Frankie’s desire to go for walks has not diminished since we moved to our new home. What has diminished is what he considers his territory. I think he believed the entirety of our old neighborhood to be his. I was always picking him up and turning him around to prevent us from wondering too far from home.
Now he seems content to stay relatively close to home. We live on a corner lot next to a primary road running through the neighborhood. The back of the house is on a short, dead-end street. Our homeowner’s association consists of only six houses. We also each own a sixth interest in the large empty lot in front of our homes (see below).
Here is Frankie on a recent walk. So far, he has stayed on our short street or explored the empty lot. As you can see, he is already quite comfortable.
Here is a picture of the area I’m talking about. Our house has a checkmark. We typically Go out the back door by the street and walk past a few houses, sometimes to the end before turning around. We then walk around our house to the vacant lot, explore that for a while, and return home to the front door.
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.
We were supposed to close on our new home yesterday but at 6 p.m. the evening before, while we were out at dinner with my son and his girlfriend, my wife got a message saying they need paperwork from ten years ago. It is unbelievable how they can tell us everything is good to go and then suddenly need something at the last minute. We went home and looked but we didn’t have it. I thought it was super minor but it was enough for the loan to not go through. Why didn’t they know this before we paid $1000 for a survey and termite treatment? We also now have the power in our name for a house we don’t own,
So now we are starting over with another loan and the closing was pushed back two weeks. Or would that be pushed forward? Our house is upside down right now and our refrigerator is bare but we have to carry on like this for two more weeks. At least the cats don’t mind.
We have friends in Virginia that are planning to give us their dining room set. It is something they got from us many moves ago and now it is coming full circle. They had planned on coming to visit us on the 21st which puts us in a time crunch. We now have to rent the truck on closing day and be on the road on Thursday the 19th. If the house doesn’t close I will have a truck loaded with stuff and nowhere to go. Wish us luck.
We made it through another move and we still have three cats. The bad news is that they are stuck inside without a catio.
The time leading up to the move went well for the cats. I thought they would be more stressed but they seemed to enjoy investigating all the changes.
Floki was not as bold but he was less nervous than I expected. I did feel bad for Frankie’s new favorite spot because I brought boxes to the new house during the week before the move and Frankie’s basket had to be lowered until there was nowhere to put it.
The movers were here at 8:00 a.m a week ago on Saturday. We moved most everything out of the catio and then put the cats out there while the movers emptied the house.
When they finished Rose took Floki in her car and I took Chris and Frankie in my car. I put Chris in front because his carrier was the biggest and put Frankie in the back seat.
Frankie was good but Chris was much more of a whiney baby than I expected. He cried practically the entire twenty-minute car ride. I posted a video below but Youtube rotated my video sideways with no option to rotate it back so it is what it is.
When we got to the house we had to keep them in one of the bedrooms until the movers finished and then we let them out to explore the house. Chris and Frankie were excited and explored everywhere while Floki hung out under the bed. You can see a brief glimpse of Floki at around the four-minute mark.
The new home has a Florida room with big windows that let in more sunlight than our last home, which had awnings that kept much of the sun out. As you probably know, cats love lying in the sunbeam.
Of course, it not always sunny in the Sunshine State.
My wife thought it would be a good idea to put curtains up but I thought it would ruin the view. She said they were sheer curtains and they were transparent so it would be no different than looking through the window without curtains. I said, “of course there is a difference.” If there was no difference than why are we wasting time and money putting them up? I didn’t actually say the last part.
I did open the curtains in the corner just to be a rebel.
That’s it for now. I’m sure I will have more stories to tell as we continue to unpack and settle in.
Bad Cat Chris 