Anjin anjin senang (happy dogs)

Some of us Americans live in a compound within a compound.. we call it the secret squirrel compound because it's easy not to know that there are about a dozen more houses behind the big green gate.  Unless you notice the US Embassy guards hanging around. 

We live in a place where the kids are in and out of each other's houses every afternoon.. having lunch at one and snack at another.  We think they are lucky to having something that almost looks like our childhoods of long ago when we ran the neighborhod and had to be home when the streetlights went on... except that they have a troup of pembantus (nannies) following them around moderating fights and making sure no one gets stuck in the trampoline. 

It also means that it's quiet. 

No sirens, no impromptu strangers ringing the bell, very few big noises, and (at the moment) very few other dogs. Theda is in heaven.  She's glad to have weathered the trip across the oceans to be here where it doesn't get cold, where Pak Supono asks to walk her and Olivia a couple times a day, and where she can sleep on the cool stone floor.  For fun, she and Olivia will--once in a while--remind the gardeners that they are getting too close to the house (through the glass and bars on the windows).

There were a couple of dog things that got thrown in the UHaul rental truck one of those last days of the move including old stinky dog beds and the collapsed (but still functional) tetherball.  Those were some of the first things to get ordered and shipped using the fabulous FPO.  [Ladies that lunch and get their butts kicked playing squash have to feel productive somehow!]  <big dog sigh> It feels like home.

Now Theda and Olivia are just hoping that I don't actually notice the mobile dog-washing truck that comes to the compound every weekend to wash a neighbor dog. 

Yes, things are back to normal.  Thank dog.