Most of you know why we had to move, what with the new Young, Cold,
"It's just business" Landlord making it clear he was not fond of us, or
the cats.  And he wanted us to sign a lease that included so many
ridiculous things, I just could not bring myself to sign the thing
(especially with an additional $10 a month PER cat in rent!).  And off I
went to quickly (yeah, right -- these things are never done quickly, are
they?) find another place.

I had no idea how.  It had been 21 years since the move into The Summer
Kingdom, and I let ex-DH Victor handle most of that, as his chart was
better for housing/moving/landlords and all that.  Last time, we had
taken our time, and Victor had found two possibilities that looked good,
but we decided on the one we ultimately moved into.  When I faced Ken
(the landlord) and asked about pets, he asked how many I had.  "Four
cats," I replied, not blinking.  "If I have to clean it up in here after
you move, it will come out of your deposit," he responded, also not
blinking.  "Okay," I said.  "Okay," said he.

That time, I actually sent out invitations for a moving party.  All of
us were a lot younger then, with a whole lot fewer aches and pains.  And
 we actually had a nice group of friends who agreed to come help, and
then party; IIRC, there were about 10 of us or so.

When people arrived, I had virtually everything except a few necessary
items (toothbrushes, bed, cleaning supplies, and that sort of thing)
ready to go.  Everything was packed in boxes, labeled, and even the
furniture was moved out to the living room, so all was in one central
location.

Most of us stood around being social for awhile, until three guys with
some muscles (and thank heavens for Victor, Dave and Eddie) started
hauling things out to the U-Haul.  Eventually, the rest of us weenies
started taking out the light little boxes.

Fully loaded, we arrived at the "new" place, and it was easy as pie pert
near.  Dave hooked up the stereo first, so we had music to help us move
by, and I stood at the bottom of the stairs as people hauled in boxes
and furniture, telling each exactly where each item went.

It took three and a half hours!  I couldn't believe we got done so fast.
 Of course, there was unpacking to do, but all was in its place, and
all was right with the world.  So we partied.

Twenty-one years later, I'm no longer in touch with some of the folks
from back then.  And, as I said, here we are, 21 years older, groaning
with arthritis and backaches and a broken pelvis for me.  I'm too tired
to even send real invitations, so I just do a group e-mail.

They say when you move you find out who your real friends are.  If
that's the case, we are down to a bare minimum!

I tried to be organized and get everything ready.  But this time, I live
with a DH who is ADD (hehe).  Yeah, right, like *that* is going to
happen.  Plus my pelvis didn't help, of course.  So I packed as well as
I could in the first week or two, nicely labelling the boxes with my
label maker etc.

And then it all went to heck, of course.  I had to resort to just
tossing things in boxes and bags, unlabeled, unseparated, and generally
a mess (my favorite has to be the bag I did label "Really, really dirty
kitchen stuff" -- lol).

As you can all imagine, the cats were on alert throughout this process.
    They clearly knew something was up when DH thoroughly cleaned their
litter boxes.  Heh.

So how many friends do we have?  It appears we have three (not counting
DH's role-playing games group, but that's a story for another
installment!).  Jennifer, one of my oldest friends; Therese, a newer
friend, but one who lives in the neighborhood and, in spite of age, can
do intensive work in short spurts; and Victor, ye olde DH of lore, who
may be slower, but has nice muscles from working in a furniture moving
company for several years.

To my annoyance, I spent my birthday packing and moving.  Sigh; this
won't be one I will remember fondly!  But Jen helped, and we stopped
long enough for her to take me out to dinner, and I got myself a cake,
dammit! (Which didn't all get consumed, and therefore managed somehow to
get packed in the move and get lost, and you get the picture.  Yummm!
Icccckkkk.)

To Be Continued . . . .

Ginger-lyn
who still can't believe how amazingly good the cats were throughout all
this.