I should have seen this coming, really

So, after a long period of Shenanigans, I have a new apartment, which I'm just finally getting settled into.  The gang's all here -- everyone from the Northern Domicile, anyway -- and I really ought to get around to explaining what they've been up to for the last while, before long.  I was kind of distracted by all the Shenanigans.

But one thing must be mentioned first.

I decided to buy a new mattress.  I've been sleeping on a perfectly nice twin, but, well, the Northern Domicile has become pretty large.  At the moment, a lot of them are posted on my various bookcases, but a lot of the space they're occupying exists as room for expansion, and it's not going to last forever.  I acquire books at a pace even more rapid than the one I acquire new animals, if you can believe it.  So I'm going to need room for them somewhere else before too long, and the obvious solution was to just get a bigger mattress.  (Also an actual bed, which will enable me to twine faery lights around it: that is a thing I have always wanted to do.)  Thus, I have upgraded to a queen.  It's basically the larger and fluffier version of the twin I had.

The new queen mattress arrived today, tightly rolled into this tube shoved into a canvas cocoon.  They must have used a machine to do it.  It would have taken me hours to extract it had I not had some experience with this phenomenon: the trick is, you cut the canvas and plastic off.  Then I had the pleasure of watching the formerly-compressed mattress spring to life in its actual dimensions.  Turns out I chose well.  I lay down on the thing to test it and had to pry myself off it, because I didn't want to get up. 

Unfortunately, I made a tactical error: I completely forgot that in leaving the room, I'd left Gilly behind in my bedroom with the new mattress unattended.  AJD mentioned this oversight when I posted about the new mattress on LJ -- wondering if it were really me, or if Gilly had finally got hold of my credit cards -- and I dashed back into the bedroom immediately, but lo, I was too late.

Gilly thinks he really does need all that space.  I mean, just look how crowded he is.

Gilly rushes to defend his new territory.

The moment I came back in, he knew I was going to attempt to reclaim it, and he came dashing over.  Look at that determination on his face.  He's not going to let me have it back.  If I try to pull him off, he'll dig his claws in and rip it.

I really liked this mattress, too.  It's really quite comfortable, and look at that lovely leaf pattern on it (which I will shortly have to cover up with an anti-bed bug mattress cover, sadly).  I can't really blame Gilly for grabbing his dreams, but, like, damn.

Tomorrow my boxspring and bed are being delivered.  This might be my chance to reclaim it, but I may have to promise him custody of the twin first.  (Current plan is for the twin to live under the new bed, so that ASD can sleep on it when he visits).  It could very well be that this has been Gilly's clever scheme all along...

Temporary Digs

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.

Moving Out

Well, so the day has arrived.  This will be my last post from what will henceforth be known as the Southern Domicile.  I'm relocating to NYC (henceforth the Northern Domicile) with the majority of the local chapter of the Wild Republic.  It's just starting to sink in.  We've spent the morning getting the departing animals comfortable in their travelling cases and saying goodbyes.  Everyone is sad (except the younger ones, who are mostly just excited, except Cami).

The local chapter isn't exactly breaking up, per se, but apparently it was decided that they needed multiple locations to conduct their business; since we've never been clued in on their business, we can't really comment.  Quixley is staying here to maintain the IT equipment; Leprosy and Meph are also staying here.  Rochester has been appointed the leader of the Southern Domicile Faction.  He still answers to Alfredo in larger matters, but for daily concerns, he's the one in charge.  Here you can see Alfredo giving him some last-minute instructions.  Alfredo is confident that Rochester will do a great job.

Meanwhile, AJD and I were saying our good-byes.  Here I am saying goodbye to Leprosy and the Fox, and giving the Fox one last kiss between the ears (he really likes that).

Here's AJD with Plouie, Vim, and Alfredo.

And here I am with Rochester.

Then it was time to get everyone settled.  Alfredo, naturally, supervised the packing of the travelling boxes.  We needed three, two of which also contained other things.  Each box had a designated box captain to ensure everything went smoothly  There was some scrambling to make sure that particular people ended up in the right boxes - Lady Faraday and Sir Tristan were almost accidentally separated.  Here's Alfredo checking on the first box, which also contained electronic equipment.  Jasper and the kittens went in this one, with some others, so it made sense for Jasper to be the box captain.

The second box had a lot of random things in it, like poker chips, a book of Persian faery tales, my dancing shoes, and a pot.  This box kind of had two captains: Seleucus was the official captain, but Desmond was appointed auxiliary captain in case Seleucus has a diva fit.  Desmond is quite content as second; he noticed that the soundtrack to Grey Gardens was in this box, and happily claimed it.

Alfredo himself captained the third box, which contained most of the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy, as well as Beppe, Murchison, and Plouie.  I'm not sure whether putting Magick and Murchison in the same box will prove interesting or not.  Those two are pretty cagey about whether or how they knew each other before.

After everyone was packed in, the Southern Domicile gathered around to say goodbye to their friends, and that was it.

So... we've got to take off now.  I'll post again on the other end of the trip.

Glee

 I might be sick and tired of dealing with this moving business, but this opinion is not shared by everyone in my house.  Skwidjit, for instance, thinks the whole thing is great fun, because it generates bubble wrap for her to play with.

She's managed, through stealth or luck, to keep the kittens from stumbling on her discovery, and thus have the bubble wrap experience all to herself.  

Now, I like playing with bubble wrap myself, but I really don't have the energy for it right now.  So it's possible that she would be less amused if she were relocating, but she's not going anywhere, so, unlike me, she has plenty of energy to be entertained. 

Bluh bluh Moving.

So I'm in the process of moving, which is one of my least favourite activities in the entire universe of activities.  Moving always transforms me into this insane evil demon bitch while simultaneously depleting me of all energy.  Ugh.  I'm really lucky that I have some awesome friends who have been lending me a hand.  Otherwise I'd have withdrawn my live savings, gone to Rome, and thrown myself off the Ponte Vecchio, I kid thee not.

Anyway, so after a few hours of stuffing things in boxes and reviewing logistical plans with AJD, I kinda conked out on AJD's floor.  While I was lying there, Quixley realised that I was wearing his colours and climbed aboard.  He knows a good aesthetic when he sees one, and he'd had at least conversation with us on the beauty of the black/white contrast, so he knew that we appreciate such contrasts too.  Here we are:

Then AJD and Quixley, being awake enough to have active brain cells (unlike me) had an even better idea.  Sleepyhead is both the right colours and the right affect.  So AJD retrieved Sleepyhead from the south room and he and Quixley swapped places.

I was aware that they were doing this; I don't think Sleepyhead ever noticed, even though he was moved from the south room to the north room and back again.

So yeah: moving is hell.