JJ & Viola, co-existing quietly in the same room for the first time since July 2014. A moving miracle. (Possum is still hiding.)

Yesterday at 1 p.m., I began signing the closing documents. At about 1:15 p.m., I teared up as I signed over the deed. Then I met my realtor to look at a place that simply won’t do (it had a visible compound lean and lots of rotted siding – funny how that kind of thing never shows in the listing photos). And last night, I slept for more than four hours for the first time in three weeks. (Good thing, because today, I had to help clear space for the Lie-Nielsen show at work this weekend, and set up workbenches. I’m always moving furniture somewhere!)

While the movers got the majority of my stuff onto the truck last Saturday (a lot of late nights and early mornings packing that!), I still had a lot of work to do in the house before 8:30 a.m. yesterday (the latest I can leave for work and make it on time). I was there every night until well after 11 p.m. and by every morning by around 5 a.m. for the last five days.

Now, there is nothing left but the curtains, and perhaps a little sawdust. I’ll retrieve the curtains after the new owners buy some and get them hung. The sawdust is theirs to keep.

Currently, I’m staying in a house a friend owns a few miles away from the old ‘hood; it’s for sale, so I have to keep it neat, and vacate for showings when necessary. I’m going to install shoe moulding for her in three rooms while I’m there, and do my best to keep the grass cut nicely (I’ve not mowed grass since I was 16). If she goes under contract before June 16, I have to be out by the end of that month.

I’m in a hurry to find a permanent home; I don’t want to move again unless it’s into it. But I’ll hold out for the right one.

In the meantime, while I’m sad to leave the house into which I poured years of hard work and money, the place I’m staying is magic: JJ and Viola cats, who have been fighting violently since last July, are now getting along – well enough, anyway.

So much for every single one of Jackson Galaxy‘s recommendations. The real key to feline felicity is apparently to spend tons of money on roofs, sewers and moving, redo six rooms at high material and personal cost, then experience emotional distress at giving up the first-ever house you’ve owned, with niggling worries that you’ll ed up on the street. In other words, fear and dislocation. Seems reasonable.