Poor Kittie's Odyssey to Wisconsin

I'm not sure I will have the time to blog every day.  It's looking like that will be the case going forward.  If I have time, I will, but for the most part will try a weekly posting to see how we do.  

Today's update:  Bryan continues to work on the dishwasher.  Today he is working on the desk in his office.  He is going to use my old giant desk, which we agree won't fit into my office, and I'm going to order a new desk, actually two:  a small front desk that faces the outside door, and another small desk that has a hutch, for inside the closet.  

Bryan is planning the garden.  He is thinking a 20ft x 20ft patch for this year.  He has all the seeds and starts, but we don't have the transplant items yet.  We didn't really have time to start tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, or cauliflower.  So those will have to be bought when the time comes to get them planted.  I bet him money that no pumpkins will grow.  I can only grow accidental pumpkins (Giant ones that happen when you throw the jack-o-lantern tailings on the garden the autumn before.  Whenever I've actually purposefully planted pumpkins, I didn't get any, not even any vines.)

Still screwing around with insurance.  The new Allstate office can't seem to get it right.  They are now saying that our homeowners will be paid by a third party, which is not the case.  They have our auto insurance and the homeowners payments screwed up, where the app is saying changes need to be made, but they don't, and the app won't let you go any further.  I think the app mostly at fault.  I have never gotten along with that app anyway.  (Last time I used it with any regularity, you had to update the app in your phone every time you needed to look at your insurance cards for your vehicle.  That would be great if you got stopped by a cop and needed to produce the thing in a hurry.  So we printed ours once again to avoid that issue.  But now they don't have the change of address!  Argh!)

We've been watching YouTube videos about how to pronounce the names of towns in Wisconsin.  They are pretty funny.  We think we are getting a pretty good education watching these.  Here's our favorite:

https://youtu.be/oZreGDP9O3g?si=mI8gbG4DOxC1cy7Y

Today I will go down to the DMV and try to get my license switched over to Wisconsin.  Bryan wasn't going to try it yet, because he doesn't have anything with his name and the new address on it.  

Anyway, the subject of today's blog:  The Poor Kittie and his trip to Wisconsin!

He did surprisingly OK.  Quite frankly, I'm surprised we didn't traumatize him permanently.  

My fear was that he would jump out of the car if he was allowed to run around loose in the car, and I didn't want him to ride for two days inside his bye-bye box.  So we thought to put a leash on him, but he has a tendency to wriggle out of his collar.  So...we decided to put a harness on him.  

Here's Poor Kittie, with his harness and leash on.  You'd have thought we had given him some horrible disease.  He walked around like a broken cat, giving us these looks, like, "What have you done to me?"  

I thought we could tie him up in the car, and that way if one of us opened the door, he couldn't just leap out and leave.  

Well that worked pretty badly.  

For the most part, in the car, he would not come out of his bye-bye box.  And when he did, he crawled so far under the front passenger seat that he was under the folded up seat in the back.  We had to fish him out.  We had no problems with him wanting to dash out the door, he was so traumatized and afraid.  

We thought the leash and harness would help when we were in the hotel rooms, for if he tried to dash out the door, or if he hid too far under the bed.

But no.  

The first night in FoCo, he crawled under the bed of course.  Bryan made a grab at his collar, but the quick release, of course, quick released, and Bryan was left holding an empty collar.  So Bryan made a grab for the harness and leash.  Same deal, it quick released, and he had the harness, but not the cat.  Bryan had to crawl under the bed and haul Poor Kittie out of there.  

After a while, we quit putting his collar and his harness on him.  They sucked and did no good.  

For the most part, he was too fraidy-cat to make a run for it anyway.  Most of the time, he tried to hide. 

He would fight a little bit while we put him into the bye-bye box, but not bad.  Not a screaming, clawing fit like you would anticipate.  Once you got him in, he would meow a few times and then spend the rest of the day pretty quietly.  

It was cute because we would stop, and Bryan would walk back from the truck to talk to me through the car window, and Kittie would meow like crazy when he heard Daddy's voice.  It was as if he was saying, "Daddy, look what Mommy did to me!  Are you here to rescue me?  Please Daddy, get me out of this thing!"

He started to make himself at home in the hotel in Phillips for while, since we were there for a week, and started acting like himself.  But then we moved to the house, and we had to start all over again, smelling and exploring and hiding, and being super wary, and walking around all crouched like he was going to get grabbed by anything that moved.  

The traveling litter box worked great.  (we had a flat storage container that we put a kittie pad in, then poured in the litter pellets.  When it wasn't in use, we put the cover on it.)   He didn't really even use it until we got to Phillips.  I think he was too scared to poop.  He didn't eat or drink either.  But once he started feeling at home, he did better, and he ate and drank and pooped like normal.  

The first thing we had to do when we closed on the house, was get a piece of plywood to put over the basement stairs.  There's too many ways he can get into trouble down there, so we thought we would close it off to him.  

Poor Kitty seems ok now.  He just started feeling comfortable enough to resume his zoomie kittie play.  His favorite spot to sit is on the upper-most stair step and hang his head down and scare the heck out of you when you come from the kitchen into the living room.  I will get a pic of him doing that when I get a chance.   

He loves to sit in the windows too.  

This is him sitting up in the mantle window after the sun set.  

Poor Kittie stayed by himself all day at home while we went to Tomah.  And there didn't seem to be any issues.  He probably slept on Mommy's bed all day like he used to.  

We think for the most part, it went better than we anticipated.  We were both afraid of him bolting.  But he didn't even try at any time.  I worried that he would not snap out of his total terror, but he seams to have.  For the most part, I think he has accepted the move, maybe better than his humans have at times.  I'm glad that worrying about him is over. 

Please comment and share!  Good for our SOE!  Come back and read again soon!