This morning, catching a few winks after a poor night's sleep, I dreamed that I was trying to fix the leg of the blue chair. This somehow involved a hose, connected to a tap that had mysteriously appeared in the middle of our living room, and also the chair's legs were not stumpy sturdy armchair legs, but complex and spindly mechanisms with moving parts, levers and pulleys, and also for some reason a back brace was involved in the chair's cushioning. But anyway, hose. I was trying to fix the chair with a hose, and also getting ready for work, and so of course I flooded the living room, and the rug that we don't actually own was soaked, and the wood floor that we do not have was getting ruined, and the chair was done for, and also Murray pooped on my bag and my umbrella.
I think what with the multitasking and the danger to the nest, we will chalk this one up to moving anxiety. In the dream all I could do was run around flapping my hands and saying "oh no, oh no, what did I do?" as I realized that I really shouldn't have left the water running into the blue chair for so long, magical leg-repairing properties be damned. The sense of having done wrong, been bad, and not taken good care of my belongings was intense.
What with that, and the fact that I recently wrote "BOX KNIFE" on a box that does not contain a box knife of any kind, because I was speculating upon the location of the box knife while trying to inscribe a different label altogether, I think we're primed for a good old-fashioned freakout. Yay!
Speaking of freakouts, I bet you were wondering how Murray feels about moving. Who isn't? Statesmen, heroes, tycoons and kings, Murray knows that they all desperately await his opinion before making the slightest move. Since the fate of nations hangs in the balance, I will reveal to you that Murray does not care for the moving. Murray could do without it, thank you. Murray Is Not Pleased. Murray expresses his displeasure by sitting on things that we are packing in an attempt to prevent them from going into boxes, by becoming irascible and scratchy when we try to move him off the things, by running around hysterically, staring crazy-eyed and crooked-eared at invisible enemies, by climbing Box Mountain and knocking things off it, by flopping down in doorways in disgust and practicing his evil while we are moving through said doorways. Murray is getting very good at his evil, by the way.
I can't really blame him. Last time there were boxes around he got stuck in Queens with two strangers, who were insane and kept moving all the stuff around right after he had carefully smelled and inventoried it, and then was thrown in a van and driven to Boston and underwent the experience of all the stuff reappearing out of the boxes, not to mention a lot of swearing while the crazy strangers tried to put the desk back together.
There is no way to reassure Murray that this time at least he'll stay with the same crazies and the same stuff. When Murray is not being evil, he is being neurotically loving and affectionate, as if to say, please, I can't possibly take on the task of smelling a bunch of new people and things, don't leave me. This morning when I was putting my shoes on, he came and sat on me to prevent me from leaving, nuzzling his head into my armpit in a display of insincere adoration that was really quite touching. When I cruelly insisted upon getting up and going to work, he planted himself on a pair of my stinkiest shoes, staring at me defiantly and telegraphing "Fine, go. But you'll have to come back for these eventually, sucker!"
Posted by hilatron at August 15, 2005 10:47 AM | TrackBack