Moving

I'm finding myself worrying about leaving Ziggy behind. I can see and feel him so clearly in every part of this house, and I worry about losing that when we're in the new one. Because of this, a few items originally destined for the charity pile have been reclaimed, due to their importance to our Ziggy. Regardless of the tattered and torn upholstery, the pink 1930s armchair and ottoman will be going with us to the new house - one of my projects for this winter will be to reupholster "Ziggy's Chair" with something that would have looked good against his grey coat.

I'm a firm believer that there is something after this life - though I will not claim any insight into what exactly that "something" is - and I believe that our boy will come with us if he possibly can. It's not him I'm worried about, it's me. The past little bit has been so busy, I haven't dealt with losing Ziggy as I expected to. Not that I haven't mourned and missed him, because I certainly have, but the whole situation has been so different from previous kitty losses that I feel almost like there's something wrong with how I've reacted. I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Ziggy is the fourth kitty I've lost in my life, but his death was very different in many ways. The first two kitties I lost made such an impact on me that I think I've expected every time to feel the same. But those two came at times when my life was in complete upheaval, and when I had absolutely no power over the situation. The third one I lost was less agonizing because he had ceased to be "my" cat by that time. I'd had to leave him behind when I moved away to college, and in a way I'd already done my mourning for him. When he died, he'd spent the last 10 of his 15 years as Mom and Dad's cat, not mine. (Which is not to say that when I got my mom's e-mail about it I didn't leave work and go cry my eyes out in my car for an hour. Because I did.)

More about that later. In other, somewhat happier news, someone else is as ready for the move as he'll ever be:


This will make the fourth house move we've done with The Big Acoustic Kitty, and he's getting be an old hand (paw?) at it. He's not happy about it, but he's taking it in stride.

And for those of you wondering how he's getting along, he's on an every-other-day regimen of a liquid arthritis medicine that seems to be helping him quite a bit. He's been investigating all of the boxes and wandering around quite a bit more lately. I think we will have to up him to an every day dose at some point, but for now this seems to be working well.

The Electric Mayhem has resisted being photographed in something so pedestrian as a plain brown moving box. I'll get some photos of her up after she's settled into her new domain.