PART FOUR
Idahome!

Click here for Pt. 3

[Non-kat people, please feel free to skip this paragraph. But ONLY this one!] I’ve been asked by several people whether I had a litter box in the kats’ crate. The answer is: “No, I just let them piss and crap all over themselves!” . . . Of course they had a kitty toilet! In fact, I bought four disposable litter trays — “With FREE litter!” [As opposed to what, an empty, flimsy plastic tray?] It was a little alarming that one or other of the kats was always sleeping in the fresh litter trays [which I switched out daily] because I kept wondering whether a fight would break out when somebody needed to use the facilities, but apparently they managed to work things out between themselves.

Along the way, Google’s directions managed to get me lost more than once, although for some strange reason I did not decide to use my GPS unit, Erda [named after the Nordic Earth Goddess], until the last leg because, I guess, I was afraid she would deviate from my printed directions . . . and, what, put me on the correct route? Actually, it was because I didn’t have specific addresses to input and I thought that would just confuse things further. That and I have a tiny little fear of newfangled technology and . . . fine, I admit it, I was intimidated by Erda at that time. I have since become familiar with her mysterious ways and we are now like an old married couple with me yelling at her to HURRY UP, ALREADY! and her ignoring me.

Several hours, some moderate rain which washed off the milky substance, and much wind-wrestling later, I had crossed my fifth State line on the fifth day and arrived at last in . . . [blare of trumpets] . . .

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Boise, Idaho!!!

This is now my FIFTH long-distance relocation! England to California [L.A.] — California to Idaho — from Idaho back to L.A. for a year — California to Texas — Texas back to Idaho. The difference being that my four prior relocations were not alone. If you can’t understand why I’d rather live with 200,000 people rather than 5,000,000; with fresh mountain air rather than hellish humidity; without earthquakes and hurricanes; without a high crime rate; without clogged freeways; with four beautiful seasons . . . then I can’t explain it to you. It’s that simple.

Now, for those of you who are not geographically-challenged, the reason I chose this “southern” route through Texas to New Mexico to Arizona, to Utah to Idaho was to avoid the severe Spring weather in Colorado and Wyoming. There had been snow-tornadoes landing 16+ inches of snow! As it turned out, however, there was a huge storm front moving across the mid-North which had led first to the high winds in New Mexico and then, again, throughout the first three hours of driving into Idaho. My blistered hands were whimpering at that point and wearing leather gloves didn’t help because the gloves somehow cramped my hands and I had to give up on them.

An hour outside of Boise I called my new landlord who informed me that it was “snowing like hell here” even though it was sunny and clear where I was calling from. However, when I pulled up in front of my new home there was not a snowflake to be seen and it was warm with blue skies! Boise was clearly welcoming me back with open arms.

First things first, I had to retrieve the kats from the car which involved climbing onto the trailer, balancing on my toes, putting my left leg in for the Hokey Pokey part, and trying to get hold of a highly skittish feral beast without having the ungrabbed one try to bolt out of jail. Sadly but luckily, they were so cowed from the trip and probably weak from hunger because they wouldn’t eat much that they docilely allowed me to simply pluck them one at a time from the crate and carry them into the house.

I have rented a tiny duplex on the super-cheap. [For my Brit readers, a duplex is like a semi-detached bungalow.] I am packed in like a jaded, city-burn-out, middle-aged sardine and have had to stuff some of my belongings into my rather nice-sized outdoor storage unit. Most of my furniture has suffered various injuries from scratches to outright smashes thanks to the movers having to wedge everything so tightly into what turned out to be a too-small truck. The kats have settled in nicely. For the immediate future, I can live on unemployment [not that I've seen a penny of it since my mid-March layoff] albeit basically at welfare-level. Needless to say, I’ll be job-hunting in the very near future.

When I arrived in town a couple of old friends, D__ and R__ came over to unload my truck. One of them brought his teenage son along. I haven’t seen the boy since he was a rambunctious toddler who once whipped out his baby penis and tried to pee on my leg. I told myself at the time that I would be sure to remind the now-shy and sweet teenager of that event, preferably at the most potentially embarrassing moment for him. I think I’ll save the story for his first girlfriend . . . and each and every one after that. Speaking of potential embarrassment, another little trick I have learned in moving is not to empty all furniture drawers, but, rather, to wrap cling film around the unit to hold the drawers closed [reinforced with some packing tape]. Imagine my surprise! when I saw D__ elbows deep into my armoire with the cling film torn off, the drawer wide open, my lacy underwear in full view . . . and Mr. Buzzy not-so-quite hidden from view in his own personal kinky bubble-wrap outfit. It turned out the guys were trying to remove the drawers [of the non-lace type] in order to make moving the armoire easier since they, unlike the first set of movers, did not have a flatbed dolly. “Well”, I chirped “if you’re going to riffle my undies, could you at least wash your hands first?”

As of now [and the past two months] I am utterly exhausted and beat down!! I am scratched, bruised, and scraped from head to toe. I unpacked and played Reverse Tetris for days on end. I’m certainly glad I got such low rent but this place is definitely too small. I feel like I’m halfway camping! Oh well, it’s fine for the immediate future. My landlord has been invaluable with popping over to help out with bits n’things. R__ was supposed to take me to lunch last week; he showed up half an hour early and instead of going out to eat, he spent his allotted hour trying to assemble one of my portable wardrobes [not near enough closet space!] . . . and completely made a hash of it, bless his heart! So, D__ and one of his roommates flew to the rescue the next day. I was really frustrated as I had boxes stacked to the ceiling in my bedroom and couldn’t do anything because of no wardrobes!!

I confided in only a tiny handful of people about my relocation, in part because I didn’t want to jinx my plans, and in part because I wanted to keep you all on the edge of your seat for a few days. Don’t blame me, I only make these rules up, I don’t follow them! Of the few who knew, they commented pretty much in parrot fashion “But, it’s COLD there!” Well, yes, Southern Idaho does have four actual seasons, but might I remind you that I am from ENGLAND. I lived for 21 years with annual Winters. Our house did not have central heating back then so there was no heating at all in the bedrooms and the living room had only one gas fireplace. We had to use a stinky paraffin heater when taking baths. I remember one Winter when my father decided to put carpet remnants under our bedspreads to provide extra warmth. All it did was make me feel like I was being buried alive and I had to get my Mum to pull it out while she giggled helplessly. Another time my Mum wanted to surprise my sister and me with new knickers which she hand-washed and then put in the oven to dry and, much like her cooking, she burnt them to a crisp! I have also lived in Idaho before, and believe it or not it can get bitter-cold in both California and Texass so I am no cold weather virgin. Having bragged thus, let’s hope I don’t catch my death of cold now that my blood has thinned from years of living in subtropical climates!

I have not seen sight nor heard sound of my unit neighbours, I think they might be vampires . . . although I sure appreciate the peace and quiet, which beats the hell out of having shared walls on several sides! Even if my neighbours do turn out to be Satanists — or worse, Christians — at least I am not in Houston!

I have already found a wonderful Chinese restaurant close by. I stumbled across it by sheer luck while on my way to get yet another fast food take-away. This, I kid you not, was my fortune fresh out of the cookie:

I will confess to feeling a little disoriented at present. There’s nothing like leaving a big city and plunking yourself down in a place where you don’t really know more than a couple of people who you rarely see anyway because they have these things called “lives” and “families”. I don’t know my way around yet so I’m still relying heavily on Erda because despite the smallness of Boise, the places I need to reach are all pretty scattered. It’s not like I can plan to stop by a different branch of Blockbuster on my way to the library because if there even is another branch then it will be in another part of the city. Incidentally, it also took several days to get used to driving my car again.

So, there you have it. Wish me luck because if this doesn’t work out then I’ll probably ship myself back to England. Since my personal demons tend to follow me wherever I go, I shall either confuse them into giving up by going backwards — at least geographically-speaking — or they’ll learn to live with me.

Incidentally, I am currently charging a mere $100 for each and every time I have to hear that stupid, over-used, and never-funny-in-the-first-place joke “Whodaho?”

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 10:39 am and is filed under General, Humour, Private, Reflective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.