Idiosycratic Life

Bah. I’m a bad blogger. I had planned a long, blow-by-blow account of the funny adventures I had encountered n my big drive North, but… now I’m in a holding pattern at my parents’ house in Lancaster as I wait for my worldly possessions to arrive in New York through snowstorms up and down the East Coast. Sigh….

I have been sleeping like it’s my JOB, which frankly, has been very fun. I’ve been really lazy, though; it kind of feels like when I would come home for breaks between semesters and just crash. Still, I just want to get unpack so I can hit the ground running at my new job one week from tomorrow. Eek!

I suppose the highlights of my Road Trip from Hell/Florida include the fact that Fred cried non-stop for the first 133 miles. Non-stop. Almost 3 hours, as I didn’t get on the road until FOUR (!!!) in the afternoon because the movers were late, and they seriously took their sweet ol’ time loading the truck. I knew the trip was off to an (ahem) interesting start when one of the movers asked if he could use my bathroom.

Here’s a moving tip- Never, EVER allow a mover to use your bathroom. He took the biggest, smelliest dump in the history of the world. Oh my god. I was trying to determine whether or not he even flushed, it was so awful. I was moving around cleaning as they were loading the truck, and I was trying to discreetly spray air freshener into the bathroom without gagging. Ew. (Shudder.)

Unfortunately, this was only an omen of things to come, as I reached Northern Florida around 9:00 p.m. on the first day. I decided Fred had been very good since he stopped crying (read; yowling) two hours before, l and he should be able to get out of his carrier and move about the car. Now, Bella sleeps on the passenger side in the front, or else SHE gets carsick every 8 exits, so I thought, “Oh, this will be cute! Fred can come up here with Bella! I am successfully traveling with my pets and my houseplants! It’s working! I am a fabulously avant garde savvy traveler!”

He climbed up front and sat on my lap in fun “Toonsis the Driving Cat” style for exactly two miles before he meanders into the backseat. I had a sudden feeling of Impending Doom, and a moment later, the unmistakable stench of cat poo reaches me in the front seat. Oh, God. I debated the merits of opening the window to keep from dying versus the possibility that Fred would jump out of an open window at 70 mph on I-95.

I decided to split the difference and crack the window until I pulled over to discover that Fred has befouled the same houseplant he “fertilized” two weeks before when Stephen was in town. Kenny Rogers croons, “once, twice, three times a lady” over the gas station loudspeaker while I apologize profusely to the victimized plant. I also noticed that the car really isn’t like a greenhouse, being all sunny and hot, as I had been trying to tell myself. (“I did NOT start schlepping you 1,300 miles for you to WILT, you ungrateful little fern!!!)

Anyway, the trip was fairly straightforward after all that, except when I started laughing really, really hard and had to pull over when I was recounting the story (to Wetzel) of how I was exposed to scabies in college… Oh, and I accidentally got locked out of my room at the HoJo in Smithfield, NC (TWICE!- once with the dog, once without) wearing only pjs, socks and no bra both times. Anyway, I’m still at my parents, but hopefully, my things will be delivered on Tuesday at the latest. Hope you all had a good weekend!