Our New House

Amethyst in August 2008, 410 South Garrard, moving day (part 6)

The duplex on the old Chanute Air Force Base was crimped for space. It was a source of tension for us, so Del and I started looking at houses to buy. Somewhere in there, we got married. In November of 2007, we put an offer in on a house in another town. Waiting for a response, we were planning to lay back and watch a movie to take our minds off the real estate adventure. On the way back to the duplex, we saw a man emerge from a property we had seen advertised. We jumped out of the car and asked the man if he was the owner. An affirmative response and confirmation that the place was still for sale got us an instant walk through. We loved the beautiful woodwork. We asked for a selling price, and we were astonished how low the figure was. Oh, but that offer in play…

The offer in play fell apart. We had made a reasonable offer in our opinion, but the seller, who felt we had insulted him, did not share this opinion. He did not respond with a counter. In fact, there was no response to our offer at all. As per the rules of the real estate game, when the time for a response had elapsed, our offer quietly expired. Free to do so, we now made an offer on the house on Garrard Street, in good old Rantoul. Our offer was immediately accepted, since it amounted to the selling price. The real estate transaction commenced. By the end of January 2008, we had keys in hand to our new old house. We still had to honor the terms of the lease from hell. We spent until April working on ‘the new place’, preparing for moving day. May was consumed with packing up the contents of the duplex.

On May 31^st, we spent our first night in the house. This was about a month ahead of the expiration of our lease, but this was the day that we took up residence. Amethyst took the short car ride with her bowls and litter boxes. She walked in through the back door, through the kitchen, and took up residence in the wood paneled dining room where we had made up a futon bed. She loved the sunlight that warmed up squares of the brown- carpeted floor. We put her fleece bed in the room with our futon, but she preferred the human bed, as usual. She liked the return, however brief, to having us all on a bed on the floor. Her age manifested itself instantly: she did not do a great deal of exploring at first. It was a larger space than any she had ever inhabited. I don’t think she ever completely covered it as a younger cat would have. She carved out a territory that traced the movement of the sunlight through the day, and eventually the seasons. In those first days of our habitation, she got a look at her new outside territory. She walked, in her ancient, halting way to the edge of it. She spent some time in the grass on the far side of our southern tree and shrub line. I went and brought her back. She liked the deck when it was sunny. She never spent any time on the front porch. In the year and a half she had left of her lifespan, she spent most days in that dining room she took possession of right away on her first day in the house. She died in that room, just shy of 14 months after she first set foot in it.

12-2-2008 Pensive about a new perch.

Amethyst seemed rickety, and ancient certainly when we moved into the house, but she did not seem moribund. She was eating her food. She was drinking, and using the litter box. She was not as playful, but this feature of her personality had been on a long decline. The last time I remember her actually chasing her tethered leather toy was in the living room at the duplex. At “the new place”, she would follow the toy with her eyes and head, but not give chase. She’d bat at it if it came against her fur, but would not turn over to get at it if it was inconvenient. Fair enough, I thought. She’d still go after packages as soon as they were being opened. She still wanted whatever food we were eating. So when I decided to take her to see the vet, the one I had cancelled on during her post road-trip puke-a-thon, I was doing so out of a desire to perhaps get her some meds for her aches and pains. It was the first time I had taken her to a vet for purely prophylactic reasons. It was about 20 days since we’d moved in to “the new place.” Amethyst had just been through the stress of moving, but she had settled in and established her routine. I got an appointment for June 23^rd, 2008.