So we made it to NYC.
I don't have a real apartment yet; I'm just subletting a place for about two weeks. It doesn't have furniture, which is kind of interesting. Turns out that the building I'm in is an official historic landmark, because Duke Ellington used to live here. There's a plaque on the front of the building and everything, although you can't really make out the words in this picture.
Barry's going to be really jealous. He loves jazz, and he's a particular fan of Duke Ellington; but he stayed behind in the Southern Domicile.
Mimsy and Khamsin are NYC natives, so they're pretty happy to be back. Khamsin really wants me to take the kittens to Central Park. When he and Mimsy were still living in the museum, Khamsin used to peek out the window and the park and fantasise about sneaking out late at night and scampering around without anyone being the wiser, but he could never figure out how to handle the locks, so it didn't happen.
The very first thing we did once we had moved everything into my temporary room was open all the boxes. Much as they all like each other, we figured they'd probably had enough of each other in close quarters for a while. They were pretty eager to get out of there and explore the new place. Here they are emerging from their boxes.
The box captains immediately held a meeting to confer about how the trip had gone.
Consensus appears to be that everything went about as well as could be expected. The kittens were rather fractious; Beppe yipped the whole time; Zebulon was apparently convinced that they were travelling through a wormhole and gave a long discourse about how the physics worked; Plouie kept forgetting that they were travelling in boxes and freaking out all over again; Magick and Murchison had a confusing conversation that no one else in their box could follow and which was presumably in code. Pretty much business as usual.
Meanwhile, everyone else was exploring. The kittens, Beppe, and a bunch of others immediately ran all over the living room.
You can just make out Hrithik preparing to climb up on the radiator back there; it was the highest point he could see. He's currently settled on the shelf in my closet. Cami and the polar bears were really interested in the Internet cables. Rusty and Navarre took advantage of the newfound space and adult distraction to start whaling on each other again.
Not everyone went quite so far afield. Gilly, of course, immediately laid claim to the air mattress that AM left in here for me. That's an iPod he's got there; he was quite adamant that there was no room for it on the bed.
At first, Gilly was convinced that I'd made his dream come true, and given him his own mattress; he was crushed when I explained that it was meant to be mine. Then he was newly encouraged to see how empty the place is - surely, he said, now is the time to invest in dozens of mattresses - and disappointed when I told him that this place isn't really ours and that the actual tenants would probably be kind of freaked if they came and found we'd flooded it with mattresses. He tried to convince me to agree to flood our eventual place with mattresses, but I fobbed him off with a story about how NYC has really tough mattress regulations. Please do not tell him that I made this up.
Zebulon and Nicodemus checked out the view from my bedroom; it's a pretty nice one, although you can't see much of it in this picture.
Nicky is so excited to be here. Like, he's beside himself. He's always wanted to see NYC, and this is like his dream come true. Apparently the whole way over he was pestering Seleucus about whether or not they make 'I <3 NYC' shirts in goat sizes. Seleucus, who has never been to NYC and really doesn't care much about it (or any city that isn't in Bactria), told him rather shortly that they don't, but Nicky was apparently undeterred because he asked me the same question. And he keeps announcing 'I AM SO HAPPY!!!!!!' like out of the blue.
Not everyone took advantage of the chance to explore. When the box captains were meeting, Jasper realised, upon saying that Sleepyhead had slept the whole time (such a surprise...), that he hadn't seen Sleepyhead leave the box, and sure enough, he was still asleep in there, curled up with the electronic equipment. Jasper tried to get him to come out and eventually gave up.
You wouldn't think electronics would be so cuddly. I fell asleep trying to cuddle my laptop once, and it left a dent in my forehead.
Plouie was pretty excited about the whole thing. He was hopping around and making squee noises and stuff. But what had him excited wasn't quite what you'd think. Check it out:
He comes all the way to a new apartment in a new city, and what interests him is my vegetable steamer. I'm like, 'Plouie, seriously, it's the same one we had in the old apartment,' but it didn't get through. After this picture was taken, he started flippering through the rest of the box of equally familiar items. I wonder whether he'll ever notice the rest of the place at all.
You'll notice that the Mini Republic is nowhere in evidence. That's because they're having a slightly different adventure. A bigger one, in fact. They're all staying a luxury hotel for a month or so, and should have great stories to tell when we're reunited. Gyork is really excited. He's from NYC too, like Mimsy and Khamsin, and he's looking forward to showing everyone his favourite places: The Gempire State Building, the Statue of Gliberty, the Gbronx... He wants me to take everyone to see the Gnicks play once basketball season starts, and the Gyankees of course. The temporary place is actually quite near Yankee Stadium, as it happens, although I doubt I'll make it there.
Anyway, so we made it here, although we won't be in this specific "here" for very long. Further updates will follow, although I no longer have access to a camera (the camera we use is AJD's), so there might not be many photos for a while.
