well, here we are in Katy

Sadie the Corgi with issues

Capucinno, the velcro kitty

6 weeks and a rough move and a very fraught week behind us we are more or less moved in and settled in Katy.

I have started back with a trainer and gotten in a couple of short rides to explore the area so some sort of a normal routine is starting to kick in.

I do not ever want to repeat last week though. A week ago Friday, our Corgie Sadie got poisoned by something somehow and died. We have yet to figure out what she got into as FILs' dog Beau is fine. On the day of the poisoning I crawled the yard and the house looking for anything that she might have gotten into including frogs, toads, snakes and unfamiliar objects along the fence line. Before we bought the house we did a check on all of the plants in the yard and know that none of them are harmful. When she cam in after a brief outing at breakfast she was trembling, and withing the hour she was breathing heavily and salivating so I took her in to the emergency vet. While they were getting her set up for an IV and stomach x rays she went into convulsions, so they gave her a heavy dose of muscle relaxant, continued to flush her system and tried several anitidotes. By evening she was alert enough to eat a bit so they did a chest and stomach scan which didn't show anything either. Shortly after that she went into final convulsions and died.

It is all a very strange and very sad mystery. She was a happy, friendly little dog who loved stomach rubs and walks and had quite taken to FILs' dog Beau. Her loss was totally unexpected.

On Thursday this week I had to have our dear Velcro kitty Cappucinno put down. He has been on the gentle fade and decline for the last three or four months, sleeping more and more and eating less and less, but as long as he was still vaguely interested in food and wanting to be loved and cuddled, I was willing to hang on and nurse himeas long ad needed. By the beginning of last week it was becoming apparent that he was losing the will to live. He didn't want lap time, he quit eating and he was restless. On the last night I sat up with him most of the night stroking him and trying to ge him to eat or drink. Nothing seemed to work and he was having a lot of sneezing, coughing and a bit of difficulty breathing. I spent all day loving on him then took him to the vet where he died in my arms.

I am at a loss to deal with this in any rational way. He was a sweet cat whose nick name was "nurse Cappy" because he instinctively knew when someone needed a cat cuddle, even when they weren't aware that this was what was needed. He had his own innate sense of dignity and propriety but was always the first one at the door to say hello or on the bed to say good morning- usually by sneezing in your face. He was almost 20 years old.

the future workroom

As for the move from Sugar Land to Katy- It was sort of a visit to a chaotic hell only spread out over a month. The 5 packers who arrived to pack us up the day after we signed on the house ( two days after returning from all the happiness and festivities in California) spoke very little English and had difficulty sharing the two brain cells they had between them This is the crew that got lost twice in the 20 mile drive on three major roads, between Sugar Land and Katy. By the time they got to Katy, the crew had increased from 5 to 7 but the English hadn't improved, nor had the number of brain cells. On top of it all, it started to rain while they were unloading and so all of the boxes just got stacked in random order in the house and garage in spite of Phil and I designating which went where.

We spent the weekend horsing boxes that should have been upstairs, up, boxes that should have been downstairs, down, boxes that should have been out, out and outside boxes that should have been in, in. On Monday, the contents of Dads' house in Florida arrived. This time the crew of two men spoke English after a fashion but had no brain cell to share between them. One spent a great deal of time sorting dads' boxes out of the other five shipments in the truck while the other one would sort of pick up a box, wander towards the house, lose his purpose and put the box in the garage. By late afternoon, the two of them had sort of figured out a system and were at least getting the boxes into the house. I guess we should be grateful that they managed to find and put together Dads' bed for him. However three cat boxes and the pillows are still missing and there are no more boxes.

unloading and unpacking chaos

The next couple of weeks were spent in unpacking, me mostly all day, every day, with Dad helping by folding and flattening packing paper of which there were at least 6 sheets around every object whether it needed padding or not, and with Phil mucking and hewing and organizing the boxes in the garage, bringing in those that were for inside, and taking those that were meant for outside back out. By box 150 I had found my biking clothes but no clean clothes other than those that I had with me from not having unpacked from the California trip. Those finally showed up at box 190 ( out of the 240 that we ended up unpacking.)

The house is beautiful, more so now that things are unpacked, some paintings are up and almost everything has a home, if I can just remember where that is. It is the largest house we have ever lived in and I am still coming to terms with how, when to clean what and how often things need to be done. We have made our usual leap of faith and planted two fruit trees, a Red Texas grapefruit and a Meyers lemon, both of which seem to have taken hold and are doing well.

Dad has his own suite of rooms, bedroom, office and bathroom and I have a larger workspace upstairs. There is an additional guest room so we will be able to house all the kids plus mates, partners, others for Christmas.

Tux and Ike are loving the stairs, this is obviously something that has been missing in the kitties life and spend a great deal of time chasing each other up (Tux in the lead Ike chasing), and down ( Ike in the lead, Tux chasing) the stairs and skidding around corners on the wood and tile floors.

Beau has gotten into the routine and insists on a five o"clock walk like Sadie used to have and both Ike and Tux are being very affectionate so we are healing from the loss of two pets, and settling into the house and the neighborhood.

It is August in Houston which means that the heat and humidity are with us, with "feels like" temps in the triple digits. Thank goodness, the house has an efficient and working ac, another luxury that we haven't had for a couple of years.

It will be a good place to be for all of us, I think.

Tux, who also "helped and supervised"