Moving motto of the summer:
“Things could be worse, you could be Licorice.”
Summer of 2012 was the crazy moving summer, where all roads led to Miami. We sold our house of almost twenty years. The man spouse reduced and packed up most of our belongings in Canada. Then in a three week span of time we all criss-crossed the country and the globe to eventually land in Miami.
Miles each person did that summer:
Me – 6780 miles
Paul – 14,650 miles
Kier – 6,584 miles
Madi age 14 – 11,568 miles
Cali – 4,072 miles
Guate dog – 4,072 people miles or 28,504 in dog miles
for a grand total of 47,726 in people miles
Madi (age 14) went from Guatemala to spend the summer in Spain with her sister Kier (age 17). She worked in a camp that summer at her sister’s school.
First, the man went to Spain to help Kier move home from her year in Madrid. It was either… we didn’t want her to have to move by herself or her dad never passes up an excuse to go to Europe. Either way, he went and carried heavy bags full of clothes and souvenirs from a great year in Spain. The three of them traveled around a bit, and eventually flew back to Toronto.
Meanwhile, a la Central America, Cali (age 10) and I closed down the house in Guatemala. I had to find homes for a few years worth of stuff. Luckily my sister had bought a house close by so some items went there. But other things, like the two motorcycles and a flat screen, I gave to one of the NGO’s I’d been working with.
Turns out the only thing more complicated than closing down three households in Canada, Guatemala, and Spain and moving them to a fourth country, is getting one small 18 lb street dog out of Guatemala. Most complicated immigration process ever. This is due in large part that one must find the right person who knows the right persons to pay the necessary “fees” to all the necessary offices full of other necessary persons. We ferreted out a person who could help up with this web-like process.
Eventually we got our little Guate pooch on a plane to Miami. In Miami, with great difficulty, P found the right shipping facility to claim him. The doggie arrived in one piece but a bit damaged. He sometimes had nervous head shaking episodes which looked like mini seizures. Those eventually went away. If only he could talk.
Once we knew the doggie made it and wasn’t turned back at the border, the rest of us flew to Miami. When I saw the dog papers for the first time, I was surprised to see they were all wrong. Guess I should have paid higher fees. Our dog was a small brown male poodle mix bound for Miami. These papers were for a very
large female black lab, bound for Denver by the name of Licorice. It was a miracle he ever made it to Miami. But as we were petting our little nervous wreck of a dog, safely delivered to us, we all wondered, “Where in the world is Licorice? If we got her papers, did she make it to Denver?” For the rest of the summer, if things weren’t going well for whatever reason, one of the girls would say, “Hey, could be worse, you could be Licorice.”
We drove to Canada to pack up the remainder of the house. At the border we were pulled aside for the Guatemalan dog. They wanted to see the papers, but the only ones we had were for a huge black female lab named Licorice. I handed them over confidently, telling him that they were all in order because he was just admitted into the country. I hoped he didn’t know any Spanish, although it was still pretty obvious on the papers that the papers weren’t for this dog. I waited for the border guy to realize things were off and to turn us around. He flipped through them carefully, leisurely, one page after another. Darn, he must know Spanish. Then he handed them back saying everything was in order. Nope, definitely no Spanish.
In Canada we packed up, said goodbye to the house, friends, family. Much sadness. Left most of the house contents in storage in case Florida was a bad idea and we needed to move back. We drove two cars loaded with everyone’s most prized possessions back down to Florida.
At the border they weren’t concerned about our car being stuffed to the gills, only our little furry passenger. They asked what the dog’s citizenship was and I hesitated. His citizenship? I said I suppose he has dual citizenship, that he had recently immigrated from Guatemala. He kept repeating over and over, “Citizenship? Citizenship!!” After a stern reprimand I was told to next time say the dog is solely American, NOT Canadian and certainly NOT Guatemalan. The border guard didn’t like our dog’s Guatemalan origins and his dual Canadian/American situation. Harsh.
We made it to Florida without any further incident. We moved into a house less than ten minutes away from the International School that offered French IB and Spanish. We had been in Florida for two days when we realized International student orientation at Goshen College in northern Indiana started a couple of days sooner than regular orientation. Kier wanted to be there for that. It was her first year in college when orientations matter.
We swung by the Walmart for some sheets and other collegey goodies, threw her college stuff into the car and drove overnight to get her there in time. While driving the 2-5am shift, I thought back on the past couple of weeks. I hoped our move was the right decision for everyone. It was a long, long night of reflection. Despite our efforts to get her there in time, she missed the College Cabin BBQ but we managed to move her in at midnight before orientation the next morning. The man and I had a great reminiscent walk around campus, where we met decades earlier. Some things have changed, but the memories are the same.
The two of us dragged our sorry exhausted butts home to Florida. We scrambled to buy some uniforms and get the girls off to school. It was mid August. We did it.