Prepping for the Move – Part 2: The Saga of the Cat/The Saga of the Bench

THE SAGA OF THE CAT

For most of the time we were planning this move, we were expecting to move with two pets. Our cat, Smudge and our dog, Kola. The vast majority of our moving headaches centered around trying to get a 50 lb dog to Chile when all US-based airlines had stopped flying pets in cargo due to COVID (why???) while working for a NSF-supported organization made it mandatory to fly with a US airlines. Yikes! We had finally found a solution when, sadly, the issue went away. Our beloved Kola passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly about one month before we were to fly. Although the hectic-ness of the move managed to keep us distracted, we’re both still struggling with the loss.

So, we would only be flying with the cat, Smudge. Ironically, every time anyone asked about the cat, my answer was. “He’s no problem. Just shove him in a carrier under the seat and he’s good to go!” Yeah. Not quite.

Actually, the paperwork for the cat was remarkably easy. We had a brief 24-hour period of anxiety when we thought we might not get his health certificate in time. But, thanks to my amazing coworkers at Chuckanut Valley Vet, that went through quickly. Otherwise, no real problems with paperwork. No, the issue was getting permission to fly him from Santiago to La Serena in Chile. The company responsible for the domestic flight wouldn’t allow us to bring our cat on board because we were flying into the country on a different airlines than theirs – and they could see that flight on our reservation. They apparently have a strict policy about only using their airlines. It didn’t matter that the flight was on a different day after a night in a hotel or that they don’t fly from Seattle to Santiago.

The workaround for this ridiculous requirement? The original domestic flight was canceled and a different person from AURA booked a new domestic flight that didn’t link up to the international flight in their system. What makes this even more ridiculous is that the two companies are actually partners on the international flight that we took!

THE SAGA OF THE BENCH

The last issue was dealing with our belongings. No big problems with most of it, other than not being able to ship any food to Chile. (No triscuits??? No Grape Nuts???) Mostly it’s just a long waiting process.

The movers came and packed everything into boxes on Wednesday, January 19 and into the moving truck the following day. However, the soonest they could get space on a cargo ship was April 7. So after 3 weeks in transit to Chile and another couple of weeks to pass through customs and up to La Serena… we expect to see our possessions sometime in mid- to late-May. What fun!

However, the one item that we wanted to bring but couldn’t was THE BENCH.

Many years ago, Todd gave me a beautiful outdoor gliding bench as either an anniversary or birthday present. It’s a very nice bench, but honestly, my attachment to it probably stems more from the fact that it was an unrequested gift than for the actual bench itself. I think I can count the number of unprompted, unrequested gifts I’ve received from Todd on one finger!

When we moved to Bellingham and into an apartment, we didn’t have any place to put the bench. So, it remained in Portland with friends, with the understanding that we’d come collect it when we had a place for it. Once we knew when we were heading to Chile (and actually let everyone else know we were moving!), we starting trying to get back to Portland for it. However, time, weather and circumstances seemed to be working against us and we kept having to postpone our trip. We didn’t have trailer lights on our car, so we couldn’t rent a U-haul trailer. Washington and Oregon got 8-10 inches of snow dumped on them the weekend of our next attempt, etc. It started to feel like we weren’t supposed to get our bench! Finally, when we only had one more possible weekend to go before moving, we made it to Portland. The cost of the trip plus hotel plus U-haul truck were more than the original cost of the bench. But, hey! Deb wants her bench, she gets her bench, right?

Yep. Except. Nope.

We got the U-haul truck, loaded up the bench, caught up with our old Portland neighbors, then headed to our hotel to drop off the truck before going out to dinner. Ten minutes later, Todd was involved in a 3-car pile-up on Interstate 5N in Portland. Two idiots in the fast lane decided to veer across traffic to take an exit that they’d pretty much already passed. The driver in front of Todd slammed on her brakes to avoid hitting them. Everyone was in the process of speeding up from a standstill, so Todd wasn’t able to avoid hitting her and the person behind him wasn’t able to avoid hitting him. No one was badly hurt, but the cars and U-haul were. And, since we hadn’t chosen to purchase the U-haul accident policy, they refused to give us a replacement truck. So, the bench went right back to where it had been for the past 2+ years and we drove back to Bellingham poorer and empty-handed. Too bad, too, because it would be a great addition to the gazebo at the house we’re renting. More on that later.