Landing at The Hot Place

So far, so good ---- I am mostly settling in nicely and getting my home all home-y. My nails are bendy and completely ruined from all the cleaning and washing of stuff I did today, and I am also very very sick of laundry. But, when you use a mixture of newspaper and your towels/sheets/random clothing bits to pack up all your stuff, it all looks pretty nasty on the other end. And I still haven't dealt with the pile of clothes I have actually been wearing!

The up side of all this washing is the complex --- oh, it is so nice to have a washing room with a key card! I love it. Instead of hoarding quarters I can use my credit card to put cash on this little key card fob thingy they gave me, and it makes life soooo much simpler! Except, of course, for the whole putting a charge on my already-overloaded card bit. But soon things will settle down and I will be over the moving hurdle and it will all be fine.

The place is great, with only a few small problems, and of course, they are cat related. You know, one of the problems with moving to a new place is that when you slam a door and the cats run and hide, or it's just the middle of the day and they want to hang out somewhere and sleep, you have no clue where they might be? Also, my last place, while lacking in character, had awesome walk in closets with doors just like bedroom doors. This place probably has more closet space, but it mainly has those sliding doors on tracks ---- which I have never liked anyway ---- and the cats can easily get in anywhere. I have had to re-think my storage situation because I have one cat that loves eating string (Timido), including shoelaces, and one cat (Loquito) who chews on anything plastic, including plastic bags, dry cleaning bags, and he eats any little bits of plastic or cellophane he might find on the floor. The little fucker.

Right now my front hall coat closet ---- which the last place did not have and was sorely missed, what with all the rain and sleet and snow and weather-y type stuff ---- is holding all my random plastic bags, cleaning supplies, anything my cats should not eat (including their food, since they can get into my kitchen cupboards) and my medicine box. And of course my coats. I shall have to devise a better storage system soon.

Another problem is the windows. While I have great views out of the windows on one side (and yay for having lots of windows and natural light!), the other side's windows look out over the parking lot. But in my old place the window was right up against the handicapped space at the end of the row, which meant that the only people to use that space were either visiting me or the Gorton's Fish Sticks Man lookalike across the way. What this means is that if anybody pulled up into that space, they would then soon ring the doorbell and --- gasp! --- come inside! And this of course would send my terrified cats running for cover. In the new place, however, the window right by the kitchen table looks out over the middle of the guest parking row, which means a lot of people pull into those spaces or walk by the window. Where do my cats run off to when this happens? I don't know yet! No clue if it is a safe and catproof space.

But once I did figure this out today I closed the blinds and this has helped the cats a lot. They are trucking around the apartment, going to the kitchen to eat their food, much calmer. But.

It's kinda darker in here with the blinds all closed, right? I had a whole bunch of living room lamps in the old place because I couldn't use the overhead lighting. The lights were attached to a fan that I couldn't figure out how to make it not spin while the lights were shining. Now, my cats have no clue what a ceiling fan is ---- whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, it goes, with the shadows and air-stirring noises of a bird of prey. When I first turned on that light in Postdoc City the cats crouched to the floor and ran for it, then circled the edges of the room like they were stirred by a big spoon, their tails poofed up into huge brushes.

So being the cat-spoiler that I am, I just turned off the lights and worked around the situation. But I'd kinda like to use the ceiling lights over my kitchen table, you know?

Well, in Postdoc City when they encountered the the Fanbird of Death, there was no furniture in the place yet. This time, however, my kitchen table is set up directly underneath. Which brings the Fanbird of Death much closer in to Loquito's reach and he set out to destroy it kamikaze style: only one of us will walk away from this encounter alive sir!

When I closed the blinds and turned on the light today he started hissing and poofing his tail, but that wasn't it. He leaped up on the table and started yowling at the fan, spitting at it, and was jumping and standing on his hind legs trying to attack it. Perhaps I should be touched by his brave attempt to save us all, but I turned off the light and herded him out of the room, very afraid of petting or touching him when he was in a yowly snarly state.

Poor kitty. Heroes are never appreciated in their own time. Not even when they eat the crinkly cellophane bits for the greater good.