Blog! My gosh!

Let it be known that I wasn’t leaving you hanging on purpose– for the first week that I lived in my new apartment I had no internet (more on that in a minute) and then the second week I had NO COMPUTER. In fact, right now I am typing on a new-to-me mac that Napkin set up for me because he knew I died a little bit when my laptop bit the dust.

I had a short in the power supply input that Napkin had fixed for me once before– but last week, when I was in the middle of hyper-learning new songs (through osmosis and stress induced sleepless nights) it finally gave up on me. I was without a way to learn the material for my new show. It was a tough few days.

And! On top of that! There’s a beautiful, hand carved, wooden sign outside of my apartment complex that says “Wi-Fi Available.” Allow me to tell you that, is in fact, bullshit. There are wifi networks to connect to, sure, but they are so overwhelmed and poorly managed that all they do is sit there and frustrate you. You can never connect. And! When you do finally connect! You can never even download enough data to open your email. It’s useless. Because of this, I lived in Starbucks, trying desperately to download my show stuff, singing as quietly as I could over sooooo many lattes in a room full of strangers.

But now! I’m here! We are okay! Everybody is going to make it!

…And I have so much to catch you up on.

Moving in was pretty boring and nothing to really write home about. It was weird, I was lonely, that sort of thing.

Then– a few days later I drove back home to tie up a few loose ends and to get Molly. 

I had talked with Molly’s vet for a while about how to make the drive from home to Murl Beach as smooth as possible and she impressed upon me the importance of drugging my cat. At first, I was like– “I don’t know… I don’t really think it’s necessary” but then she gave me sedatives for free because she meant that I had no choice. I either needed to drug Molly or be prepared for chaos. I took her seriously.

She suggested that I give Molly half a pill of the sedative a few days before we made the drive in an effort to make sure she reacted the way I wanted her to. I couldn’t bring myself to make her loopy before I needed to. It was her last few days home, after all.

This was a mistake.

The morning of the big drive, I gave Molly half a sedative pill. And waited. And waited. And waited. Three hours into it– she was still her normal self. Sure, she was a little weirded out by the amount of attention I was giving her– but for the most part she was relatively calm and very awake. We finally got to the point where we HAD to leave for Murl Beach so I put a very perturbed Molly in her carrier and got everything ready to go. I was packed, the car was started– and I carefully placed my annoyed cat in the passenger seat. I got in the car and put it in reverse and she let out a very loud, desperate yowl…

And then that was it.

I couldn’t believe it. I waited an hour or so and called Napkin and we laughed about how hard we had stressed over something that was SO EASY.

Then two hours later, Molly woke up.

At first, it was a sad, consistent meow. Then, it turned frantic and loud. It was six thirty or so at this point and I was in horrible traffic on a very small highway and my anxiety was absolutely through the roof. I started to cry a little bit. Then Molly tried to bite and scratch her way through her carrier. Because traffic was bad, we were moving slow, and because I didn’t know what else to do– I opened the door of her carrier a little bit— put my hand in awkwardly and pet her head. She calmed down slightly when I did this so every thirty minutes or so I opened the door again, put my hand in and reminded her that I was there and that everything was going to be okay. She never really calmed down but I think it was a good distraction for both of us.

We got to Murl Beach a little before eight PM and I was so, so relieved. The very first thing I did was get out of the car and open the passenger side door to grab Molly’s carrier. I felt a strange shuffle of weight. Suddenly Molly was in the parking lot, running as fast as she could towards oncoming traffic. I live on a pretty busy street and the parking lot faces the road. Apparently, when I had closed to door to the carrier I hadn’t latched it properly and Molly fell right out. The next thing that happened is sort of a blur because it was all so fast– but basically I screamed for her and lunged into the street after my cat– while a car was coming at us. Molly was still drugged up (only slightly, but enough to be confused and wobbly) and because of this– I was able to grab her by the haunches and drag her out of the street. Moments, really A SINGLE MOMENT, before she was hit head on by a car. When I knew I had her, I gathered her up at my chest and backed away slowly. Then, the reality of what had almost happened hit me and my legs gave out. So there I am, crumpled in front of all of my neighbors, on the concrete with my cat in my arms, sobbing. I knew I needed to get her inside before she realized what was happening…so I took a deep breath and got up and made it to the stairs before I needed to sit down again. It’s crazy how panic hits you like that, you know?

I live on the third floor and there isn’t an elevator or anything so I took another deep breath and got Molly inside. I had left her carrier overturned in the parking lot– my car doors wide open– my purse on the front seat… I just needed for her to be indoors and safe. I had set up the bathroom for her before I left so I put her there and closed the door and then proceeded to go downstairs and get the rest of my stuff– all the while still shaking pretty hard and crying to myself.

After everything was indoors, I went and checked on Molly. She was a mess. The sedative had caused her third eyelid to come up– she was clumsy and disoriented and just frightened. Obviously, I had only given her enough medication to disorient her– not enough to make her calm down or, best case scenario, sleep. The rest of that night was hard. I made sure she was comfortable and left her alone… but I could hear her stumbling around for a few hours before she finally let herself rest.

The next day, I decided to stay home with Molly. I went to check on her in the morning and she was back to her normal self. The drug was only supposed to last eight hours (but I think for Molly it was more like twelve hours) and she was more agile and her third eyelid was gone. I was so relieved. I let her come out of the bathroom and wander around the house– only letting her go into certain rooms because I knew she would be overwhelmed pretty easily. This was when she started to be very, very sweet.

She followed me everywhere. As long as I was nearby, she was calm. I had plans to run a few errands but I put everything on hold because Molly made it very clear that she needed my company.

We took a lot of naps that day.

The following days were much easier– Molly quickly got accustomed to her new home and became a little more independent (which is the way she is normally) so I think we made it through the transition phase.

Her presence here has been really important for me, too. She is this little fuzzy representative of my family, you know? I get really lonely (on the days I’m not overwhelmed by work) and it’s really nice to have someone to take care of and come home to.

❤

Next post: MY FIRST DAY WAS FULL OF ICE!

More soon!