Closing Delayed
Tuesday, July 9th, 2024 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
77F and overcast this morning... with a firetruck siren echoing through downtown.
I slept almost a little too soundly last night.
This was the first morning in the new bed that I hit the snooze repeatedly like normal, to stay in dreamland.
Updating from my car at work...
Just got word the closing has been delayed by some red tape with the county.
Could be another whole week!
It's their city transfer sticker jazz again!
I'll update tonight.
Okay, so when I got up today I was thinking the whole thing would be over tomorrow, and my plan was not to even bother going back to feed Prowly.
I was thinking I'd only have to go to the house once more tomorrow to put a lock box on the door with the keys, and leave the rest up to fate.
But an hour into my shift I got an email from the title guys telling me that my county weirdly requires this background check for unpaid water bills and such that can take up to five days.
And I knew exactly what that was, because I already had to do it twice... for the TODI, and for the Death & Acceptance Afidavit.
It's the damn city transfer sticker!
So I did e-sign that form today but with the weekend, we're talking next Tuesday before the close.
So tonight on the way home I stopped at the house to run the hot water and leave Prowly more food... cuz there's still a ton of cat food, both moist and dry.
And starting tomorrow, I'll do that routine on the way to work, rather than after work.
And I'll do it every day until the damn deal actually closes.
And it kinda sucks, because this makes it harder to move on, when I have to keep going back into the house every day.
But I don't want Prowly to think he was just forgotten.
I'd rather he gets that food up until the day that strangers come in and start fucking around with the place... emptying shit out and running power tools or whatever it is they're gonna be doing.
I'm not doing anything with the cat doors either, because if he's in the house the day those people arrive, he'll be able to split... probably before they realize he was in there.
He's well versed at running up the stairs, and darting out the upstairs cat door... and hopping off the back room roof and off into the world... as well as darting out the downstairs cat door by the back room.
The door to the basement is shut, so he can't get stuck down there or in the crawl space.
He's also exclusively peed and pooped outside for over a year.
Even last winter he and Snoop never once used the litter boxes.
So there are no boxes in the house, and again... nobody's gonna know he was there.
If the workers, or whoever, don't block or remove the cat doors right away... he'll be back inside late at night... but there won't be anymore food for him.
He'll piece together pretty quickly that strangers are working in there all day... and there's no food in there at night.
And within a week, I'd assume they'll block or removed the cat doors anyway, and that'll be that.
He'll realize I'm gone for good, and he's homeless.
But he'll know I tried to take him with me... and after he said, no thanks, I continued to feed him as long as I could.
In other words... he'll know I didn't want to just abandon him.
Homelessness for Prowly doesn't mean the same thing as for humans, or even most cats.
Since he & Snoop were emancipated, in late February of 2023, he's spent 95% of his time outside... even in rain, cold, and snow.
He's wary of cars... a very fierce fighter... and so good at hunting that he kills just for sport!
He's also befriended one other human I know of, Maria, two doors down... but probably others.
He does know how to be cute, and he's very vocal to humans.
He'll also be on his home turf... where he has all the intel on every object, person, animal, threat, safe haven, etc, along with the rhythms of the days and seasons.
He keeps an extremely close watch on things, which is why he always emerged to find Yvette and I on late night walks.
And my guess is he'll keep an extremely close watch on the house, as it gets renovated, and after people move in.
And if there's somebody living there he likes... he may try to adopt them... if he hasn't already adopted somebody else.
The only real issue for him doing that successfully enough to gain access back inside a house, is with the way he'll randomly lash out.
And that's the way fully stray cats will also behave... seeming nice one minute, and then suddenly hostile.
Somebody who cares about him, might actually have the means and opportunity to rehabilitate him, by getting him fixed, and... completing his training on what's acceptable behavior.
I was starting to make some progress with the random hostility... bopping him on the nose, and or crying out to make him think twice... but that was near the end!
I adopted Snoop & Prowly literally on the EVE of a two-year shitstorm crisis bigger than anything I've ever faced in my life.
Two years next month is when it began, and it's NOT OVER YET!
But it wasn't completely in vain.
They did have five months with me upstairs to just be kittens, and learn how to be in a house with a human.
In month six, they became mousers, and they also learned to coexist with a dog... who was pretty hostile at first... but eventually came around.
[that experience also helped Yvette, who in her new home now coexits with a cat, in addition to two other dogs]
In month seven, they were emancipated, but because of our bond, I was able to instill the danger of cars, and crossing streets... as they insistently tagged along for dog walks.
They also learned the territory, and got a lot of experience sparring with one another, before squaring off with other cats... and animals, both domestic and wild.
They developed a healthy fear of small children!.. back yard parties... assholes with fireworks... and all the other hazzards of life on the block.
They also both, as I've said before, were extremely adept at burying their poops outside so well you'd never know it was there... which is a stealthy way to hide your presence... and put's them in S-tier when using an actual litterbox.
And the dust baths too... is just something they both did from the jump... which prevents fleas.
So, I'm not saying they're immune from any misfortune!
But I do think our time together... fucked as it was, by one disaster after another... still left them with a repertoire of survival advantages that many cats don't have... for living both outdoors and indoors.
All of that said...
No, I'm not going to use this extra week before closing to try again getting Prowly fixed, and into the flat.
That whole idea began with Brian saying I should give him a choice, by bringing him here, and seeing how he liked it... cuz I could always drop him back in the neighborhood if he hated it here.
It then morphed into getting him fixed first, so that he'd be a lot cooler with being an indoor cat.
But I do feel he communicated his choice very clearly to me last night.
He's not interested in coming with me to try anything out.
His first love is his home turf, and his freedom to roam within it.
He may be a little upset that I'm not around much anymore... but we're not nearly close enough for him to give up what he's got.
And bringing him here would be forcing him to give up everything he loves... to sit around in this tiny flat all day alone... and go for short little walks once in a while.
It would be cruel.
It'd be different if I could've gotten in at AutumnWood, but that was off the table.
But he know's I can't have moved far away... because I came back the same night I moved all the shit, and I've been back every day since.
And I know he's never gonna leave that neigborhood ever... if he has his way.
So... if I were able to buy the house back in the next few years, there is a chance we'd reunite, and he'd be my cat there again.
And I know I was going on last night about getting a new cat and starting over.
But that was just a trauma response.
The biggest mistake I could make right now is repeating this whole drama with a new cat, because I... once again... adopted one before I knew for sure my life was stable!
September's not long enough to wait, because of the election in November.
It'd be a huge mistake to have adopted a kitten right before Trump transforms the nation into a facist police state, and my citizenship is revolked, because I'm a registered Democrat.
In that case... it'll have been a GREAT thing, that both Snoop & Prowly were on their own with all those extra survival skills!.. and no chips to link them back to me!
If however, the nation can evade such a downfall... yet again... then I could be in a position to plot a real course forward from this little studio apartment.
And if it were possible to buy the house back, maybe I'd do it!
That'd be a thing for future decendants to behold, in the records on Ancestry!
That after Dad owned the house... then I owned it for a short time... then it changed hands over a few years... before I owned it again.
And they'd look in the history books and see that it all went down in the infamous 2020s!.. when everybody was losing their homes, and nobody could even afford groceries!
They'd find records of me living here, in the interim... downtown in a studio.
That'd all match the tales told.
Or, maybe I never see that house again!
At this juncture, it's impossible to see!
Whatever the case... this is some kind of an adventure against a historical backdrop.
I've kind of forgotten that the past couple weeks, because I'm so overwhelmed by feelings of grief over the life that was lost.
A life I was still happily living just a couple months ago!.. although it was by that point, clearly under threat.
I'm doing my best not to spiral into despair... and I think I'll manage to be happy again somehow.
But for the next week... I still have to be back in that house once a day... and get gut-punched by all the memories... and heartbroken by knowing Prowly's still there by himself, and still cleaning that paper plate of moist food every night when I'm over here.
°¦}
