Going to Seattle

[cos]

I'm transferring to a team at Google Seattle, much to my surprise (well, to the surprise of me a month ago or anytime in the past few decades, more accurately). Planning to move there, along with Alice, around early February, but keeping the house in Cambridge with intent to return in a few years...

Oh, we also have to figure out how to move a cat.

Comments

[points.livejournal.com]

Erk! Well, luck with the move! :)

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Wow! That's quite the news!

If you want, you can fly with the cat under your seat.

[cos]

You must've flown with your cats. Did you take both on the same flight?

I guess as long as there were no bags of pasta around, they could've been trusted to just hide quietly in the dark.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

No, when I moved from Toronto to Cambridge a friend drove them down a few weeks after I got here. I was planning on flying them out with me (and a friend, because you can only take one cat per person) for the move to SF, but then I fell in love with Cambridge instead. ;-)

I totally forgot about the Egg Noodle Incident!

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

Congratulations?

[cos]

I think so? :)

[fyfer.livejournal.com]

Wow! Have a fun adventure.

[cos]

Certainly! Also I will probably visit the Bay Area a bit more than in recent years.

[cheshyre]

will you be driving or flying there?

when my family moved from Wisconsin to Florida, we owned a passenger minivan, and drove down with the cat.
Clyde was allowed to roam loose, with food, water & litterbox set out for him.
We also got some sedatives from the vet. He was kept heavily sedated the first day, and we tapered it off over the trip.
The only problem I remember involved my father having to slam on the breaks just as Clyde was stepping into the litterbox - partly tipping it over.

iff you're driving, so long as the car isn't totally jam-packed with stuff, you should be able to do something similar in the back seat area.

good luck!

[cos]

Don't know yet, maybe both. Well, certainly flying many times! But maybe a drive, too.

[missionista.livejournal.com]

Seattle!? Shock! I have such a hard time imagining Boston without you. But Seattle is a great place to live, and I have very happy memories of my time there. I hope you also enjoy it!

As far as the cat, when we moved to SF, we found a company that would pick the cat up from one's house, fly it out, and bring it to your new house. Very convenient!

[cos]

Huh, a cat moving service, I hadn't thought of that. But do I want to entrust my cat to others...

When was your time there? I forgot you ever lived there.

[missionista.livejournal.com]

1989-1991. Long, long ago!

[cos]

Oh, just before I met you! You were... attending UW?

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

The service we used was recommended to us by Google, who was underwriting the trip. It was www.petmove.com (for real) which seems to be 404 at the moment, but I bet if you ask Google HR they will have a list of current companies that do the same thing.

[ron_newman]

Wow! Best of luck on the opposite coast. We'll miss you here.

(Should we recruit a replacement moderator for davis_square ?)

[cos]

I will miss here a lot too! But I'm planning to visit very often, since I can still work out of the Cambridge office for a week at a time without much difficulty (and I will still have my own bedroom in my house), and I plan to stay involved in local politics, and visiting Davis Square, to remain prepared for moving back eventually :)

[rightkindofme.livejournal.com]

Congratulations. I hope the left coast treats you well. :)

[cos]

I bet it will. Thanks.

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

Mazel Tov on the job front? Hope this is a good and fun adventure for you.

[notadoor.livejournal.com]

Wow! Congrats!

[eirias.livejournal.com]

Holy cats! A big shocker. Good luck with the logistics. I love Seattle and hope you enjoy your years there.

[cos]

I'm pretty sure I'm only moving one secular cat :)

Seattle will be fun but I will really miss Boston, even with visiting often.

(Edit: Aww, that comment got deleted. My silly remark was a reference to that comment having started with "Holy cats!")

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

OMG!!!

Sounds like a fun sojourn. But I'm glad you have it in mind to return to Boston or my world would be too rocked. :-) (says the virtual expat)

[cos]

Heh. Do you have it in mind to ever return?

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

"Ever" is a long time, so... I would hope maybe someday? But there are certainly many possible futures in which I don't. (Move back altogether, that is. I certainly intend to visit again.)

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Yay for you, boo for us in Greater Camberville. I'll miss you!

[cos]

I'll see you at Arisia and Baitcon, if not at other times. Also you should come visit!

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Dude. :-} Enjoy it. I'm sure you'll find ways to be just as involved there as you have been here!

[eccentrific.livejournal.com]

Have fun in Seattle!

If you want, we have a spare cat carrier of the kind that is airline approved for carry-on. You need to tell them in advance that you're bringing a cat, they'll charge you something like $100 extra and you have to bring a vet certificate showing that the cat is in good health and up to date on rabies shots.

I'm curious, why Seattle?

[cos]

I've dealt with handling PETC SSRs on the airline software & policy side during the ITA years, now it may be time to actually book a ticket with PETC SSR for myself for the first time :) We've started researching the pet policies of the most relevant airlines (Alaska, JetBlue, Delta), and carriers - and I'd love to see your spare cat carrier, thanks!

Why Seattle? Very few roles and teams would be attractive enough to get me to consider moving away from Cambridge, and even for those few, there aren't many other locations I'd consider moving to, but this case just happened to be an intersection of those two factors. The team is exactly the sort of thing I want to work on and seems exciting, and the Seattle office is in a nice walkable neighborhood I like in a city I like. Plus Alice's sister lives there, so she had already brought up the idea of going there the last time we visited.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

What? Wow. Congrats? Eep, will miss you from Bostonish

[cos]

Well maybe you could go to Seattle sometime. Possibly with fewer people to visit you'd have a less frantic trip? :)

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Fewer people, hoho, we'll see about that.

(Congrats, cos - do you know many people here?)

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Trying to remember who else I know in Seattle. I think I have folks in Portland and jazzfishAnd uilosAre in Vancouver. Been forever since I've been to sanfran, too.

[broken-gizmo.livejournal.com]

Hi!

When G and I moved out here -- with our FOUR cats -- we rented an RV and drove cross country. It was... an adventure. :)

We live pretty much on the Redmond / Bellevue border, so not actually in Seattle, though G does the commute daily. (Trying to find a rental in the city that would allow for more than a single cat was quickly identified as a non-starter.)

Though I'm not exactly awash in spare energy, if there's something I can help with that would be easier to manage if you had someone local to lend a hand, feel free to ping me.

Safe travels!
meri

[cos]

Plenty of people there, yes. Probably more than anywhere outside the northeast except for the bay area and Israel.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

For driving we would keep the litterbox in the footwell of the back seat, with the cat(s) roaming

[rawrin.livejournal.com]

Wow! Hope the move goes smoothly, and you enjoy your time there.

[mackelzinzie.livejournal.com]

Just take her on the plane or in the car with you! I'm excited you will be on this coast!!

[dphilli1.livejournal.com]

moving a cat is easy.

convincing it to stay moved is hard

[cos]

Convincing *me* to stay moved will be hard :)

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

We flew with two cats PETC BOS-SEA. At least in 2013, you had to take the cat out of the carrier to go through security. (Carrier must go through x-ray without the cat in it.)

If your cat is freaked out by the travel experience, you can request a private screening room. I'm not sure exactly how it works since we were told about this option by a TSA agent on the *far* side of security, but I imagine this would look something like:

1. Take cat out of carrier in enclosed, relatively quiet room.
2. One of you takes carrier through x-ray.
3. **Maybe** the person from #2 can now take the carrier back to the room, put the cat back in inside the room, and take cat+carrier through the metal detector (now that the carrier has been x-rayed)??? Not sure.

Contrast with our experience:
0. Get in security line. Be told by TSA agent that you'll need to departure cats. Swear. Look around at your two cats and baby and shitton of crap that you're traveling with. Rub back that's sore from carrying previous plus being rear-ended on the way to the airport. Ask TSA agent if there's a way to make this easier. Sigh resignedly when he says no.
1. Open carrier in middle of noisy, crowded, hectic security line.
2. Grab onto super stressed ball of fur and hold on for dear life because if the cat escapes in the airport you're missing your flight trying to get it back and probably never seeing the cat again anyway.
3. Try not to scream in ways that will alarm the TSA as the cat scratches you and you bleed all over.
4. Try not to step in the poop the cat has shat on the floor from stress.
5. Go through magnetometer.
6. Try to get the ball of stress and claws back into the carrier in the middle of the hectic et al security line.
7. Bleed more.
8. Since your travel partner is managing INFT and thus is not capable of doing 1-7, go back to start of security line where she and the INFT and the other PETC are waiting and repeat with second cat.
9. Encounter a nice TSA agent who helps you with #6 and cleaning up various human and feline fluids. Be asked by her why on earth you didn't just request a private screening room.
10. Curse the TSA agent from #0 who assured you that there was no way to make this easier, along with his descendants unto the tenth generation.
11. Buy a new shirt for travel companion who has suffered the wrath of a leaky INFT diaper sometime during #0-10.

[cos]

Ugh. *wince*

Fortunately we'd only have one SSR, not three! :)

Did you have Pre-Check when you did this? Security lines have gotten significantly less hectic for me since I signed up for that a few years ago. With all the other people getting to keep their shoes and belts on and not having to take laptops and bags of liquids out, everyone is calmer and more relaxed around us, not just us.

Nonetheless, we are certainly looking for a carrier that is very easy to get a cat in and out of, having been warned about this exact issue. We've also talked to the vet about the options for calming a cat down with substances. Apparently there's a hormone you can spray on things that makes a cat feel more comfortable, among other things. Did you try any meds or substances on your cats? Which ones, and how did they work out?

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

I think this was pre-precheck. At least pre-us-having-it. (We enrolled in NEXUS after we moved here; highly recommended, by the way, it means we always get precheck plus expedited entry into Canada and the US.)

We did get the cats Thundershirts, which I think helped. We didn't try any hormones or medications.

[(Anonymous)]

I know that some airlines had a limit to the total number of cats that could be on a flight, maybe one, maybe two. So make your cat-reservations early, before your flight's cat-spaces fill up.

[geoffroi.livejournal.com]

Congrats and best of luck!

[drwex]

Congratulations. That is quite the surprise. I hope it's a good move.

[dreams-of-wings.livejournal.com]

ACK! I'm just catching up on not reading LJ for...a really long time and saw this. I'm kind of in shock, even though I've been a terribly absent friend since I had Mo, and selfishly relieved you're not planning to live there forever and always.

I hope it's a grand adventure. I'll work on scheduling some time with you before you do the big move.
*hugs*