Emmy’s here!

After a couple days of pacing about, I called the receiving freight terminal yesterday. They told me that they hadn’t been informed that I would need a truck with liftgate for delivery, they’d have to confirm with the shipping terminal, and that it would take until the end of the week to deliver. At that point I completely ran out of patience. Could they just give me the darn thing if I showed up with a U-Haul?? Yes, they would, so I ran off to rent a truck and drive it up to the freight terminal.

Here’s my first glimpse of Emmy, as she was being loaded onto the truck:

Here’s a closeup of her crate, with its warning stickers:

And here she is, safe inside the U-Haul truck.

Emmy and her crate weighed in at 800 pounds (she’s a hefty girl!), so there was obviously no way I could move the crate into the garage. So I set to work with a crowbar, and after 90 minutes I finally had the top off the crate. (The people who shipped it might not have been great with logistics, but they sure knew how to build a crate!) It might have been quicker, except that in the confines of the truck, I didn’t have room to use the crowbar properly.

Anyway, I got the first few bits out of the crate myself, but was unable to lift out the sectional warp beams – they were too awkward and heavy, and I was too short to reach over the crate and lift them out! So I called my friend Lieven, who came over and helped me finish disassembling the crate and moving the pieces into the garage. (Thanks Lieven!)

And here is what Emmy looked like when we were all done:

I’m having a “loom-raising party” (sort of like a barn-raising party, only on a slightly smaller scale) on New Year’s Day (i.e. tomorrow) – four friends are coming over to help me assemble the loom. A new loom for the New Year! I can’t wait.

Finally, this video is long overdue: Tigress playing with one of her favorite toys, a strip of foam insulation. I love the way she carries it up the cat tree so she can drop it off and chase it down the tree.