My 94-year-old mother moved into a long-term care facility a few months ago.
She realizes she needs the help, and is very contented to stay there for the
rest of her life.  My sister, who lives near where she is in Alaska, has
been helping her dispose of things she doesn't have room for in her new
home.

Many years ago, I had expressed a wish that she leave me her grandmother's
wooden rocking chair.  She asked my sister to ship it to me.  Since they
live in a small Alaska town, sis couldn't just call somebody to pick it up.
She and her husband had to pack it and take it to the nearby dock for
shipping.  After two or three weeks, when it still hadn't arrived, she
called the company.  Nobody there knew what she was talking about.  It took
a couple more weeks to get hold of somebody who found the chair.  They
assured her that it would be put on a ship the next day.  Sis asked why it
had taken so long to ship it.  The woman snapped, "It's only been four
days!"  Sis told her to look at the original order again, as "It's been *a
month* and four days."

Last week I got a call from someone who wanted to set a date for delivery.
I had to turn down two dates because of previous plans, but eventually we
settled on yesterday afternoon.  It was delivered within the time frame
promised, and the delivery man carried the box into the living room for me,
although he said he wasn't supposed to go in the house.  He asked if I had
somebody to help me unpack it.  I told him yes, because I had the feeling he
was going to offer to do it, and I didn't want to get him into trouble.

It took me a long time to get it out of the gigantic box, and even longer to
peel off all the tape, packing paper and the blanket they had wrapped it in.
Both the chair and the seat cushion survived the trip nicely, so I set it up
in the living room, complete with cushion, and lugged the box and packing
outside.

Now comes the on topic part.  Both Lindy and Nanki-Poo were very suspicious
of the box in the living room.  They were terrified when I began cutting it
open and removing tape and packing.  They stayed completely out of the room,
and if I happened to come toward them with an armload of packing to dump,
they ran.

My gardener is due this afternoon, and trash pickup is tomorrow morning.  I
put the remains of the large box in the driveway, hoping I can get the
gardener to cut it into pieces that will fit in the recycle bin.  The cats
totally panicked when I was carrying the box pieces out, but once I was back
in the house, they were fascinated and investigated it thoroughly.  I was
out yesterday evening, so I didn't see them discover or investigate the
chair.

This morning when I got up and went out to the living room, I found
Nanki-Poo curled up on the seat cushion of the chair, looking very much at
home.  He stayed there until almost 2 PM.  By 4:00 he was back, and he's
still there.  I guess he approves, now that the noise and mess are out of
the way.

Joy