PenFall

On Tuesday I’ll be driving the 8+ hours from DC to Boston with all of my crap piled high in the back of my truck and my dad following in a UHaul full of more crap.

Also in the back of my car, though, will be two very distressed cats. Well, I hope they won’t be distressed. Here’s what they look like when they’re calm:

Fisher is the fat black cat on the right, Desi the healthier on the left (don’t ask why one is fat and the other isn’t - they both eat exactly the same thing). I’ve never driven long distance with any cat - the farthest we went with Fisher was about two blocks, and a minute into the drive he started whining.

So I’ve been reading up on how to drive long distances with cats but all of the advice is contradictory. Some say to drug your cats, some claim that drugging them will only make them disoriented and nervous. I’m generally against drugging - I’m just overly paranoid that I’ll give them too much of any given drug and will inadvertently kill my cats. Plus, I wouldn’t want to be drugged. Do unto others… right?

Then there are the more “natural” methods of calming cats for a drive, which I just don’t believe actually work. 

Some people recommend buying a dog crate and leaving food, ice cubes, toys, and a small litter box in the crate for your cat. They even go so far as to say “under no circumstances should you let your cats out of the crate during the drive” for fear of them getting stuck under the gas pedal, or any other inconvenient place. Others argue that leaving water, food, etc outside of the crate and letting your cat have breaks from the crate when you stop for gas is the best idea. That way the cat can unwind from being stuck in a crate and have a chance to eat or stink up the car if they so choose. Even better, some suggest putting your cat on a leash to go do its business outside when you stop. To that I say no thank you - I don’t want to lose my cats on the side of the highway because I thought they needed a pee break. It’s an 8 hour drive, they’ll live.

Other articles suggest that using something like Feliway will work to calm any anxiety your cat may have about driving, loud car noises, strange smells, etc. But it’s also used to deter cats from peeing, so what is the logic there? To make my cat hold it for 8 hours?

And then there are the scary articles - the ones that warn about severe motion sickness (see the pic of the cat drooling…), dehydration, cats simply going batshit in a crate, and so on. This is really where my severe paranoia comes in - I’d rather not emotionally traumatize my cats for life, or have them hate me for the next 10 years. You may scoff, but at least one of my cats holds grudges pretty well. When we moved apartments last year, and the move was literally two blocks away, Fisher was grumpy towards us for at least a month. Instead of cuddling he’d hide under the bed, when we’d lure him out with a treat or wet food he’d quickly eat it and retreat back under the bed. 

In any case, as you can probably tell I’m just a little anxious about driving my cats such a long distance. So far I have prepared by buying a medium sized dog crate that the both of them will share. They’re friends, so I don’t see them getting in any fights with each other, but maybe I’m wrong - thoughts, anyone?

I’ve left the crate open in our apartment with a blanket and a few toys in it so they can get acclamated, but so far they’ve only sat on top of the crate, not in it. Last night I gave it a test run, and put both of them in the crate and closed the door. Fisher was okay with it - he sat there, stared at me as if to say “okay, I don’t like this, but I know you’re going to let me out soon. You are. You definitely are.”

Desi immediately freaked out - it wasn’t anything major, but I could tell she was nervous as she started pacing and pawing at the walls of the crate. And whining. I left them in the crate for no longer than three minutes and Fisher proved to be the calm one of the two - he even stayed sitting in the crate for a few minutes after I opened it up again. 

In the end I think it’s a little weird that of all the things I could be worried about with my move, I am focusing on my cats. I haven’t finished packing, the apartment is a mess, I don’t have a parking permit to park in Cambridge (that’s another blog post all together), and did I mention my dad is driving a uhaul? I don’t think he’s ever driven one before. 

But even with all of that, it’s all about the cats. Here’s hoping they whine for a few minutes but slowly and calmly fall asleep for the entire drive. 

“CNN’s Cal Perry and his crew are pinned down behind a building as gunfire rages in Beirut, Lebanon”

Perry also blogged later on, you can find his post here.

From CNN.com:

The official Press Release:

“Cal Perry, CNN’s award-winning Baghdad bureau chief and producer, has been appointed as the network’s new international correspondent based in Beirut, Lebanon, it was announced today by Parisa Khosravi, senior vice president of international newsgathering for CNN Worldwide.

Perry, who has been instrumental in coordinating and guiding CNN’s unrivaled coverage of Iraq over the past four years, takes up his new position in April. In this new role, he will cover Lebanon and also support CNN’s growing presence across the Middle East with editorial operations in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Baghdad, Cairo, Dubai and Jerusalem.

As Baghdad bureau chief, Perry oversaw a staff of more than two dozen journalists and also reported breaking news and produced long-form programming including CNN Presents: Combat Hospital, which won a CINE award in 2007.

‘Cal’s expertise of the region is an invaluable asset for us, and I’m delighted that he is taking up a new role in Beirut,’ Khosravi said. ‘As we continue to strengthen our presence in the Middle East and in other parts of the world through our content ownership strategy adding additional correspondents and resources, having ‘can do’ reporters of his caliber are essential.’

In addition to this appointment, CNN International is also boosting its feature programming in the region with additional resources for Inside The Middle East and the acclaimed and recently launched Market Place Middle East. In addition to tapping into CNN’s planned production center in Abu Dhabi that was announced in January, both programs will have exclusive access to international correspondent Brent Sadler and his considerable knowledge and experience of the region.

This new role for Sadler underscores the importance and commitment to the region by CNN and will allow both programs to plan more in-depth and expanded coverage.

CNN Worldwide, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company, is the most trusted source for news and information. Its reach extends to nine cable and satellite television networks; one private place-based network; two radio networks; wireless devices around the world; CNN Digital Network, the No. 1 network of news Web sites in the United States; CNN Newsource, the world’s most extensively syndicated news service; and strategic international partnerships within both television and the digital media.”

Congratulations Cal!

It only took me 35minutes to get in today! I guess it really is just a crapshoot - I’ll tell you, though, it was nice having the windows down and listening to the radio. Perk # 1,478 to driving rather than taking the metro.

One of my favorite things to write on this blog was “Musings from the Yellow Line” which usually included a rant about some awful smells, the terrible drivers, amusing anecdotes, or any other general observations about riding the metro in DC. Unfortunately, the long ride into the city coupled with the issues I just listed has forced me to begin driving into work on a daily basis. I’m sure a few of you will contest my use of the word “forced” there, but that’s the truth. I had no choice. It often took me longer to get to work on the metro than it did driving. And those of you who partake in the long metro ride to work will probably agree that by the time you arrive at your destination (an hour or so later…) you’re extremely frustrated and annoyed. I had another option so I took it.

That said, there are of course a few downsides to driving, the biggest probably being the cost. Not only do you have to factor in the cost of gas and parking, but also any potential tickets for, you know, nicking the occasional tourist with your front bumper (kidding). Any other downside (traffic, metro buses, etc) are not so terrible, as long as it’s not too extreme. I accept the morning rush hour, but get frustrated when there are additional delays for something completely ridiculous. But I’ll get to that later.

So instead of “Musings from the Yellow Line” I’m switching to this - Musings from 14th Street. It might change too - you can expect to occasionally see a musing from 395N (exciting, no?).

Today’s musing (or rant…) is about my commute yesterday morning. When I woke up I had a few urgent work requests that I had to finish before even thinking about embedding myself in traffic. So I did, and ended up leaving home at about 8:45 - later than my usual departure time. Traffic on 395 was amazing actually, quite open and fast - I was pleased. Then, as expected, at the 14th street bridge it started backing up. This is no surprise - normally 395 starting at the 14th street bridge is always backed up until about 10am, but I noticed as I kept driving that the backup was on 14th street, not on 395.

Nice, no?

I’ve sat through traffic on 14th street plenty of mornings, but there was something wrong with this backup. It just wasn’t moving at all. As I approached the first light, I watched as it changed five times while I didn’t move an inch. About half-an-hour later I was finally close to Constitution and got a glimpse of what was causing the problem. Well, what I thought was causing the problem. A bus had nicked a car and was stopped in the middle of the street.

Then, as I merged and continued driving, I noticed the real reason traffic was so terrible.

Construction. Construction on 14th street in the middle of rush hour. Really? Really, DC? And to add to it, they shut down two lanes instead of one. Can anyone even see what they’re working on? The road looks perfectly fine to me.

It continues to baffle me the endless problems with driving in the city that are caused simply by poor planning. Would it be that hard to shift the construction hours to run later, starting at about 10am? Or, alternatively, ever seen those poor souls out on the Bay Bridge at 3am? Must not be much fun for them, but it certainly makes sense.

I write this as I prepare to depart for work again this morning, ready to sit in traffic for twice as long as is usually necessary as I got this DC Alert this morning: “Power outage downtown continuing through rush hour. Street closings: 12th St. NW from G St. to New York Ave. H St. NW from 11th to 13th St. Traffic lights out: Pennsylvania Ave. from 18th to 21st. Outage.”

Great. See you all in a few hours.

You may have noticed (or not, if you’ve just stopped checking all-together) that I haven’t written here in a while. Well I’ve been busy! I, with my limited technical knowledge, helped build a blog focused on the Washington Nationals. Granted I’m a die hard Cubbies fan, as are a few of the writers on river-dogz, but there’s always room for another witty, sarcastic and highly analytical baseball blog.

You’ll notice that my website-building skills are pretty minimal (the header could use some work), but all in all I’m quite proud of myself! I even figured out how to get an image to show up in a text widget - for me, that’s a huge accomplishment. Also, changing the fonts or text size was initially a challenge but now I find myself talking about font families and scrolling through stylesheets. It’s crazy! (for me it’s crazy.)

As for changing colors, well, I’m just not there yet. I mean, can someone please tell me what this means? As I began working with code and trying to figure it all out, the colors seemed pretty self explanatory. Find the ‘333′ in the stylesheet for the header color, change it to ‘033′ and you’ll get a new color (dark blue), right? Wrong.

Now I find myself working even harder on my own site (I’d link to it, but it’s currently password protected), trying new things, working with code and challenging myself more and more to try to make a website not only look good, but go past the original theme and make it my own. Once I take the password protection off it’s going to be great - not just visually, but it is and will be a full collection of my writing, research, and some photos.

A final note about river-dogz - I think it would be pretty awesome to have an embedded calendar (or something similar) to show the Nats season schedule. Any suggestions for how to go about that?