‘Cross Country with Tomasina’ By Mary Woodhouse

At age 71 I decided to uproot my life of fifty years in the West to move to the East. I had a 21-year-old cat, Tomasina, who would accompany me. The trip did not start out well as Tomasina was nowhere to be found. I was sure that, at her age, she wasn’t interested in moving again and had crossed the Rainbow Bridge. My heart in my socks, I left without her. The next morning the neighbor called. Tomasina had just been hiding out. I returned and gathered her up. It wasn’t to be a leisurely trip as I had to get to Maryland to close on the sale of my house. I did, however, take the opportunity each evening to visit a local pub and chat with people along the way. There was Poet who was celebrating his 66th birthday by staying at a hotel on Route 66. There were interesting signs like the one in Arizona that said, “That is the temperature, not the speed limit.” I noticed that Country Music was about alcohol and sex and rock was about drugs and sex. Hip hop I couldn’t say as I couldn’t understand it. And Tomasina had her own issues with the trip involving her bathroom habits. But, we arrived on time and moved into our new home..

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