Wednesday morning, First Reflections

Yesterday was another busy day, though much lower drama than the rest of the past week. With the movers now gone, it was mostly us, a house with lots of unfamiliar technology gizmos, and an ungodly number of packed boxes – all of which we have to now unpack.

The boxes had the upper hand; they knew they had us outnumbered. Like many a Match.com personal ad, the writing on the surface was often no better than a hint as to what might lie within. And if there’s one specific item you need to find right away? Fuggedaboutit; unless you were a champion player at Where’s Waldo?, you’ll just have to be patient until things are ready to reveal their hiding places.

Technology, too, seems to be having its way with us. There are a lot of systems and gadgets here, all with the stated claim of making our lives simpler and easier. Yeah, sure. Maybe, eventually that’ll be the case, but there’s gonna be an extended hazing period before the gadgets accept us into their fraternity. 

Perhaps you remember Sunday, when we arrived here after 2000+ miles of adventure. Here’s the picture we posted of Robbyne and Daisy at the front door, just before our triumphant entrance:

That wasn’t exactly the entire story. The untold part was that just after that picture was taken, we tried to enter through the front door, and could not get it open. So we went around to a side door, unlocked it, and went in. Immediately a beep-beep-beep noise went off, letting us know that we had a few seconds before the alarm went into full you’re-in-trouble-now mode. Calmly, we stepped over to the alarm keypad and entered our code number. Oops, didn’t work. Second try, oops again. A few more failed attempts and the siren went off. Hi neighbors! Guess who’s just arrived? We called Fred, our Project Manager Extraordinaire, who then called the monitoring company; it was all straightened out only a few minutes after the Police had been dispatched. Otherwise, Sunday was pretty awesome, but we learned how much of a technology learning curve we had ahead of us.

Tuesday night was another first for us! We enjoyed a nice dinner with Jack & Karen C., our good friends who’ve also recently moved here and who put us up (put up with us?) since we arrived Sunday. Then we came back here to the house for our first overnighter. It was strangely different from what the past two days had accustomed us to; the landscape workers had all left, the power equipment had all gone quiet, and the bright sunshine had by now slid beneath the horizon. The three of us, on eight legs, walked around the now-quiet house, out to the portal, and up to the roof deck. Crickets and a light breeze through the trees were the only sounds to hear. A half-moon was by now almost overhead, nearly bright enough to read by but not too bright to wash out the Milky Way.


With some of our McLean furniture moved in, and with some of our boxes unpacked, we fell asleep in a place that seemed at once both familiar and foreign. It was quiet and dark, almost too  quiet and dark. The occasional house noise took on an outsized proportion. Was that clinking sound from an ice maker, or something else? Was the rustling sound from packing papers being blown by a breeze, or a coyote sneaking in for a Daisy-snack?


But now it’s Wednesday morning, and a glorious day here in Santa Fe: temps in the high 70s, cool dry breezes, blue sky for miles and miles. No relief in sight. 
    

From Daisy & Dan’s morning walk, a glimpse up at the new homestead:

We learn a lot from Daisy, who often seems wise beyond her years. She’s been apprehensive with all the commotion, but is increasingly settling in and enjoying her new routines. From her perspective, if your Peeps this week are the same ones you had last week, you’re probably where you ought to be. Sleep well, wake up refreshed, and make your morning walks “meaningful.” And on this morning’s walk, Daisy found -- and promptly inhaled -- two Cheetos someone had earlier dropped by the roadside. There’s treasure everywhere! 

     
Dan & Robbyne