EFM: Exodus Finalization in Motion

UPDATE
Apologies to anyone who was drawn into believing the below statement about VP Biden calling us. It was a joke playing on this gaffe.

ORIGINAL POST
A big thank you to all of the well wishers from yesterday's big announcement. Natalie was flattered. In fact, we received a phone call from no one less than our illustrious veep, Joe Biden, himself who wanted to tell Natalie that her achievement was "a big effin deal."

But now we have to start looking forward to the next steps. And they are many.

We need to prep for pack-out by taking our own inventory of our stuff and then mark with different colored post-its to indicate which shipment the items are going. We also need to do a dry run of packing our car before the movers get here so we know what we can take.

Tiffy is going back to the groomer to get her desert-style haircut - short enough to keep her relatively cool, but long enough to protect her skin from the sun. Though Tiffy and I have discussed this, and we've both determined that from about 11 a.m. to about 5 p.m., we are just going to lay naked and sprawled on the floor to keep cool.

I also need to get a copy of Tiffy's immunization records while we ourselves still need to get our shots to go to Mexico.

I'm still finalizing our driving route to post, and we are in the middle of the application process for a SENTRI pass. We know my disdain for acronyms, but a brief round of applause for this clever, cool-sounding name. Though I'm pretty certain the Border Patrol was hell bent on using SENTRI or SENTRY for this pass, and then just decided what the letters would stand for after the fact. They came up with Secure Electronic Network for Travelers' Rapid Inspection, so yeah, it is kind of a long way of describing a border SmartPass. Still, I'm a fan of this acronym, though I'm a little skeptical that such a program is a good idea. I'll need to experience a border crossing, but it seems that in matters of entering the United States, we should all just accept the fact that it is going to be a hassle in the name of national security.

One last note on the SENTRI pass. There is a 66-page instruction manual on how to fill out the application. Filling out the application took me about 30 minutes as there are several steps, but 66 pages of instructions seemed a bit excessive. After all, our state department friends already in Hermosillo were able to sum up what we can expect life to be like there for two years in a 66-page welcome manual.

We also need to make our final purchases before pack-out, which includes a new television. If I'm going to be watching people I don't understand on TV, I would at least like it to be on a large flat screen instead of my "3D" TV that I bought right before I started my freshmen year of college. I call it "3D" because the screen is rounded out...do they even make TV sets like that anymore?

And yes, that is soccer...er...futbol on my TV screen. I confess I've been drawn to watching these games, or at least have the TV set to these games while I go about my business. I've been watching/listening to the games on InVision (not Telemundo as I errantly said last time) because I love listening to the excitement by the announcers. I don't care who wins, just as long as there are many goals scored because listening to the announcers celebrate every goal like the team just won the championship makes me smile. Sadly, most games have been 0-0, 1-0 or 1-1, which makes for a lot of down time between goals.

We also need to load up on other items such as peanut butter, dog treats, cleaning supplies and toilet paper. I am fearful of a world in Mexico in which all they sell is single ply as we've been warned that the quality is not the same. That, and I've seen on TV that Americans use more pounds of toilet paper per person than any other country. Rationalizing, I figure that is because we use more double ply than the rest of the world, but that is merely speculation.

So we still have a lot on our plate. Yeah, the hard stuff is over Natalie, but we'd be kidding ourselves to think that everything else will fall into place on its own.

Tiffy-morphosis

It's been a while since I've reported on Tiffy, which is a gross oversight because moving to an arid climate has a direct impact on her.

Just as Travel Orders described, having a dog can greatly influence how we bid. For example, Jamaica won't accept any non-British born dogs. Several other countries have quarantining rules, and we've heard horror stories about dogs that go into quarantine, but never come back out alive.

But those two criteria were the only ones we really considered as far as Tiffy was concerned. (And to be truthful, we had a contingency plan in the event we were going to a quarantining country; give her away, likely to a family member.) If Tiffy could have voiced her opinion on bidding, she wouldn't have let us bid on any post any further south than we already live.

And this serves as my excuse to post pictures of Tiffy.



Look at all that fur. This is a dog that definitely was not intended to live in the desert. Yet that is where she is moving. These pictures actually illustrate Tiffy at her furriest because this year we forwent her usual winter grooming. (Funny story: Last summer, when she got her shave, we came home with a urinary tract infection, which we attributed to an error by the groomers...after shaving her, they bathed her, and to avoid details, let's just say some stray hairs went where they shouldn't. Do you know how to diagnosis a urinary tract infection? Pee samples. Do you know how to obtain a dog's pee sample? You follow her with a ladle and catch some midstream and pour it into a tupperware container and rush it to the lab. That was a fun day.) Determined not to give these groomers another chance at hurting her again, we missed her winter grooming while looking for a new groomer.

Those pictures are also the last time Tiffy will be furry for a couple of years. She already struggles in the summer when we hit the 80s and 90s. That will be the wintertime weather in Hermosillo.

So now Tiffy will live the next few years (at least) like this:



Yeah, she looks kind of ridiculous. But she isn't one of those dogs whose aware of her appearance. She actually seems to have an extra bounce in her step being relieved of a few pounds of fur.

The trick is going to be keeping her fur this short. Let's hope we can find a good groomer in Hermosillo for her, because we'll be making lots of visits.