Many calming pets to Squeaky. Her house disappeared while she was on the litterbox!

The last time I moved I tipped $100, but they had to move furniture and about a half ton of collected comics and books down from one 3rd floor walkup and up to another one, with a side trip to store the couch that wouldn't fit in the door of the new place.

I think I have PTSD from moving.

I believe it. I never want to move again.

So, leave early and drive eight hours straight with the kitty? Or find a motel that takes cats and do it over two days?

Depends on your tolerance, and the cat's. Leo and I drove 8 hours straight moving from NJ to VA, and he did fine, slept in the crate most of the way.

Got my flu shot today, since I wanted to have it in plenty of time before I leave for the UK in three weeks.

Now my arm hurts. And I learned something new, which is that my heartbeat is soft (?), and that explains why machines sometimes have difficulty taking my blood pressure.

Depends on your tolerance, and the cat's. Leo and I drove 8 hours straight moving from NJ to VA, and he did fine, slept in the crate most of the way.

If kitty isn't fond of riding in a car, you may want to talk to the vet about a sedative. The first time we took Arthur to GA, we drove straight through (about 10 hours). Arthur didn't stop meowing pitifully until we passed Charlotte. The vet gave us some buprenex (which is actually a painkiller) for the drive back. He and we took that trip much better.

I've been talking to so many southern people the past couple of weeks that my accent has slipped way back into Appalachian Pennsylvania. I've been dropping syllables all over the place.

Chumley didn't like car travel, but it proved that on longer trips he only had about a 15 minute span of attention, so he'd meow a little, calm down, fall asleep for about a half hour -- then wake up and start the whole cycle again.

It's important to try the cat out on the tranquilizer before you take them on a long trip -- one of the adverse (but thankfully rare) reactions is that it can make the cat manic instead of calm.

Seconding testing the tranquilizer first. The first time Tribble and I moved, I tranqed her, and it took her days to come out from under the bed. It really scared me, and I'd only used half a dose. I think the tranq made her woozy and scared her more than the moving. The second time we moved, I did not tranq her. She meowed all the way from Austin to Amarillo, but I just turned the Springsteen up louder. She also came out from under the bed and explored the new apartment within in a day.

When I moved Homer from NYC to Boston, he was pretty quiet in the car, but slightly traumatized, I think. So it was fine for me, but maybe not him!

I forgot to give the robot dating update: Last night, after he was like, "I think I have all the qualities you are looking for" (which, no, not that I can tell), I didn't reply until this morning, when I said, "OK, thanks!" So he wrote back, "Good morning angel, hope your night was good." ANGEL????? I'm just going to not write back now.

Robots have really mastered terms of endearment.