Gained a paycheck, lost a dog.

This turned out to be a momentous morning.

I met the guy in charge of that parcel I’ve been working at. He signed off on the job, okayed the invoice, and we shook hands and parted. I dropped by the lady who handles the money, she okayed the invoice and I left it with her. So I’m gettin’ paid, probably Monday, not that it matters because it’ll be weeks before I can get the check deposited. No problem, I’m okay for food/fuel/etc.

Since the boys and I were already in the Jeep and I’ve been sort-of neglecting minimally attending certain matters, I figured we may as well make the security rounds before I came home and started laundry. That chore has grown to five stops in all, at the end of which I noticed that S&L’s gate was unlocked and open. Not a big surprise given what weekend we’re up against. That open gate, I suspected, was not going to be a trivial matter.

A bit of background for non-regular readers:
S&L have been here several years longer than I have, but always as regular weekenders. They spent over ten years building a large, beautiful retirement home in the desert on weekends. It’s awesome, really, you ought to see it. It’s a work of art.

Anyway, Ghost has known them literally all his life. And since he really didn’t get along with the bigger dogs in his original pack very well, he’s been sneaking off and spending weekends with S&L since he was barely old enough to make the trek alone. This was a running joke before I ever saw this place, and the joke was that if S&L moved here full-time before Ghost got old and died, he would probably insist on moving in with them.

Ghost’s owner T died in 2008. Landlady no longer lived here full-time; she tried to move Ghost into her house but he was a desert dog and kind of a drama queen about big changes, so he and the other dogs ended up living with me. One by one the older dogs were either placed in other homes or died off until it was just Ghost and Little Bear. LB is my dog, I’m the only human he’s ever had, but Ghost never was my dog – a fact of which he occasionally thought it necessary to remind me. It’s not that he doesn’t like me, he likes me fine. He just likes Landlady and (especially) S&L more.

Lately, the Great Day has grown close and Ghost seemed to know it. Lately he’s been more and more excited about visiting S&L at the beginning of a weekend and less and less happy about coming home at the close. Last night S&L arrived with the very last of their stuff and no plan to move back to the big city: Although S still has a part-time business in the city, from now on this will be their principal home.

I drove up their long, winding drive, and when Ghost saw their car and truck in the lot he wanted out of the Jeep NOW. Unlike previous weekends, they will not be throwing him out mid-day on Sunday.

It remains to be seen – there has been speculation – whether Ghost will start coming over here for visits but officially from now on he no longer lives in the Secret Lair. Now it’s just LB and me, and only one question remains…

That’s Ghost’s bed, and Ghost’s alone. Years ago when it was new, Little Bear got punished for trying to curl up in it. He got his nose out of joint about it, so I gave him an old flat pillow which he accepted as his bed. Today I (thankfully) retired the pillow, but I literally could not drag LB onto the remaining bed. He’s a good boy.

Wonder how long it’ll take him to get the message? He’s no longer the junior dog, now he’s the dog.