backlogged stuff

Some random notes to start... a few posts ago I referred to my grandmother's house as uninhibited, although it may be, I meant to say it had been uninhabited. My parents came up to stay a few times, but for the most part it would have been empty if Dave and I hadn't moved in.
I would also like to write a bit about leaving Duluth and our road trip. I had four days and three nights to clean the apartment and pack up the remaining items in our Duluth apartment. Calci started having problems walking on the 3rd night and we put her down the day we needed to leave. We still had cleaning to do after that and I had to be in the twin cities by 6pm. I remember realizing as I passed West Duluth that I was leaving this town for good (or at least for the foreseeable future). I said goodbye to Duluth and tried to mentally be aware of the changes taking place. So much seemed to happen in such a short time. I went to a seminar about money (not about making money) that evening and woke up at a decent time so that Dave and I could get ready to leave for Iowa. We did a few errands and then made our way to West Liberty, IA, which is close to Iowa City. I have a good friend that lives down there and that I don't get to see very often. We only stayed the weekend but were able to see "family life" since she is married with two children (they are the perfect little family of four, although I know my friend is super excited for her husband to finally be finishing his doctorate - he's on track, it's just a long process), we ate at the Hamburg, a delicious burger joint with pie shakes, watched Rambo (the last one), and visited around a fire(pit). Next we drove down to see Dave's friend and college roommate just outside of Tulsa, OK. It was very relaxing lying around and watching movies and South Park. I was happy to visit the Gilcrease Museum of art, and we had a lot of fun at Grand Lake (of the Cherokees) where we were able to take out wave runners on the huge lake. Unfortunately we were not able to get to the ice cream tour because they were booked, but we had fun visiting, seeing another friend who came up from Texas, and doing various impressions including the Kool-Aid man. After about a week we finally returned to Minnesota and began to actually live here in Grand Rapids.
Again, thought I would have more time, but I will try to write about the jobs tomorrow. As a final thought I will say that Kiki (the calico cat) and Lydia (the ferret) have made a little headway in their relationship. Lydia does continue to initiate play, however, Kiki declines with a double swat of her claw-less paw. Sometimes Lydia just checks in with Kiki, and Kiki seems fine with that, even shows some interest with a little amicable sniffing of her own. I will leave you with a photo of a staged cuddle between the two. If Kiki is repeatedly pet and Lydia is barely woken from a slumber, they can be placed next to each other.