Most of you folks probably have the same question as Emmalee: HOW ARE YOU HOW ARE THE CATS HOW IS CANADA??!!@!@@!?????

I will try to recap. I have a cold, and my brain does not process things completely when my head feels like a marshmallow.

On Thursday, Mikey and his mom drove to Ellenboro to pick up our truck from the devil company. It was the only 17′ truck in a 50ish mile radius. You can’t take penskes into Canada and you can’t LEAVE budget trucks in Canada, so we had to stick with uhaul. At least it didn’t break down on us or give us any problems at all.

Mikey drove that thing like a champ. I wasn’t behind the wheel for a single second (not that I didn’t offer). At one point he called and said “am I still alive?” accompanied by lots of profanity about the absence of lines on the road and the pitch black darkness.

So we loaded up our storage unit, then my parents came to the house with the cats to help us finish with all of the stuff we had there and see us off. I didn’t think I would ever stop crying, ever. I didn’t, in fact, until we were well into Ohio. Vy chance, the first cd in the car changer was a mix I made a month or so ago. I couldn’t get through a single song… they all reminded me of someone that I was driving away from. About half an hour into the drive I turned on Songs:ohia’s Ghost Tropic and felt better. That should NOT be comforting, and Ghostface Killah should not make a girl cry (for the record, I’ve only cried twice since we got here… once when I uncovered bookcases in the uhaul and saw “Handcrafted by Walter Dillaman” burned into the back; once today when I was pouring some iced tea into a Black Bear pint glass for Michael). It took us forever to get to our hotel outside of Buffalo, and I felt like death when we woke up a few hours later. We had to drive into the city in the rain and bad traffic. I was sure no one would be there to help us unload in the rain, but a guy in Mikey’s program – Drew – and his wife Kathy were there. God bless their souls. John came from a meeting and helped for awhile. We got it done, and then our apartment looked like this:

Now it’s better, but we’re at a bit of a standstill with the unpacking until we get bookcases and dressers. Hopefully this will happen tomorrow:

(These need a home, badly. 35 boxes spewed onto the floor = bad.)

(So do all of these.)

(My craft things were mostly organized onto these shelves, and then I found more. My sewing table will go to the right of them against the wall… the couch is against them on the other side. Makes a nice ‘lil room divider. You can see the batcave/computer/music room in this one. I forgot to take pictures of it.)

The cats are happy with all of the boxes and pigeons and things.

(Chattering at the pigeons.)

Other details:

Drew and Kathy, the aforementioned super couple, are freaking awesome. They have two adorable children (Leo and Mazie) and two adorable kittens (Emily and Pink). Drew is Mikey’s caliber of nerd, and Kathy is in social services – I am definitely a fan of the Maxwells. After helping us move in on Friday, they had us over for dinner and crainum on Saturday. On Sunday Drew saved our car from being towed. We weren’t parked in a tow zone, but there were two or three old tickets (which we were just going to throw away since Ontario gov’t won’t track license plates from the states) so a cop decided that maybe it was stolen and was going to have it towed. Out of four and half million people who could be walking by, only THREE would know it was our car, and Drew happened to be walking by. He said he’d go get us so we could move it. A nice security guard gave us a visitors spot in the other family housing building across the street until we could get our parking spot squared away on Monday. Other awesome people in this city besides John, the Maxwell family, and that security guard: the Australian girl in the management office of our building…. she’s SO NICE. She just moved here with her husband five months ago “for adventure”, and she’s helped us with so much stuff. I always want to ask her if she likes peanut butter, but then I think what if she’s never watched Lost, or what if she doesn’t LIKE Lost? She wouldn’t get it. The humor would be…lost. But in my dreams, she says, “oh yes! I’m the only girl from Austraila who likes peanut butter!” in that perfect voice that Claire and I could never perfect. Also, our banker was amazing, as was the very very patient guy who spent almost an hour getting our cell phone business sorted out – US credit check “instantly” and such.

The best thing about this country. “Bush is an idiot” is the mainstream. I LOVE IT OH MY GOD I LOVE IT.

This is one example of the man being used in an advertising campaign – this one happens to be for a college. Another we’ve seen is a giant billboard with his face and the slogan “don’t read enough?”. It’s for an audiobook company. I am so happy with this phenomenon.

Also, several of the french things have made me giggle. for example, raisin flavored soda…aka grape:

Our nighttime view is especially nice. Morgantown is the largest town that I have ever lived in, and it’s obviously small. I wondered if I’d feel like I was totally and uncomfortably surrounded by other humans, but this is not the case. It’s just Michael John and I and the cats and then… everyone else. None of our neighbors are loud. The girl across the hall has a dog named Eddie and I’ve not heard him bark once. I haven’t even heard a baby cry.

I don’t know what else. I will post more photos when everything is completely arranged. Mikey and I got new cell phones yesterday, but the long distance isn’t good so we’re trying not to use them to call home. If you want our numbers, however, email one of us. Our house phone should be hooked up in a week and a half or so, and we’ll have free long distance to the states. So we’ll call you all the time then.

edit: I forgot this photo of a WELCOME CAKE from Drew & Kathy. Did I say that I love them?