How our #dog became Stealth Dog

Beowulf, age 19, RIP

         Grace and I fell in love with this dream home in a wonderful location.   As it must be with any home, there was much to discover after we took possession.  Our dreams of ease and relaxation were soon replaced by frustration when we encountered the New Mexican way of doing business and dealing with customers.  Basically, almost all local repair personnel took pride in never showing up for appointments (but more about that later) while interpreting all agreements exactly the opposite of what I intended them to do.

         In February, we rented a 14-foot truck and hauled a load of our furniture from Palm Desert, CA, to Santa Fe.   We had been forced to rent some furniture so the home in Santa Fe would look as if people were living there.  Our homeowners’ insurance agent insisted that be done because the price of having insurance for a home that was unoccupied was “exorbitant.”  That was why the home currently displayed a sad, sagging couch and a love seat that took the phrase “moth eaten” to new heights, and some chairs and a table that were survivors of many failed dinners. 

Our instructions to the rental company that delivered the furniture in our absence: put everything near a window so that if anyone looked in the place, it would seem occupied.  Actually, because of the rather low quality of the tacky furniture, our home looked like crack dealers were in residence, which might not have exactly satisfied our home insurance occupancy requirements.

With help, we loaded the truck nearly to the ceiling and set off for Santa Fe.  We stopped just beyond Phoenix, made sure everything was locked and snuck Beowulf, our aging Shih Tzu, inside a black bag into the motel.  Beowulf enjoyed being temporarily in a black bag, which I leave to a doggie therapist to learn why.  His sometime nickname was Stealth Dog.

Just as we were going to sleep, the sounds of railroad cars slamming into each other and of trains stopping, starting and clanging alerted us to the fact that the motel was less than 100 yards from an energetic switching facility, which played host to trains throughout the night.   This was not mentioned on the motel’s Internet page.

Only Beowulf slept well that night.  We got up early and continued the trip.   Because the fully loaded truck was less than the speediest vehicle on the road and because I was afraid of going too fast and tipping the thing over.  So we plodded along, arriving in Santa Fe around 9 pm at night.