5 cats, 4 days, etc. Day 2

On Jan. 3 we left Albuquerque at about 5:30 AM following a less than restful night. The sunrise (hadn't seen one of those in a while!) over the high desert was gorgeous. I enjoyed the drive through NM and AZ — it's alien and strangely beautiful but I cannot imagine living there. By now we were learning of the winter storms hitting California, via NPR (our on the road companion) and weather.com on my Blackberry, and were beginning to get concerned about getting stuck somewhere. I foolishly thought that by going the I-40/I-5 route we would avoid bad weather and be out of danger once we got through Flagstaff (which was clear, BTW). My ignorance of California/Southern Oregon geography came back to bite me. I didn't realize the mountains there would pose a weather challenge.
We had originally planned to meet up with my friend Elizabeth, who was planning to meet us in beautiful Barstow. With the weather reports getting more threatening all the time, we decided to stay on the road rather than stopping in Barstow. Liz will just have to come to Oregon now! We pressed on, across the Mojave to Bakersfield, which is without doubt the worst-smelling place I've ever been. It's like being smack-dab in the middle of a feedlot for miles on end. We were almost gagging, what with the odor and the never-ending Iowa primary coverage. The smell lingered until we were nearly to Fresno, where we picked up beer and snacks at a gas station, checked into the pet-friendly Super 8 (OK, I mentioned i had cats, I just didn't specify 5 cats – there's such a thing as over-sharing.) We spent 17 hours on the road on Day 2, and I have to say the kitties were very quiet, but they were definitely as glad to get out of the carriers at the end of the day as we were to get out of the car.

5 cats, 4 days, 3 winter storms, 2 thousand miles, 1 Honda Civic - Part 1

So, the significant other and I moved from Oklahoma to Oregon in early January, driving the southern route (I-40 to I-5) to, we hoped, avoid bad weather. We were in the trusty Honda (4-door Civic) with my 5 cats, 4 in carriers, one sitting in my lap/at my feet. The first day, Jan 2, we moved the remaining furniture to the OKC pied-a-terre, then hit the road shortly after noon. There was considerable yowling protest for the first 1 1/2 hours or so, but the cats settled down by the time we reached Texas. The Texas panhandle has to be one of the ugliest, most boring drives in the US, so I was glad when the sun went down. We got into Albuquerque around 10 PM, checked into a motel, and smuggled the cats inside. Second floor room of course. Took three trips to get them and their paraphernalia in. Psycho kitty, who we were afraid to release from the cage equipped all the comforts including private litter box, set up a very loud protest. Terrified that the neighbors would complain and we would be kicked out, I took her carrier into the bathroom and released her. I spent the night on the floor with 2 pillows and my coat, trying to keep her calm. I was exhausted, but every time I started to drop off, she would begin to howl. At 5 AM, tired and sore from spending a night on a bathroom floor sober for the first time in my life, I woke up the boyfriend and suggested we hit the road. I tell you, that night gave me a whole new respect for those who've had babies. I was ready to break after one night. I cannot imagine dealing with that for months on end. Hell, I was threatening to feed Psycho kitty to the New Mexico coyotes by the time we stopped for food & gas.

Why do women do this???

In a week when a lot of things have made me angry — see Homofascist's Army for more details — this article from the NY Times topped the list: Nice Résumé. Have You Considered Botox?. Apparently a new book called How Not to Look Old is advising women over 35 that letting themselves go is career suicide. As the book jacket warns, "Looking hip is not just about vanity anymore, it’s critical to every woman’s personal and financial survival." Apparently, just when we thought that having careers that made women financially independent would protect the middle-aged when their husbands left them for other women, we find that if women "let themselves go" their employers will dump them just as fast as their first husbands did. The answer: botox, hair dye, teeth whitening and relentless self-maintenance. God forbid anyone should look their actual age. No, no Barbie – stay perky or be left behind.
Let me say that anyone who knows me knows I am vain. I colored my hair for over 20 years because I started to go grey in my early 20s. I love fashion, shoes, girly things, and I even believe that what we choose to wear is a form of semiotics that we use to tell other who we are. However, I'll be 47 in a few weeks, and I'll be damned if I'll try to look like I'm 30. I like my grey hair, and I get tons of compliments on it. I'm not going to torture myself with stupid diets because my metabolism has slowed down. I've been a size 2, and believe me, I'm happier as a size 12. I look better and feel better. I'm not going to inject myself with toxins to remove the lines I've earned by laughing, crying, and living life. As the kids would say, Do. Not. Want.
What really gets me: it's women who are doing this to other women. They can blame the men till they're blue in their botoxed faces, but by playing along, by writing and buying books like this, they become the worst sort of collaborators. I say we shave their heads, @agrave; la post WWII France. I went to a women's college. I believe sisterhood is powerful. I believe you can be a feminist who loves fashion. I find it unacceptable that some women inflict their own insecurities on their own sex — and make money doing it, I might add.
What really surprised me about this is that I had noticed, ever since I went grey, how much more often older, grey-haired women were being portrayed in advertising, that indicator/setter of trends. I found this enormously encouraging. Meryl Streep's grey hair (and wrinkles, I might add) in The Devil Wears Prada were an inspiration to me and, I hoped, a sign that powerful women could be portrayed like powerful men. Guess I was just dreaming.