New House, New Furniture, New Books, New Cat

I dreamed I packed up the cats and moved to a new house. Not smaller, but larger, two stories and a large front yard with a steep slope down to the sidewalk. The movers couldn't figure out how to get the bed into the house so they left it assembled outside under the bedroom window. I tried to explain that they needed to take the parts of the bed inside before assembling it. This seemed to confound them even further. The best I could do was get them to put the bed in the garage, but since I had a ton of unpacked books in the garage I didn't have room for the bed there, either. They weren't willing to move the books into the house to make room for the bed, either. I realized I was going to have to hire someone other than the moving company to finish moving me in, and it ticked me off.

I finally gave up and sent them away, frustrated that they had crushed half the tulip bed in front of the house. I sat on the bed and sent a complaint to the corporate headquarters, then watched, getting more depressed, as the sprinklers came on and the one under the bed gushed (the head was probably broken off, of course) a torrent of water that washed out a gully in the front yard before I could find the sprinkler shutoff. I managed to get the window to the bedroom open and it was tall enough for me to put every part of the bed through it except the mattress. One of my new neighbors stopped by and helped me pick it up and slide it in through the front door on it's side. Somehow we managed to do it without getting it muddy, or even wet. (Unlike the base of the bed, which was soaked.) Fortunately the master bedroom had a stone floor, and so I set up the dehumidifier to help dry everything out. I thanked my neighbor with the last of the grapes from the vine at the old house.

I went to see what had happened to the rest of the house, and was pleased to see that my library/study had been set up (on the second floor) and there were a dozen book cases around the walls, the room was large, built as a billiards room originally, big enough for two tables and no elbow bumping. My new desk and computer took up a small corner near the door, and there was room for my old dining table (now relegated to gaming) and all of its rather large chairs. There was an elevator on one end of the room and a large bathroom opposite. I had originally thought of using this room as my master bedroom, but in looking around felt I had made the correct decision. I decided to hire a couple of college students to sort and shelve my books, as I had come into a large collection of reference books by winning a contest from a publisher of engineering and other reference works. (The sorts of things that a writer might find very useful.)

I went downstairs (well, used the elevator just to make sure it was working properly) and opened up the kitty room to check on the fur children. Their room opened up onto an enclosed patio, and the older cats were sitting out in the sun, looking over the back yard from vantage points that would allow them to keep tabs on the kitten. The kitten, a little Chloe like calico, was bounding around the room, chasing butterflies. As soon as she leaped at one it would pop up out of the way, and then land between her ears, teasing the tufts of fur in her ears with its wings. There were at least four of them playing with her. I cold tell that Teddy wanted to play along, but was busy being the dignified elder of the group. (Apparently Little John, Miranda and Fawn were gone and he was the new alpha cat - and taking the job very seriously.) Giles was actually slimmer than his current meatloaf like self and was entertaining himself by licking a window screen. Ember was eagerly watching the butterflies, but backed up any time the kitten rolled close to her.

I was pleased that they had settled in so well after the move. They were doing much better than I was. Just watching my cats made me feel calmer and mostly happy. A tiny part of me wished I had someone special to share it with.