ANOTHER UPDATE

I still have no Incoming.  Perhaps an alien has taken over my body.

The POD is filling up nicely and I am almost finished culling my books.  After a couple of weeks of this, I'm finding the task less painful than, say, being devoured by fire ants.  (But only by a narrow margin.)

Our house was officially listed for sale last Thursday, viewings by appointment only.  What this means is that -- sometimes with only a half hour notice -- we have to ensure that the house is neat, the bed is made, the dirty dishes are hidden, and personal items are out of sight.  The thing is, we have animals so they too have to be out of the house.  Declan, our dog is not a problem.  He's old, blind in one eye, arthritic, losing teeth and some of his memory, but he loves to ride in the car.  What we have to do is be sure he has a leash on him before we take outside of the house.  Leashless this feeble old dog develops a super-power speed and races off (always heading southeast for some reason) at ance he's in the car, though, he's fine.

And then there are the cats.  And the cats' litter box.  Relatively speaking, cats are small animals.  Why then, do they produce so much poop?  And why is it so smelly?  Kind of a cross between necrosis and Donald Trump's enlightened views on women.  Totally rancid.  On top of that, one of our cats (Bridget -- but I'm not naming names) is of the firm belief that the litter box is for urinating only.  Anything else gets deposited on the floor beside the litter box.  So besides cleaning the litter box at least once a day, we have to clean after Bridget, sanitize the floor, and deodorize the area.  While the house is being viewed, the litter box goes outdoors under the back porch, the bowls of cat food get hidden in the microwave, and the dog's bowl (always empty -- Declan may have early onset Alzheimer's but he knows enough to gobble his food down asap) and the water bowl get hidden on the back porch.

With three cats and a dog it's hard under normal circumstances to keep ahead of the fine mist of pet hair that tries to layer our floors.  So with potential buyers on the way, we make one final sweep and then try to put the cats in their carriers before we take off.

Okay.  So we have three cats and two carriers.  Now, Bridget and Colleen are a bit over a year old and sisters.  They are small and can fit into one carrier.  But they do want want to go into any stinkin' carrier.  They fight and twist and contort and when we get one in, she escapes while we're trying to get the other one in.  And Ceili's cat, Azazel, is a Maine coon mix.  He's big.  And heavy. Azazel also does not want to go into any stinkin' carrier.  So, on top of the fighting and twisting and contorting, we have the extra joy of trying to lift him to get him into the carrier.  I find it takes about five tries per cat to get each one into their carriers.  Oh.  Did I mention that siblings often do not get along when in close quarters?  Bridget and Colleen are the best of buds outside the cat carrier, but inside?  Hissing. Spitting, Yowling.

Declan (sweet puppy) is as dumb as a box of rocks.  The cats are also not noted for their intelligence.  But put them in carriers and it's like they've watched The Great Escape every week for the past year.  Azazel's carrier was a cardboard one; first trip out it was a shredded one.  A loose cat determined to nap on the gas pedal is not a good idea, so we pulled into Petco and Kitty ran in to pick up another carrier.  Thirty dollars later, she came out with the cheapest carrier Petco had.  We opened up the package andit was one that required assembly (screwwdriver and allen wrench not included).  So we headed over to the nearest department store where Kitty found a canvas zippered carrier for just six bucks.  (Yay, Kitty!)  In the meantime, the other cats figured out how to get out of their carrier, so most of the hour away from the house was spent in trying to get cats back into their carriers.  Azazel, by the way, learned how to unzip his carrier from the inside.  Tying the zippers together seemed to work about half the time.

So Thursday, the house went on the market and we had three viewings that day -- not one after the other (because that would have been convenient) but staggered throughout the day (so we had to do the great cat/carrier battle each time).  And we had three viewings on Friday, four on Saturday, and one on Sunday.  Friday morning we had our first offer and by that afternoon we had three offers -- all well above asking price.  The first offer (from the very first person who viewed the house) was the best one (almost 20% over asking) and we spent much of Saturday morning working out details.  By Sunday (just after that day's viewing) everything was in place and we had a contract.  Papers to be passed no later than September 30.

Of course, no deal is final until the money is in the bank, but we are feeling pretty good.  Most of the credit has to go to Kitty, who has always been a whiz at real estate.  She knew exactly how to price and stage our house for the greatest impact.  There are homes in our area that have been sitting on the market for over a year but these homes did not have Kitty.  Our real estate agent Gail helped work wonders and we're very grateful to her.

Labor Day weekend (most likely) we'll be moving to the Florida panhandle.  It  would be nice to know exactly where we will land.  Will it be a house or an apartment?  Or, as noted in an earlier post, a carboard box under a bridge?  Time will tell.  After all, we still a few weeks.