Amanda and I made it to Abilene yesterday after a mightily fought battle with puke, diarrea and and slobber. No, not me, our cat Bonkers. Bonkers is a sweet cat and usually pretty laid back about most things. But, once again he has surprised us by showing us how different he is from Pumpkin. If anyone ever tells you that all cats are alike and what you expect from one cat can be expected in all cats, tell them to expect to spend $40 getting the puke/dooky smell shampooed out of their floorboard. We've taken Pumkin on car trips before so we knew what to expect with him. He will freak out a little at first and want to walk all over the car and on me while I'm driving, looking out the window and shedding... Generally, just being a neurotic cat. But, soon he calms down and pretty much sleeps the rest of the time with occasional jaunt to the front seat to visit with Amanda or myself.
Bonkers has currently hopped into my lap while I'm typing as an apperent appeal to not devulge the details of our road trip. I know it's embarrassing Bonkers, but you can deal with it... No, I'm going to tell them....Because I want them to know....I am not fishing for sympathy!...But, you're just a cat! Wait, no, that's not what I meant...
He'll be back...
Anyway, as soon as we left the apartment and Pumpkin was up to his normal car routine we noticed Bonkers seemed unbelievably calm. He does this every now and then. He will be the most skittish cat, but then be as cool as a cucumber when most cats would flip. Case in point, he is completely unaffected by the presents of the Curtis's dog, Belle.
As we were passing under the 610 bridge on I-10 and realising that I had missed my exit and would have to go down to the Beltway (no big deal) I began to smell the unmistakable stentch of freshly squeezed cat poo. We did have an impromptu litter box so Amanda turned on the light and peered back to confirm, hopefully, that the smell was coming from a well placed turd. No luck, in fact the poo was strewn from one end of the back seat to another, on the floor, seat, bags, ceiling, the works. Okay, maybe not the ceiling. But it was pretty bad. We were able to find an open Wal-Mart at 1 am (we left Tuesday night with the idea of beating the crowds) and got things cleaned up. After that the uncertainty of Bonkers condition and the fatigue caused us to settle on College Station as a stopping point. Upon checking into a motel we checked and sure enough the cat had not only pooped again but was drooling profusely from his mouth and throwing up. We didn't have the cats in cages because Pumpkin had always done fine without one. So we cleaned as best we could in the dark and slept it off.
The next morning we cleaned a little more, bought a cage for Bonker and set sail once again with Abilene in our sites and a Hurricane in our review. Bonkers seemed better at first it proved misleading. He continued to drool which I decided was something that couldn't be helped and threw up a couple more times. After all was said and done it took us 9 driving hours to take a trip that would normally take 6. However, watching the news and traffic in Houston right now, I probably hold the record for longest distance driven in the shortest amount of time while evacuating a Hurricane named Rita. It's a stretch and I probably won't make the Guiness Book, but I'll take it.
Oh, there he is....
Hey....Come on, don't be like that. You got your picture at the top this time... I'm sorry, we're in Abilene, I don't have any other pictures here... You do not look fat...
6 comments:
I realize that I misspelled presence, but I'm leaving it because I am imagining Belle bringing wrapped gifts to Bonkers and being like, "Ris rone's ror rou. Rie rope you rike it."
Not that I mean to compare the two, but that's not too far off from how it is to drive about the same distance with a 1-year-old. That's why we didn't drive anywhere when Aidan was that age.
[shudder] It gives me the jibblies just thinking about it.
Glad to hear that you mananged to escaped Rita okay. I'm starting to wonder if she took a giant leap over the continental US to Michigan. As I type this, we are in the middle of a huge thunderstorm, not a hurricane, but big for mid-Michigan.
Here's hoping that Baytown/Houston/Galveston is still there when you return.
Cheers.
Glad you two are in Abilene. Now you have had some practice on what it's like to travel with children.
Where are your parents and grandparents? Did they leave Baytown?
I'm in New Braunfels and Skip is in Bryan with Sarah and Easy. I left early, he left yesterday morning. It took him 18 hours to get from Baytown to Bryan. Whew! One tired grandpa!
Mom and dad were trying to make it to Abilene, leaving on Thursday morning, but it became clear that wasn't about to happen so they called Ryan's in-laws in Lufkin and are there. My grandmother was already in Austin with her sister and Paw-paw decided to stick it out on his own. I called him yesterday and he said that he was going to watch TV until the electricity went off and then read a book. Everyone tried to get him to leave, but I think the idea of sitting in hours of traffic was more haunting than any storm.
Kyle,
Glad to hear you and Amanda made it to safety. With cats in tow.
We evacuated Wednesday at 5pm. It took us 6 hours to get to Huntsville.
My wife Candice, my daughter Collette and I packed up our car (along w/ our two cats) with literally all of our worldy belongings packed in our car.
We are going to be LIVING here temporarily. Yes, living here in Huntsville because we live in a single-wide trailer back home in Baytown. We figure that after the hurricane goes through Baytown we won't have a home anymore.
Keep updating on the blog. It will help me keep my mind off all of this.
When the dust clears in a bout a week or two I am going to look for a new job here in Huntsville.
Wish us luck and the same to you.
God blessed us to get out when we did and now we are just waiting to find our next move.
Reporting live from Huntsville, TX:
Nathan Bruhn
Back to Kyle in Abilene.......
Okay, Kim was right to leave our cats behind. I told him that if they died, that we can't tell Uncle Johnny. He'd make me feel like I'd committed murder.
Its all over now and aren't we glad.
ML
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