Sugar finally got to come to Sun Valley. It took moving the entire household across the country to do it, but she now knows what she’s been missing every time we loaded the suburban for the long drive. She couldn’t understand why the dogs would get to go and she would be left behind, meowing piteously in the driveway, looking for an opportunity to jump in the car. The kids would plead to bring her, but I wasn’t taking any chances on losing her to larger predators in Idaho. She’s an outside cat, and not only did I not want to deal with a litter box, but trying to monitor all the doors in the house that the kids leave wide open every time they go in or out, seemed like a nightmare. The worry and anxiety I would feel outweighed any guilt I had about leaving her behind, including the cries of the kids. They would cry louder if she got eaten.
But this week Sugar had to come with us. We packed up our entire house in Seattle and shipped it to Connecticut, and then the kids and I drove to our place in Idaho to wait for our things to arrive at our new home. The most complicated part of this move has been dealing with the animals. Originally I had planned to take all the animals to Idaho with us, and then fly to Connecticut from here. The dogs would go in crates and the rabbit and cat could go in carriers under the seat. That plan got ditched when I found out that there was a pet embargo on animals flying as checked luggage from May through September because of the heat. It’s not the temperature inside the plane you have to worry about, but the heat on the tarmac where luggage can sit for for hours if there is a problem with the flight. So then I tried to con my neighbor, a college student at Emerson in Boston, to drive the animals cross country in one of our cars. He was interested, especially since I was going to pay him well, but his family was also moving and his mother needed him at home to help. The dogs would have to fly separately. They are currently enjoying a “staycation” in Tacoma with their favorite housesitter. They have already been to the beach several times.
Cocoa complicated matters even further. Rabbits are not allowed to fly in the cabin for some reason. Apparently they are not considered “domestic” pets. Clearly FAA employees have not met Cocoa. I thought about trying to pass him off as a cat, but if I didn’t get away with it I had no idea what we would do with a rabbit at the airport when we had to board our non refundable flight. So Cocoa went with the dogs to Tacoma where I’m sure he needs to de stress from the move. After all his cage was in the kitchen, the front line of packing traffic. He will have his own modified crate to fly in. I had it explained to me in more detail than I was interested in, how special bolts needed to be drilled and wire mesh covering the vents. Like Cocoa was an attack rabbit from Monty Python or something. The dogs and Cocoa arrive in Connecticut the day after we do.
Sugar can fly in the cabin with us, in a carrier under a seat, and that is why she was finally allowed to come to Sun Valley. I had to trap her in the house the night before we left, so I could be sure of finding her in the morning when we needed to leave. I had bought a litter box and put some of Cocoa’s litter in it, but his litter is made of newspaper pellets. Sugar took one sniff and ignored it. She hasn’t used a litter box since she was a kitten and then it was filled with old fashioned litter, the sandy kind that sprays everywhere when they dig. That night I slept at a neighbor’s house, as our house was empty of all but the animals and our bags for the week. Middle daughter insisted on sleeping in the house in a sleeping bag, as it was her last night in her childhood home. I hadn’t the energy to argue with her so I reminded her not to let Sugar out and left for a bed. When I asked her how she slept the next day she said, “I got cold. Both dogs and the cat slept with me. They hogged the sleeping bag and pad.” Picturing her on the floor, in the middle of her empty room, covered in animals, all four of them anxious about the future, did manage to pierce my sangfroid a tiny bit.
Sugar survived a full day in her carrier at the local horse show, where middle daughter plunked her under the tent in our barn set up. I’m sure she was rethinking her gloating to the dogs earlier that morning. It was too hot to leave her in the car. We left among a flurry of tearful goodbyes, late that afternoon. Once we were on the road we let Sugar out in the car, propping the litter box between the two back seats. She still ignored it. When we got to Pendleton, where we were staying for the night, we stopped to buy some cat litter that she might consider using. I left middle daughter to find Sugar and put her back in the carrier while I went into the Albertson’s. I was still dressed in my horse show clothes; dirty white breeches, white shirt, psychedelic socks. I was accustomed to being stared at in such garb, but there was a sinister edge to the patrons of this particular supermarket. I was too tired to challenge anybody with aggressive looks of my own, a defensive reaction that I normally find difficult to subdue, but I had a 16 year old girl out in the parking lot trying to wrestle a cat. I grabbed the Fresh Step and hurried out of there.
We checked into the Red Lion, set up Sugar’s litter box and put food and water out. We fell into bed exhausted. Sugar started meowing at about 1:00 am and kept it up all night. Middle daughter slept through it, snoring in harmony to the cat’s yowling. Neither the partial bottle of white wine I’d brought from home and drunk out of the toothglass over ice before bed, nor the tylenol pm, nor my earplugs, brought any relief. I should have drugged the cat. Next morning I staggered to the restaurant for coffee, dragging middle daughter with me. She sat in the booth as if in a coma, unwilling to eat the buffet breakfast included in the hotel price. I couldn’t blame her, it looked as bad as it smelled. I was holding out for an egg mcmuffin further down the road. She stared at her orange juice while I slugged coffee, commenting, “I shouldn’t have poured this. Too acidic.” I shrugged. Then she asked, looking out the window at the vast expanse of land dropping away from the hillside into the wide valley below, “How do people get here?” I pretended like it was a rhetorical question and dragged her back to the room to load up. Litter box untouched. Back in the car, Sugar prowled around for awhile until finally settling to sleep under the back seat.
As we pulled up the driveway to our house in Idaho we could see youngest daughter out on the lawn, playing on the slip n slide in her bathing suit, a picture of innocent joy. She waved madly as we drove by. I parked the car and when I opened the door I heard her screaming for me. Her older brother shot out of the house at the sound of her cries. We both reached her at the same time. “I was turning off the hose and I twisted my knee. I heard a pop,” she whimpered. After we had been to the ER and had it xrayed, diagnosis Patellar Dislocation, and sent home with a full length brace and crutches, she was lying on the sofa with ice on her knee and said by way of explanation, “I just wanted to see Sugar.”
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