Sunsets in Santa Fe

So, who out there wants to hear more about our unpacking?! Hardly anyone? Thought so. As gripping plot lines going, "tedious unpacking" has never been a hit genre.

On the other hand, nature put on a pretty good show at sundown on Friday. Granted, even less-interesting sunsets are usually pretty good here. But for most of the week, sundown had been marked by mostly cloudless skies and haze drifting in from the wildfires that have been burning in the southwestern part of the state, a couple of hundred miles away.

Friday night was different. Winds blew in from a northerly direction, bringing in clouds and clearing out the haze. We watched as the sun got lower and lower:

A little after 8PM, the sun dipped below the peaks of the Jemez Mountains:

And all the clouds looking to our north decided to put on a little show:

Sundown in Santa Fe seems to take on a special significance of its own.The  pace of activities slows up, be it work, being out and about, or just sitting, reading and talking with others. People gravitate to their windows or portals to watch the sun set. The intense glare of the sun dissipates, and the air temperature changes quickly as we move from direct sunlight into shadow. You feel it on your skin. The connections are palpable.

The crisp edge of the Jemez Mountains, maybe 20-30 miles off, provides a fixed point, letting us see in real time the narrowing gap between sun and horizon, reminding us of the spinning of the earth underlying it all. Behind us, a nearly-full moon is rising, waiting for its turn at center stage.

Soon, too soon perhaps, the show is over, night begins, and we return to what we were doing before. Beats unpacking any day!

           

     
Dan & Robbyne

Daisy answers reader questions!

Hi everybody! Daisy Jones-Klein here again, with an update on the Big Move. Mom & Dad are still busy unpacking boxes, and since I’m here in my crib with a little more free time, I’m the logical one to write. Besides, y’all seem to like me better, and it gives me something to do while I’m waiting for the workmen to finish up for the day.

   

Today, let’s open the mailbag and answer some readers’ questions: 

Linda K. of Atlanta GA and Margaret J. of Cerrillos NM both wanted to know if that’s really my room in some of the photos. Yep. Pretty sweet, huh? Comfy bed, room to stretch out, food, water, and sliding doors. It’s missing a flat-screen TV, but otherwise it’s fully tricked out. And since my Peeps share their space with me, I sometimes let them share mine:

Other readers want to know: How do I spend my days? Well, this week at least, what I want and what I get haven’t exactly been the same. Seems that with all the workers still in and around the house, it was decided by a 2-1 family-wide vote that a certain wild feral beast should spend more time in her crib.
          

Which begs the follow-up question: Why do my Peeps think I can’t be trusted? Jeez! You nip a few people in your youth, and then you have to deal with a bad rep, like forever. As Jessica Rabbit once opined, “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”


FUN FACTS! Google the phrase “Jack Russell Terrier” (in quotes), and you get millions of hits. Next, add a leading adjective to the phrase, and compare the results:

• Barking JRT:                20,500 hits
• vs.  Quiet JRT:            2,120 hits

Hmmm ... maybe not the best start. Let's try another one:  

• Hyper JRT:                   16,900 hits
• vs.  Mellow JRT:          5,300 hits

Yeesh!! Enough already! So Google’s got my number. It’s in my wiring; what’s a doggie to do? Let's try something a little better:

•    Smart JRT:             121,000 hits
•    vs.  Dumb JRT:                       7 hits

Now we're talking! But my favorite -- my very, very favorite -- Google head-to-head is this one:

• Lovable JRT:           139,000 hits
• vs.  Unlovable JRT:               0 hits

Awwwww .... ain't I cute? Admit it ... Resistance is futile.

Several of you Gentle Readers tell me I’m not a bad writer for a dog, and ask: “Daisy, why haven’t we heard from you before?” Good question! I’ve always had lots of thoughts and ideas, you know, stuff twirling around in my head. But keyboarding has been tough, with paws bigger than keys and no thumbs to work the space bar. So I finally got my Peeps to do my typing for me. As staff go, they’re not bad. 

Speaking of which … THUMBS ARE AWESOME! They let you pick up stuff, open doors, unwrap treats, and more! In fact, I even wrote a song about thumbs when I was a younger pup. It’s sung to the tune of “If I Only Had a Brain,” from The Wizard of Oz:
      

Oh, my life could be so much more
If I could unlock the door.
But I cannot and I’m bummed. (dee doo dee doo dee doooo …)
So I sit inside and fidget
Cuz’ I lack opposing digits.
If I only had a thumb!

And lastly, a special thanks to Bern B. of Palo Alto CA, who wrote about how nice it must be to relax in the evening on the portal, enjoying all that’s around you and those near to you. Nicely put, Bern! Of all the good times to be Daisy – and trust me, there are many – evening time is among the best. I help Dad in his office:

We take walks around the new neighborhood:

We sit and watch the sun go down:

And maybe watch some TV:

Overall, it’s a pretty good gig. Hope yours is, too! I’ll check back with you in a couple of days.  

                
Daisy Jones-Klein

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

Moving in!!!

Daisy Jones-Klein here, reporting again today. My Peeps had quite a memorable Memorial Day with all the moving, and by day's end realized that they didn't have the energy levels they had when they were pups. So once again, reporting the news is up to me.

Since our stuff got here ahead of schedule, the movers began early Monday on Memorial Day. We met the van at the bottom of the hill in our neighborhood, where they had already begun transferring everything into a smaller shuttle truck to run up the rest of the way to our house:

There were lots and lots of people and boxes and noises! Apparently, for some strange reason, my Peeps didn't like me barking at each and every person passing by me! As if a little ankle nip would interrupt anything! Anyway, Mom and Dad decided that it would be a good day for me (or, as they sometimes call me, "Our Lil' Liability") to get to know my own room a little better.

I joined my Peeps for a lunch break. Their first meal on their deck (which around here is called a portal)! Best of all, lots of bits of ham and bacon dropping off of their sandwiches. Good thing I was around to help clean up the floor, huh?

All day long, there's stuff moving in, boxes being opened, furniture being reassembled, and empties going out. But by late in the day, it started to seem a little more normal, and some of our favorite Terri Knoll Court pieces began to adapt to their locations in their new Forever Home:

About 10 hours later, the movers had all left, and the house started getting quiet. My Peeps left me here to guard and protect the place while they went next door for a neighborhood Memorial Day get-together. They got to look down and see the house from a little higher up:

Then they smooched as the sun went down:

Someone probably said something like "Get a room!" They laughed, and just pointed next door, where I had already found my room:

Today (and the next week or two) is gonna be another unpacking day, and lots more visitors! Mom & Dad have already told me that it's probably a good day to stay in my crib. Seems I'm already getting a reputation around these parts.

       
Daisy Jones-Klein, The Bark of the West

Home: Latitude 35°43'40.66"N, Longitude 105°54'23.65"W

Daisy Jones-Klein reports on Sunday's big day:

Even the road-trip-lovingest dog can get a little road weary and be ready to settle down for a while. So it's a good thing that today my Peeps are taking me to Santa Fe.

Sunday started off in Amarillo. I went on a little horseback ride before we all got into the cars:

And not long after we started driving, we all got out to say goodbye to Texas, but more importantly, to say hello to New Mexico!

We stopped for lunch at a place call Clines Corner in NM, even though they didn't spell the name like Dad thought they should.

Most significant for us, this was where we finally pulled off of I-40, our steadfast companion for the last 1700 miles or so. It's a great road and let us see so much of this huge and beautiful land as we moved across it. Thanks, I-40! 

And as we got further into New Mexico, the skies got more blue, the landscape less barren, and the terrain more interesting. That is, less and less like the Texas panhandle!

As we got closer and closer to Santa Fe, the Kick-ass Song of the Day Competition heated up. Early in the day's drive, the leading contender was "Our House," from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on their 1970 album Déjà Vu. I had to veto it, however, because they kept singing about two cats in the yard, as if that was a good thing (definitely not!). But then we heard "Almost Cut My Hair" from the same album; Dad's favorite line is "I feel like letting my Freak Flag fly", which sounded like a good theme for our week in general and especially for Memorial Day, what with all the bikers on the road and Rolling Thunder taking place in Washington DC.

But just as we were pulling into the city of Santa Fe, a dark-horse song sneaked up and stole the crown. "Ridgetop", from Jesse Colin Young's live On the Road album, is a long jazzy love song to living up in the mountains. It took us all the way from the center of Santa Fe:

... up to our new place in the mountains:

So here we are in Santa Fe, one week older and 2000+ miles more driven. As Road Trips go, this was indeed excellent, at times sublime.
     

We'll be staying a couple of days with our good friends Jack & Karen C. across the valley, but first we had to take a quick peek into the new digs:

Then, my Peeps decided to make it all official by putting in the change of address form for yours truly. Off with the Old; in with the New! They're big on ceremony, you know:

Tomorrow is Monday, and not just Memorial Day, but also Moving Day! Our movers arrived in Santa Fe ahead of schedule, and asked if they could deliver our stuff on Monday instead of Tuesday. Gonna be busy! But for this Sunday, the sun's gone, and we're declaring an end to Santa Fe Day #1.

In a couple of days, once my Peep's stuff is in and a little more unpacked, we'll be back with you. And remember, the best things in life are furry!

     
Daisy Jones-Klein, Terrier of the West