Home is where your... cheese? ... is

For those of you keeping score at home, the State of the Union I am now in is: Connecticut. Welcome home?

For two weeks I've been living out of a suitcase, and the cats have been shedding in other people's homes. This afternoon, we hopped in the car and drove the two hours from Beverly, Mass, to Ashford, CT. Unexpectedly - given that I'm closing on my first "owned" (as if I'll come anywhere near owning it in the next 30 years) home back in Mass in three days - I felt a sense of relief, even of homecoming when I walked into the stuffy, institutional space I've been renting for 9 months. It's been two weeks since I've slept in my own bed. Umm... It's actually been over two years since I've slept in my own bed, which has been patiently standing on its side in my rented storage space in Peabody, Mass, right next to my loveseat, desk, and dishes. What I mean is, it's been two weeks since I've slept on (not to mention pumped up) my inflatable mattress on the floor. (For the past week I've been sleeping on Shawn's inflatable mattress on her floor.)

I really felt like I could just plop down on the floor, like Georgie, and go fast to sleep as soon as we walked in the door. It's exhausting being neurotic.

Thirty minutes into our 120 minute drive this afternoon, Georgie finally quit crying. What a relief, because she was bugging the heck out of Buddy and me. I glanced behind my shoulder as I sped along the highway and was alarmed to see a little orange and white head popping up out of her defective carrier. Oh well. She spent the next 90 minutes mostly curled up on the floor in the back, with only the occasional foray into the front seat area (where her brother in his non-defective carrier was perturbed and envious as the day is long). She did not cry anymore. When we move up to Lynn in a few weeks, forget fighting with the carrier, she's going straight on the floor!

So, here I am, home. To prove it, I'm going to go out to the grocery store (the only entity which sent me any mail at this address for the past two weeks) and buy some cheese, the kind I like, since I've seen neither hide nor hare of it in the homes which've housed me and mine on our two weeks away.