The Move, Part Three: Green Windows

I'm accustomed to living above it all.

I don't mean that in terms of wealth--I'm not independently wealthy, nor am I ever likely to be--or in my attitude toward my friends, family, coworkers or people I pass on the street--I wouldn't have them treat me with disregard or contempt, so it would be hypocritical to treat them so.

No, I mean that, in terms of the physical proximity of my living space to the street below, I haven't been anywhere near ground level for quite some time.

As previously noted, La Casa del Terror was a three-story walkup. Before that, I lived in my parents' house in the second-story apartment. Before that, we lived in a three-story walkup with a panoramic view of downtown Chicago. (I've long lamented that I wasn't into photography then--the shots I could have taken!) And before that, we lived in an apartment on the second floor of the same building.

My point? I haven't lived in a first-floor apartment since I was in elementary school. So this new place is...different for me.

First of all, I can't exactly prance around in my underwear, now can I? Not that I did much of that before--I mean, who would really want to see that? Hell, I don't want to see that. But people walking past my windows can see whatever I'm doing unless the blinds are down, and who wants to live with the blinds down all the time?

There are compensating factors, though. My bedroom--which I actually use for sleep, rather than for storage like I did in La Casa--faces away from the street rather than toward it, so it's quieter and doesn't have streetlights or headlights shining into it. Also, it's a lot easier to see and hear what's going on at street level. So when the guy who lives up the street gets drunk/high/whatever and starts spewing racial epithets at the top of his besotted lungs, I can make out every word (instead of just the offensive ones).

It's not just me, though--this is a whole different deal for the cats, too.

Both Ms. Christopher and Olivia reacted poorly to the move itself. After I'd gotten out all of the big stuff (couches, dressers, that evil heavy chest), I decided to move the Girlish Girls. I put Christopher in the cat carrier--actually a tall, orange, reclosable milk crate--and tucked Olivia into my left arm. (If she had tried to wiggle free or tear me up, I'd have just taken her back, moved Christopher over and brought the crate back for a second trip.) I walked over to the new place, turned them both loose and watched as they walked gingerly over the hardwood floors, crying and inspecting and crying and jumping on window sills and crying and clawing at the furniture and crying and looking at me with a mix of confusion and contempt and did I mention the crying?

It took them a couple of days to calm down, but calm down they did. They now love sitting in the windows, watching the world pass by. Olivia loves the windows in the bedroom and kitchen, which look out onto the bushes alongside the next-door-neighbor's house--which make those back windows look green from the inside--where sparrows like to gather in the afternoon. She talks back to them, her jaw quivering and her tail switching back and forth and back again, but the sparrows, rather wisely, stay away.

(While I was moving in, I ran across an opossum trundling along the fence. Since I saw it ass-first, I thought it was a giant rat--an oddity in my hood, even if they're common in Mom's. I tried to wait politely while it made its way to wherever, but I finally lost patience and walked right past it, popped open the back door to my building and carried in whatever; the opossum hadn't yet reached me when I went in.)

The move has also made both cats more affectionate. Christopher has her moments as a lap cat, especially after her sister, Lottie, had to be put to sleep, but now she's taken to hopping up in my lap regularly, as well as coming into the bedroom when I lay down for the evening and tucking herself under one of my arms for a few minutes of attention, then off to some dark, soft corner of the new apartment for the rest of her night's sleep. And Olivia, never a cuddle kitty unless scared (thunder, fireworks, etc.), now curls up on the couch next to me, purring quietly while I stroke her shiny, smooth fur.

Maybe the cats are concerned that I'll uproot us yet again and haul all their familiar stuff to yet another unfamiliar place. Or, maybe, they've realized that this is home, they are safe, I am there to feed and take care of them, and they don't have to sleep in the same room with me (or each other) if they don't want to.

Maybe they've settled. Maybe I have, too.