Getting settled

We’re back in Washington, DC for the summer. We arrived Sunday afternoon and Shawn started training on Monday, while I began the process of getting the house in order and exploring the neighborhood. We’re in a great location – Foggy Bottom – with plenty of green space, restaurants, and a quick commute for Shawn. Our apartment is an old row house and is the perfect size for a single person without any pets. We, on the other hand, are two people with a large dog. We knew it was going to be small, but when we got all our stuff in the house and it filled the entire first floor (of two) of the place, I almost started crying. But now I’ve got the mess under control, and although I’m constantly tripping over Laika, I think it will be fine for a few months.

This week is proving to be a mentally and emotionally challenging one as we get ourselves settled. As much as we move, I always manage to forget how difficult the first few days can be. The car is one of our biggest problems at this point. On Monday, I managed to find a parking spot to rent for the month so that we didn’t get ticketed/towed from the spot we had parked at on Sunday. The next challenge is getting it registered. I attempted to go to the DMV yesterday to try and find out exactly what we need to do. Since the car is new and has never been titled anywhere, the info on the DMV website isn’t very helpful. Unfortunately, in typical DMV fashion, the person I talked to yesterday wasn’t very helpful either. So I think we’re just going to try and get the emissions inspection taken care of tomorrow, and Shawn’s planning on spending his entire Saturday at the DMV.

Laika has added another challenge to things. After a month on the farm, living in the big city has been quite a change. Every time we leave the house she gets so overstimulated that she can barely function. I guess I hadn’t realized how different Washington would be from Kyiv. Going out with Laika is forcing me to see it in a new way. First of all, it’s loud. And constantly moving. The biggest challenges are bicycles (Laika’s not a huge fan and there’s a LOT of them in our neighborhood.), other dogs (This has become a 50/50 sort of thing with her – we just never know when she’s going to decide that she really doesn’t like another dog.), and squirrels (She’d never seen one before Sunday, and they’re everywhere here, just taunting her.). So we’ve been keeping the walks short and making good use of the “heel” command she learned at camp last month. Hopefully if we pace ourselves, she’ll be able to adjust in another week or two.

Well, so that this post isn’t a complete downer, I’ll finish up by sharing how our home leave ended. My brother got married last Saturday! It was a pretty stressful time (with moving and all), but I’m really happy that I got to share in his and his new wife’s big day. And since I hardly ever (or never, really) get to see his friends, I forget how much fun they are. In fact, it’s a good thing that I was standing on my brother’s side during the ceremony because his best man kept me from totally losing it. At least my new sister-in-law cried a little too, so I wasn’t the only one crying in front of everyone. I’ll share photos when I get some so that you can see how beautiful the day was.