Cats and Moving

Muffin Adapts to Her New Home

Little Miss Muffin moves from Minnesota to Georgia

Muffin in the kitchen of her little new apartment in Georgia. Photo by the author.

I will forever remember this autumn because of its whirlwind of activity and change. First, my wife Kazumi accepted a position at a hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, 1,000 miles from our home in Southeast Minnesota. Next, we took a nine-day road trip to Atlanta to find an apartment. Finally, after we secured a lease on an apartment in the suburb of Decatur, we moved Kazumi and our cat Muffin to their new home.

The two-day drive to Georgia with Muffin went better than we expected. We tucked her into a large pen in the back of the car. She cried on and off for the first two hours of the drive before she settled in. Within minutes of entering a hotel room in northwest Kentucky, she hid behind a sofa sleeper. After we coaxed her out, she cautiously explored the foreign domain.

Muffin likes to squeeze under the footstool, just like she did in Minnesota. Photo by the author.

As we drove away from the hotel in the morning, Muffin resumed crying periodically. But she calmed down by the time we reached mid-Tennessee. Then, Kazumi took a risk and unzipped the front door of the cat’s pen. After a few minutes, Muffin wandered into the front seat of the…