Not to Do

Last Tuesday was packing day in San Francisco. I assumed I would be up until four in the morning, but it went surprisingly quickly, affording nearly seven hours of sleep before the next morning, even with having to encase a lot of cat-related things in bubble wrap. The vet tech came over that evening to give Marvin squirts of compounded gabapentin and trazodone. He foamed at the mouth afterward but did not vomit. The vet tech said she had put the doses far enough back in his mouth that little should be re-emerging even with the hypersalivation. I was able to do Duckworth’s medication myself. Both cats appeared obviously woozy soon after.

The next morning, the vet tech came back and gave Marvin another dose of each medication. She said that was the most medication she’d ever given one cat at one time; it was what Marvin’s vet said to do: 300 mg of gabapentin plus 50 mg of trazodone. Arranging to have the vet tech come was the most important thing I did in regard to getting the cats to Michigan, except for paying (a fortune) for the cat transport professional. He arrived in due time—I liked him—and got both cats into their harnesses and carriers without difficulty; he put an AirTag on each harness. He wrapped the cushions in the carriers with disposable pee pads, and used cable ties to make sure all zippers were secure.

We took a cab to the airport, arriving a bit later than planned because the first cab driver went to the airport instead of coming to my place. I went through the scanner while the cat transport professional waited outside the scanner with the cats in their carriers. When two personnel were available, they came to get the cats, and my co-traveler went through the scanner himself, and then we all went into a little room where one cat was taken out of his carrier so the carrier itself could be scanned. The cat transport professional emphasized that the cats should be removed from their carriers one at a time. The cats themselves were not scanned, which suggests an obvious and dreadful security vulnerability. The cat transport professional had to hang onto Marvin tightly while the employee temporarily left with Marvin’s carrier; Marvin put a couple new holes in the cat transport man’s t-shirt, but it generally went fine in that both cats ended up back in their carriers, and off we went to the Sky Club. 

The transport people are members; this was my first time being permitted to enter, as a plus-one. One floor up was a lovely airy space encased in glass with a bounteous buffet and selection of drinks, all free. Free food! One of my many favorite things. Plus someone brought over little bags of crunchy treats for the cats. I was just enjoying an unseemly amount of extremely greasy pork when we discovered that we’d been upgraded into not the same row with each other, so we went to talk to the person at the desk in the Sky Club, who concluded that we would have to speak with someone at the gate, so off we went to straighten that out. Goodbye, Sky Club!

We ended up in the same row, with an empty middle seat between us: perfect. The cats were nearly silent the whole time; there were maybe three or four little meows: “Does anyone remember I exist?” I thought there would be loud yowling all the way across the country, so that was great.

I read the last three issues of Decibel magazine, and then we landed at DTW. Though it was well past her bedtime, my sister kindly met us at the house. She had set up a bathroom apiece for the cats. She, I, the cat transport professional and his wife and a cat went into the first bathroom—where the cat immediately discovered a hole I had not noticed; this house is full of weird holes. Off to the next bathroom, which is hole free, but also windowless and not very large; not really a nice place for a cat to spend a whole night. The cats seemed perfectly calm, so we let them look around part of the house. They also seemed fine with each other at first, but then Marvin began to hiss repeatedly, so he spent that night and the next night in the long hallway in the center of the house. I let Duckworth have the run of the house (or did I leave him in the tiny bathroom the first night? Can’t remember) and could not see any sign the next morning that he had touched anything.

It was Wednesday evening when we got here. I had to get up Thursday after only about three hours’ sleep, for a series of appointments. A new water heater was installed. The guy showed me how to drain it. I think my father did this monthly; I plan to do it quarterly. Next, annual inspection of the boiler, which provides part of the heat for the house. Next, a third arborist to look at the silver maple. I think he might end up being the person, as he used the words “old school,” and it sounded like he planned to destroy less of the yard than the previous two arborists.

On Friday, a well-known local plumber came to look at a leaky faucet in the basement laundry room and at the kitchen sink faucet, which I’d like to replace with one that my Multipure filter will connect with in an easier and more aesthetically pleasing manner. This fellow quoted nearly $700 for installing a faucet—if the customer supplies the faucet. I soon got a quote from another plumber for less than a third of that. (My father said that the well-known local plumber once screwed something up at my childhood home, but that they are probably fine for basic operations. I had to call them a couple of years ago for a slow drain here. They fixed it, but since then, I pre-emptively use Green Gobbler, which seems to work well.)

On Saturday, my sister and I went over to Home Depot and I picked out a gorgeous new faucet for the laundry room sink, and a hose to use for draining the hot water heater. She and I have fundamentally different approaches to many things, one being that she enjoys figuring things out herself while I enjoy paying someone else to figure things out, and another being that, in a store, she likes to find the needed item on her own while I like to ask a store employee for help, so she is the person striding off resolutely, soon to disappear around a corner, and I am the person shrieking “Help!” at the nearest person who appears to be wearing a uniform.

Accordingly, I was having a long conversation with an employee about various things, including where the thing was that we needed, when my sister came back and said, “I found it!”

We were planning to put together one of the cats’ new towers, but were out of steam after going to Home Depot, so we deferred that to Sunday. I had ordered two towers from Mau; my sister paid for half the total, as a catwarming present. On Sunday she put one of them together while I stayed out of the way. It is a stunning thing, quite beautiful as cat towers go, taller than I am. Then we sat down to enjoy the sight of the cats frolicking on it, and waited and waited and waited. Finally, my sister had to go home for dinner. Later in the evening, Marvin was spotted in one of the four faux rattan baskets.

This morning a junk removal company came to provide a quote for removing undesired items. There is only one spigot providing water for the yard, so my father had a system of garden hoses snaking around the property, just as he had extension cords strung around the house because many rooms have not enough electrical outlets. For the same reason in both cases, which is the finished basement, which makes plumbing or electrical work very expensive, there will never be more spigots outside and there will never be more electrical outlets inside, unless, regarding the latter, I break down and pay for metal boxes to be stuck on the exterior of the walls. It is not so much the money as the way it would look. As for the water in the yard, my sister suggested that one could cause someone to bore a hole underground to a place where a second spigot would come in handy; I added it to my to-do list. I would love not to have a massive I’m-never-actually-going-to-do-this list, but it’s genetic; I have that list and will always have it.

We used a couple of our father’s hoses to water some new grass earlier this year. (Results: so-so.) I retained those proven good hoses, but today gathered up the rest and put them in the pile for the junk people. They probably work fine and I could practically hear my father yelling from above, “What are you doing? Those are perfectly good!”, but after having lain outside untouched for at least four years, they are not inspiring-looking objects and I don’t know if they will ever be used again.

Next, I drove today to Dearborn to have lunch with a friend, one of the women who took care of our mother when she was in memory care. This was one of the private caregivers, not one of the facility employees. We met at The Great Commoner, on Michigan Ave. It was delightful getting caught up, and the food was delicious. Shortly before I arrived there, a warning light came on for low tire pressure. After I got back to the car after lunch, I used the new little gizmo to pump it up. It took ten minutes or less. I was very glad I had tested this thing in the driveway and written down detailed instructions.

It was a beautiful day. It feels good to be here. Before I bought the house, on trash day, I would pretend I was a person taking her bin out to the curb. Now I am an actual person taking her bin out to the curb. My sister was worried that the cats would not have a good hiding place, but they found three right away: Underneath a chest of drawers in the living room, underneath the couch, and alongside the upholstered chair, underneath the slipcover my mother made.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, I let both cats have the run of the house (except they cannot go in my bedroom, my bathroom, the office or the spare bedroom) and all was well in the morning except for Marvin unrolling the paper towel in the kitchen. After I was up, he knocked down a single shelf, easily replaced, and they also knocked over my favorite lamp and broke it; I think it can probably be repaired.

On the whole, they seem notably calmer here. In San Francisco, they often pestered me relentlessly when I was eating, trying to get at the food or leap onto my lap even if there was already a plate of toast there. It was annoying and stressful. They are not doing that here at all. They have become the kind of cats where you theoretically understand yourself to have cats, but don’t see them all the time. They also used to greet me at the door every time I entered my apartment, but are not doing that here. I of course did not object to that, but it’s nice not to have all activities happening in the same tiny space, where someone coming in the door would be a completely unignorable event. 

Maybe they are calmer because I am calmer. That is in part because the giant decision finally feels done. It is also because I am far, far from my neighbors in San Francisco, and I think because this place in general is way more low key. The room I sleep in here feels like a sanctuary. I never bother to open the curtain because it’s not also my living room, office, library and yoga studio. My mother made the curtain. A bit of light comes through it, so when I step in there in the day, it’s pleasantly dim, and thanks to the HEPA air filter that runs all the time in there on its lowest setting, the air feels wonderfully fresh. When I go in there at night, I turn on the overhead light, which is not very light—no overhead light in this house is; I plan to address that—but then I turn on the bedside lamp, and the immediate warm glow always reminds me of my mother, who made things cheerful and bright and colorful. It’s like she is there for a split second when the light comes on and the room is suddenly pleasant and cozy and the colors become vivid.

It is also nice to have my parents’ things here and there but not everywhere. It’s nice to use my father’s yellow bowl for my strawberries in the morning and my own blue and white bowl for matcha.

After I got back from Dearborn this afternoon, I met online with the renovations people. They have moved the start date up three weeks, which is great, so we are now working on selecting materials and items. There are six doors to be picked out, among other things.

The guy said the door to the screen porch outside the front door will freely swing open or shut, or could certainly be locked shut from the inside, but I explained that neither will do. The entire impetus for working with the renovations people was to install that screen porch, and the number one purpose of it is to prevent a cat that gets out the front door from getting into the street, so it can’t be possible for the cat just to nose the door open. But the number two purpose of the screen porch is to have a place to set deliveries so that they are invisible or less visible to passersby, not that there are many, so it can’t be that the door is latched shut from the inside such that someone from the outside can’t open it. We will need a door that securely latches shut, but isn’t unopenable from the outside; this should not be a problem.

It now seems perfectly clear that coming here was the right decision. The idea of stuffing the cats full of medication, forcing them back into their carriers and flying them back to their little apartment now seems ludicrous. While San Francisco is absolutely a wonderland, so is this place. Every place is, if one looks around. It feels incredibly luxurious to have a whole room for nothing but sleeping, and another whole room for nothing but sitting in front of a computer. But then there is also a yard! And some other rooms! And a car to drive up and down in! I didn’t really feel cooped up before, but now I feel space all around, and it feels good.