I took a video of Frankie and Floki when we got to our new home on Thursday, but I have had no time to post it until now.
Some of the stuff in the way was destined for the cats’ room but, for obvious reasons, we couldn’t put them in there until the movers were gone and the door was closed.
We closed on our new house a week and a half ago and moved in the day after Christmas. The actual process of preparing for the move started more than six weeks ago. Since we were downsizing, we spent much time getting rid of stuff. I call it a home enema because you get rid of a lot of . . . uh . . . stuff when you move.
I bet I made ten trips to donation centers. We also rented a five-by-five storage unit that we filled to the top with stuff going to our house in West Virginia. Even after all that, we barely had enough room in the new house for what we had brought. Considering our new home is a little over a hundred square feet smaller, I feel like one of those hoarders you see on television.
The movers were supposed to be at our house around nine in the morning. At around seven-thirty, Rose said we should lock the cats in the cats’ room, which we had emptied the night before. She worried Floki would hide and escape when the movers were here with the door open. Floki, as you may recall from previous posts, can read minds and immediately ran and hid behind our sectional sofa where we had piled all the stuff from the cats’ room in front of.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, a minute or two later, the movers called and said they would be there soon. We then had a mission to save Private Floki. It wasn’t easy but just before the movers arrived, Floki came out of hiding and Rose grabbed him. He kicked and screamed and twisted like a tornado, but Rose gallantly held on until he was safely locked away. I then put Frankie in the room with him just before the movers arrived.
They seemed relatively calm for a while but after some time Frankie had enough and wanted out.
We rarely closed those sliders, so they were a little hard to move. Also, one slider would catch on the other when it was almost closed, causing that one to open, so we had to leave both open a crack. Frankie discovered that and tried to take advantage of it to no avail.
When we arrived at the new place, we put the cats in the new cats’ room and closed the doors. These doors hung and had no track at the bottom so they could easily be pushed open. We knew that ahead of time and were prepared with some heavy boxes that we had brought on one of our previous four trips to the house, which is about an hour from our old house.
Even so, Frankie still tried to work out a solution for escaping his imprisonment.
Later that day, I took Frankie out the front door for a walk. The side by the road is considered the back. The front has a sidewalk and a large empty lot across from the sidewalk. Our house is on the corner lot.
He seemed apprehensive for a while. He just looked around and smelled the air. Eventually, we walked down the sidewalk past two or three homes before returning. We then walked across the sidewalk to a group of small trees and bushes. There, Frankie took his time smelling every one of them. Eventually, we walked further into the vacant lot where Frankie sat and took in all the sites. We stayed there for a long time. I didn’t want to rush him. I wanted him to remember where his home was and recognize the surrounding area. Unfortunately, I discovered my phone was dead so I couldn’t get any photos.
The next morning, I took Frankie out the back door so he would recognize that area. Unfortunately, across the street to the left, several men were making a lot of noise tearing off a roof. That freaked Frankie out a little, so we never made it out of the driveway. I will try again today.
So far, both our boys seem to be adjusting quite nicely. We brought two perches with us and they like to lie on them and look out the window. I will post pictures of that in the future.
I just put the laundry on the bed to fold yesterday but Floki beat me to it.
Frankie is more sophisticated and prefers his laundry on a hanger.
I hope all our American friends had a nice Thanksgiving. We had a few friends over. Frankie and Floki did greet our guests but spent much of their time napping on our bed. I disturbed Floki when I thought I would get a photo of two sleeping cats.
If Chris was still with us there would not be a separation like there is here.
Here is Mr. Touchy-Feely himself with Tigger and Alex taken on October 31, 2010, fourteen years ago yesterday.
My wife and I returned from our vacation to Massachusetts and Maine on Saturday. We were glad to get home to our cats and Frankie was certainly excited that we were back. He has been ‘talking” a lot more than usual since we returned. The first thing I did was take Frankie for a walk.
Needless to say, he was happy about it.
My wife wanted to drive to the beach to see how the cleanup efforts were going after getting hit by two hurricanes. Things were far worse that I thought. We drove down some of the streets in Madeira Beach, and it was unbelievable. Almost every home had a large pile of trash in front of it.
We continued south until we reached our favorite beach, Pass-a-Grill. During the storm, a lot of sand was carried onto the streets. Most of it was cleared off the streets, but there were still several large piles in front of businesses. And then there was this pile and a similar pile nearby.
We also saw signs like this at the paths that lead to the beach.
Whatever was on the beach, it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill dangerous.
On the way home we saw this pile of garbage.
It was on some kind of park across the street from a condo development. I’m sure the people who live there are happy to see this every day. They must be trucking garbage here with the intent of moving it later. I would be surprised if this is gone before Christmas.
When we got home Frankie was more than willing to help us unpack.
As most of know, we evacuated before Hurricane Milton to a hotel thirty miles north. The cats were not happy about it but they also accepted it quite well. Frankie had a nice window to look out of before and after the storm.
He even watched some television.
There wasn’t much to do so I decided to start writing my next book in the Last Healer Mysteries series.
I just finished my latest novella called “Saving Apollo,” which is about a genetically engineered dog who can understand plain English. He escapes and befriends a 12-year-old boy. It is my first family friendly story. I received the art from the artist but I haven’t been able to work on it yet
I was watching our house using my Blink cameras but they were offline when I checked around 5:30 Wednesday afternoon. Our power at the hotel went out just after 8 p.m. and the hurricane made landfall around Sarasota at 8:30.
Rose was watching the track closely. It started out hitting exactly where we live. It then slowly shifted south and then north and then south again.
Sarasota is less than 40 miles south of our house but that 40 miles makes a world of difference in a hurricane. We were happy to see that but, of course, we were sad for the people in its direct path.
The next morning the border to Pinellas county was closed so we had to wait for them to open the roads before we left. If we didn’t have cats to worry about we would have left and waited at the border. We didn’t have to wait too long before it was okay to leave.
When we got home we were stopped by a fallen tree that was behind our next door neighbor’s house.
The tree barely nicked the corner of the house behind our neighbor. Talk about luck.
Our home was undamaged except a downspout broke off and a window in the cats’ room blew out but it was undamaged and I put it back in the door.
I took Frankie for a walk because he was eager to get outside.
There was plenty for Frankie to investigate. Our back yard was filled with branches.
Later, Rose and I drove around the neighborhood. Many people suffered bad damage. Much more than the last hurricane. Here are just a few examples.
I’m writing this from the airport. We are flying to Boston and will travel up the coast to Maine for our 25th anniversary. Our power is still out but the cats will be okay. Our neighbor will take care of them.
I was on the beaches for my job yesterday and even though I knew the beaches were devastated from just getting hit by a glancing blow from Helene., it was still a shock to look down every street and see piles and piles of debris.
We maintain aquariums for two restaurants on the beach. This is one of them.
They were cleaning up from the storm surge entering their building. The other restaurant was also flooded. I felt bad for them knowing the next storm could potentially be twice as bad.
My wife managed to get us a room at the Hampton Inn in New Port Richey, almost 30 miles to the north of us.
The trip up here was not good for Frankie. The cats were stuck in their carriers for the long trip up here and then for an additional 20 to 30 minutes while we waited for our room to be ready. When we finally let them out we found that Frankie pooped in his carrier.
Since then they have settled in nicely.
Now we just pray that we will have a home to go back to.
Frankie used to rarely travel to the street behind our house, but lately, we find ourselves there quite often. I think it is because of the male ginger cat that lives near the opposite end of the street. I think Frankie knows he’s there and wants to check up on him, even though they obviously don’t like each other. Perhaps Frankie thinks this entire area belongs to him.
In other news, another hurricane is heading our way. We escaped harm in the last hurricane, but the beaches here were devastated, even though the storm was well out in the Gulf when it passed us. This hurricane, Milton, was forecast yesterday to hit St. Petersburg as a category-three hurricane. St. Petersburg is just a few miles south of us.
I freaked my wife out yesterday by suggesting we leave this time. While living in Pinellas County, we have never been directly hit by a hurricane. There were several that were supposed to hit us, but all veered off and gave us a glancing blow. That is what I hope will happen again, but if it doesn’t, we could be in a lot of trouble if we stay.
Rose and I tried to book on our phones the only reasonable hotel left in the county with rooms available. She and I both got rejected when we tried to pay for it. Their computer said the CVC number was wrong on both our cards. She then called the hotel directly. They had three rooms, and as she was booking one, she got cut off. When she called back, they had two rooms left. Another person tried to book it for her, but by the time he got through everything and took her credit card, the room was gone. He tried again with the last room but was so slow. He had to confirm every little detail, and the room was gone before he finished. Needless to say, Rose was not happy with him and let him know.
Today, Rose talked to someone at Hilton and secured a room at a hotel in New Port Richey, in the county north of us. She got it solely because she is a diamond member, and they keep rooms in reserve for them. She then learned that our next-door neighbor planned to go to Georgia with her dad. She will watch our cats when we go on vacation starting Friday. Rose feared she wouldn’t make it back in time to watch our cats, so she booked them a room at a hotel across the street. It cost us $500, but Rose didn’t want anything to stop us from leaving on vacation. We are Flying to Boston on Friday morning and then traveling up the coast to Maine. Hopefully, our house will be okay because that could ruin our vacation.
I checked the track today, and the center is now predicted to hit about 50 miles south of us. That’s a little better for us, but still not great. Rose also suggested that our neighbor and her 96-year-old father stay in the room with us to save us the $500. That’s a tough choice.
I want to start by saying thank you to everyone concerned about our welfare during Hurricane Helene. We were lucky and sustained no damage to our home. I reported in my last post that the bridges to the beaches were closed. I thought they needed to inspect the bridges before reopening but I later learned that the Pinellas County beaches were devastated during the hurricane, mostly due to the storm surge. Three days later, they are still closed. Only residents can access the islands. The storm surge didn’t affect us since we are about four miles from the beach.
On to today’s topic. I was looking through old photos and found an envelope with no date but judging by the pictures I can tell they were from late 2010. Some were taken in South Carolina before we moved back to Florida in November. A couple were taken in Florida.
I did not realize I had a film camera at that time. That’s probably why I lost track of them. I should point out the quality is not great. The photos look good on paper, but I found them to be difficult to scan. I had to turn the contrast down on the scanner which produced less than optimal results.
Tigger and Abbey are in the first two photos. We had affectionate cats back then.
Here is Chris looking to squeeze himself between Tigger and Alex.
After returning to Florida, I captured this photo outside our back door.
What do you think of our Angels?
Bad Cat Chris 