new house

we are moved... at least all out of the old place. there is still some stuff in the car that neither of us had the energy to move into the new place. moving the cats was an adventure. shaggy was at work and i had the young'uns in their giant two-cat carrier, balloon in the brie bag (by far the coolest cat carrier around - it's a duffel bag made of mesh and reinforced so the cat can see out) of course, balloon is terrified of everything, so he flailed around in the bag until he was under the furry bottom lining... and i had hobbes on the leash. for once, he behaved, stayed close to me, and didn't seem to mind that i was slowly and awkwardly lunging along with the bag and carrier... he went straight past another cat, trotted right up to the new door, and sat down. the other cat turns out to be shadow's (and rascal's, and possibly twilight's) dad. i can tell where shadow gets his personality. basil (the dad) looks like shadow - same fur, same walk, same "huh?" expression. twilight is fascinated with him and watches him through the window. hobbes basically ignores him. shadow hasn't come out from under the bed yet, so i don't know if he's noticed. and balloon... well, surprisingly enough, balloon doesn't seem to be scared of him. maybe we'll have to have him come over and play sometime.
and we are going to washington in two days! and i still haven't arranged us a ride to the airport, let alone figured out what we're going to do once we get there... someone from work is going to come over and feed the kitties... and about four other people at work are jealous because i didn't ask them to. hobbes is very popular among the people with whom i bum rides home. speaking of bumming rides, we now have to decide between borrowing a crappy car (with the offer of a gas card), or having an actually decent car rented for us (with no gas card) once we get to washington. having previously driven several of these crappy cars, i'm not sure if the gas card will be worth it... why weren't we this popular when we lived there?