Home at Last

On Wednesday, my room mate and I checked out of the motel. I settled up the bill and winced. Thank goodness this would be submitted to the insurance company along with all the eating-out and other added expenses. Super 8 in Anderson, Missouri is a great place to stay. The staff are wonderful, the rooms are clean and inviting and the rooms at the back have a fantastic view of a sparklingly well-appointed Missouri farm. Their extended stay rate is very reasonable, and continental breakfast is served daily. But it isn’t home.

We unpacked the stuff from the motel, and settled it into the Dining/Kitchen/Craft room — which was just a big, open space with a loft roof and new linoleum floor covering. The next step was a journey to the storage space to pick up cooking gear and look for heaters. We didn’t find heaters, but did find the hot plate, toaster oven and a bag of non-perishable groceries that included beans, rice and oatmeal.

We scrubbed floors. I brought the cots in from the garage. My room mate later brought in his bunk bed and desk. I postponed my college library job until Friday so that we could continue working and so I would be on hand for the man recommended by the phone company to hook up the Internet and phone lines. It was wonderful to have DSL again!

I was amused to note when I left Friday morning that my roomie had placed his bed in exactly the same place it had been in before. I floated through my day at the college. I hope I didn’t make too many mistakes, because my mind for sure was not on work! After my day there was finished, I picked up my puppies from my daughters house. They seemed to know exactly what was going on, and hopped willingly into the truck. When we arrived, they ran all over the house, upstairs and down exploring the new spaces.

Saturday, I cleared a path through the stuff that had been stored on the patio so the dogs could go out and do their business. The new door in the back wall was an extra not covered by the insurance, but I could already tell I am going to love it! No more doggies in-and-out the window, no having to put leashes on and going around the corner to put them out to play. Once the pups were taken care of, I drove to my aunt’s house to pick up the cats.

This was a little bit more of a delicate operation. The boys weren’t too hard to pop into carriers, but some of my ladies decided to get flighty. Blaze and Trouble were the hardest to catch. Since I can only haul five carriers at a time, and I was bringing home twelve cats, Aunt kindly put the other seven in her car and drove back with me. We also brought the food, kitty litter and clean cat boxes that were on hand.

After giving Aunt the nickle tour and seeing her off, we decanted the kitties. Of course, being cats, most of them promptly hid. Zoombini, my bold insouciant little queen, toured the house as if she owned it. Come to think of it, maybe she does. 

As the hours went by, the others slowly came out to explore. I slept under a blanket of cat — interchanged throughout the night, but I think I was visited by most of them. When I awoke to my morning computer chores, my workspace wasn’t quite back to normal, but the best part of what should be there was present. My fur children are home.