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. 

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!

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?

Michael beat me to it! Just tonight, I was reading some of my older posts and noticed that the archives jump from December of last year to March of this year. How could I possibly call myself a writer if I’m not writing anything here? I have certainly been writing offline, but I really need to bring it back online.

Since being at South by Southwest and doing my best to blog about all of the amazing panels I have attended (or at least take detailed notes for future posts), I’ve come to the realization that I have deprived my loyal readers (all four of you) of my daily rantings, ravings, thoughts, insights, poems, and everything else.

Well, that’s going to change, starting now. I’m committing myself to at least 5 posts per week, if not more. Welcome back Penfall lovers - I have returned!

I just can’t believe it. I can’t. I’m in denial. And it’s a tragedy for GB. Long live the Favre.

Adios for a week or so, I’m off to see my boy in Wyoming. Hopefully it’ll be relaxing & fun and a nice break from the DC air, traffic, and politics.

So far the plan is to relax by the pool, read some books I’ve been meaning to read for a while, hike, hang out w/ Matt, and occasionally do some dishes and babysit so the ranch doesn’t deduct anything from Matt’s paycheck for my stay.

I can’t wait!