Since cruise ships offer food to their passengers pretty near 24x7, it's always a good idea to get into an exercise routine before embarking, so you don't have to be shoved forcibly through the exit when you finally return to home port.
Our cats were very helpful with the exercise thing this morning. For this trip, they will be enjoying the hospitality of the local cattery, rather than hanging out on their own at home with a cat sitter. Two weeks is a long time, and I just don't trust them that much - they'd probably sell the place, or something. So they left on their "vacation" this morning, since we're leaving on Christmas Day and the cattery owners seemed to have other plans that day.
We don't have particularly stupid cats, more's the pity. The idea was to put them in travel crates to get them into the car and to the cattery. They have been in the crates before, almost never to travel somewhere they want to go. So, when the crates come in the house, the cats vanish. Even knowing this, I thought we needed to bring the crates into the house this morning so that they could warm up a bit. And the cats reacted accordingly - they disappeared.
We checked their usual hiding places - no cats. I even looked in the entertainment center cabinet behind the TV - no cats. We finally found one of them under the guest bed, right in the center, just beyond arms reach from all possible vantage points.
My daughter and I came up with a strategy fairly quickly. First, we shut the guest room door. Next, she armed herself with a stick of some sort, and I played catcher. I should probably mention that my sports of choice nearly never involve catching anything - or poking at anything with a stick, for that matter.
About 5 minutes later, we succeeded in nabbing the cat in a corner of the room unprotected by furniture. I grabbed her, and we opened the door to find my husband and both dogs waiting outside the door. The dogs looked kind of disappointed - I think they would have liked to help.
After that, things got a bit simpler. Maybe the first cat let the second one know that resistance was futile; for whatever reason, she went quietly, and we were able to deliver them successfully to their temporary quarters.
I figured that would be it for the day in terms of action - after all, we still have rather a lot of packing to do. But the blizzard struck again. Not that it snowed or anything - today was beautiful, with blue skies and temperatures warm enough to melt a lot of the streets. I was even able to drive to Target in my Mini, without getting high-centered once.
No, my uncle was snowed in - his driveway still had 3-foot drifts in it - and he really wanted to drive to Colorado Springs this afternoon. His first thought was to call his older brother - my dad - to help out. But my mom thought that was not such a good idea - Dad may be in really good shape (far better shape than I'm in), but he is 70 years old, and it's a really long driveway. So my husband and I ended up with the gig.
It probably didn't take us more than a half-hour (we went and borrowed Dad's snow-blower, and that was a lot of help), but it sure feels now like we were at it for several days. I've had three Advil and a glass of wine. I'm still waiting for any of it to kick in.
And all that packing? Guess we'll get to that tomorrow.
Ouch!
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