Last day
Early tomorrow morning, home becomes a mere house again. With all the good-will in the world, I can’t feel that as other than a loss.
The pod is packed nearly to the gills—it leaves early this afternoon—and the house is appallingly empty. I’m sitting on the floor right now with my back against a rolled-up sleeping bag, which is the best posture I can manage sans actual chairs.
The poor freaked Goths had their dignity insulted yesterday with a trip to the vet for health certificates. They’re also highly distressed, Dream especially, at losing their stuff, their cat-condo and their bureau drawers and their tables. Dream figured out where it all is, which makes opening the door between house and garage an exercise in vigilance.
I’ve got yardwork and cleaning lined up, though I think the garage-door opener may just have to be broken, because nobody wants to replace the damned thing. Yardwork isn’t taking nearly the bite out of my wallet that I thought it would, thank goodness. And I touched up a few spots on the walls with fresh paint, especially where the Barney-skin left a long streak of purple ichor (or whatever fluid it is that powers the Purple Beast).
And United Airlines, after I said nice things about them, managed to screw us over after all. I called yesterday to reconfirm our reservation and its attached cats, only to find out that the waiver we’d gotten to take two cats on a one-cat plane wasn’t a waiver at all. “We’ll send one cat cargo between Madison and Chicago,” they said.
Like hell you will. Visions of one poor terrified Goth trapped in Chicago because nobody knew to put the carrier in baggage claim or send it on to Dulles. Visions of all of us missing our flight to Dulles because we can’t find said Goth. And there are temperature restrictions on pets-in-cargo, and I don’t even want to play that game.
So the deal is, David and I are on different flights between Madison and Chicago with one Goth each; we meet up there to fly to Dulles. Means a longer time shut up in carriers for both Goths, which earnestly annoys me, but it’s the best I could do. United will be hearing from me—not so much about the policy as about going back on their word.
That’s about it. We pack, we clean out the fridge and take out the last loads of trash, we call a cab for tomorrow morning, and that’s that. Goodbye, home. I remember lying down to sleep our first night in this house, touching the wall in wonder—our house, ours; we had bought a house. We never did get the fun of burning the mortgage, though we got awfully close.
It’s a good house. I hope whoever buys it appreciates it.