl back into his carrier, (the scene of the crime) and get it all over him - nose to tail. He then is crying because he stinks so bad, and wants me to comfort him, and wants me to hold him - and proceeds to hop into my lap. I deflect him, and he tries to come over the top of the seat onto my shoulder. I know look like Mr. Hanky has attacked the entire interior of my car. We finally are able to pull over and we go through close to three packages of baby wipes getting the shit out of my hair, the car, his fur, you name it. The car reeks so badly I'm afraid to go through a drive through to eat, afraid it will knock out the Taco Bell window attendant. That, and the cat is now sleeping in the litterbox (the only thing in the car miraculously not covered in cat shit), so he's not visible, and the Taco Bell attendant will think it's me that has started biological warfare not Weegie.

Suffice it to say that this was a very long 26+ hour drive. Oh, and did I mention my period started on the way?

Instead of being depressed, I'm trying to look at it philisophically - it's a new beginning. Starting over. A fresh slate. All that good b.s.

We're working on trying to get through all three stories of boxes right now. I'm working on assimilating into my new job. I'm not really working on worrying about the baby thing right now, especially since my new health insurance does not fucking (rather ironic choice of curse word I suppose) cover infertility.

So anyway, I'm back, I'm bitter and living two blocks into a state that still believes in evolution.

We've got a lot of catching up to do.