This is where we used to live
I locked the door of Apt. 6 for the last time today. Katie came over and helped me clean out the fridge and mop the floors while Dexter played with Bill for the last time in the backyard. He has no idea what's going on, and has spent much of the last couple of days in his "worry ball" pose. Mike and I coined the term when we noticed he always adopted a particular posture in which to sleep when he was worried or anxious, such as the first couple of days one of us was absent, or whenever we made motions towards going out of town or packing up. He curls into as tight a little ball as he can make, and covers his nose with the white tip of his tail. The tighter the ball, the more anxious he is. We know he's truly at ease when he's able to sleep on his back with his hind legs splayed out, displaying himself for all to see. I guess that's true comfort when you're a border collie.
It's been a pretty chaotic and stressful week for humans, too. Neither Mike nor I are in posession of our passports at the moment. They're in the mail, being sent to our parents' respective places, hopefully in time for us to pick them up before crossing the border. There were some last-minute glitches in selling the truck. To get a safety certificate, we needed to get $900 worth of repairs to the parking break and ball joints. And of course, watching a bunch of people, some of them teenagers, pack up all of your worldly belongings isn't exactly a day at the spa. But, for the most part, Mike and I have kept our cool and have learned some lessons about how to do this more easily in the future, i.e., in 10 months time when we leave Virginia and come back home.
Tomorrow Dexter has his last vet appointment so that he can get his travel papers, and then we're off to pick up Mike in Bobcaygeon and then Simcoe to visit mom and dad. Tonight is our last night in Pembroke until who knows when. I think Dex and I will take one last trip to Petawawa Terrace together before we go.
Comments
I wonder if Mom and Dad noticed a difference in our sleep positions before each move... "The girls are sleeping in their 'worry balls' again" :-) I know I had nightmares every time we found out that we would be moving. The nightmares would be about the place we were moving to, and would happen from the day we were told to the week after we moved. I remember dreaming I was moving into a haunted windmill in Holland, and that I was moving into a nuclear wasteland in Ottawa where all the cats had mutant kittens and the highschool had a 14 foot tall chain link & barbed wire fence around it, and that I was moving to a ghosttown in Germany where the town was literally inhabited by ghosts. In another dream we were moving to Pembroke back to the cottage and I got separated from the rest of the family and the only way I had to get there was by riding my bicycle on a powerline over the Ottawa River. Any good dreams for either of you lately? :-)
Posted by: heather at July 9, 2007 12:31 AM