... Fruit Flies Like a Banana *

At the certainty of sounding cliche, it sure doesn't seem like all that crashing around to sell the house in The Old Country was a whole year ago. We had to drop the price twice with the additional insult of ponying up part of the closing costs for the feckless gits who bought the place.  I'm sure they they think of us as slobs, what with Dearest apparently thinking that the rollout dumpster was a Tardis, and my poor timing which resulted in the place not being vacuumed before we rolled out.  (For the record, Dearest had a second dumpster brought in and I sent over a professional carpet cleaner.  Neither of which lessens my embarrassment at the memory of the whole debacle.)

The first trek north was more than a bit surreal, partly thanks to sleep deprivation--and probably just the sheer life-altering change being finally realised.  But after it, I figure I can never count on another bit of luck in my life, what with the left-behind wallet being picked up by a Chicago gas station clerk, plus rain when and where snow and ice should have been a statistical certainty.  The second run for the balance of our stuff (this time in a single vehicle and no critters to worry about) was still a warm summer breeze by comparison.

No question it's worth it.  Even living in one of the "have-not" provinces.  Even having--at the last minute--to switch to contractor status (and thus lose perks like paid time off).  Even living outside the city (with the technical and interpersonal network setbacks that entails).  Even with the disadvantage of being mostly uni-lingual and facing a steep learning curve.  I see the maple leaf and bars flying by our driveway, and think that the battle against rolling back society to the 1880s (on so many levels) is more winnable here.  Mind you, Harper and his goons will put up one hell of a fight--as will the cronyism at the provincial and local levels.

But it'll be over three years until I can vote for or against anyone, so in the meantime, it's best to go heads-down learning French, building up the business, trying to make the local economy a stronger place, and studying for the citizenship exam that I am sooooooo taking the minute I'm eligible.

* Groucho Marx:  "Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana."

Halcyon evening

We busted our butts, and I think it was worth it. The real estate agent came by tonight to take photos/footage. (I wasn't home at the time, or I would have snarked, "The house is ready for its close-up, Mr. DeMille!" which would probably have earned me a scowl or blank looks--either one deserved.) Dearest, however, reports that she was pleased, judging by her "You guys have been busy!" comment.

Such ridiculousness, this charade of living in a dollhouse while it's liable to be looked at. But if that's what tips the balance in a buyer's mind, I refuse to feel like a fraud: "Never tell the truth to anyone not worthy of it." Or something like that.

Still so much to do...but right now I'm savoring the milestone...and the illusion that it's all a downhill coast from here--with sun and flower-scented breeze at our backs, no less. Now to bed, and, hopefully a smidgeon of decompression/healing.

Forward momentum

There's just something inexpressibly sad about packing up books. It's like telling friends that you don't have time for them right now, and honestly don't know when you'll be able to get together with them. Packing the dollhouse I've had since grade school is a bit rough too--that's become a de facto symbol of having roots in the ground.

I'm not sniveling, mind you. Not in the wake of taping up U-Haul boxes a week ago with nothing less than fierce joy. The pace of this week will be nothing short of grueling--with Dearest bearing more of the brunt of it than I. Then again, pound-for-pound, working for me and mine always spices the exhaustion with exhilaration.

Another inch

Dearest & I signed the contract today to put the house up for sale next month.

Now, were I George W. Bush, I'd put on a flight suit and slap myself on the back under a big ol' "Mission Accomplished" banner. But I'm too busy semi-freaking that we have but couple weeks for a freakin' lot of work to make the place "HGTV-ready" (to quote the broker's semi-sarcastic term.) Once upon a couple incarnations ago, I would have scoffed at pretending that we don't actually live there. But that was before I learned that no one deserves the truth they're not willing to see/hear.

Now, if the Legislative and Executive branches could be considerate enough to not trash the economy and the value of the American dollar in the meantime, I'd be most obliged. I feel like I've already tapped out my lifetime ration of luck with this whole venture, and that the Gods will not be appeased by my offering of sweat and fret.

Another baby step

The first real estate agent (of two scheduled thus far) is coming to look at the place tonight. Dearest has been doing the heavy lifting--literally and figuratively--on schlepping the extraneous stuff off to storage-exile. So much clutter still left to go--what happens when two pack-rats with weird hobbies park under the same roof for nearly a decade.

But incremental progress is progress nevertheless. Being the ex-Physics major, I can smirk all nerdy-hipster smugly and remind myself that velocity, not acceleration, is a part of the formula.

Two down, three to go

The boss-man doesn't have a problem w/having another remote office, although I know from past experience, I've edged myself closer to the chopping block for the next downturn. Was planning to do some serious professional networking once we've landed at our next address anyway.

Had brekky with Dad this morning & gave him the heads-up with the proviso that Mom is not to know until a little of the dust in her life has settled. P.'s not due into town until next month...if then. Best Friend will be the hardest...if I don't start losing it during that, it'll be a miracle.

I feel like I'm hectoring Dearest on the home renovation schedule--I hate that feeling. Couldn't shake that feeling all through crashing out the moving "inventory" for landing, and should have known better than to think I could kiss it goodbye until moving time. Gack.

Next up: Carpet/Linoleum shopping. An ideal couple-building exercise, to be sure... [eyeroll]

Done...and done

Belated post by nearly a month...but on a blog that's been shamefully neglected for closing on a year and a half, it's proverbial coals to Newcastle.

Long-excuse-short, The Gods do, sometimes, look out for fools. This one in particular. Again. Go figure. We're officially permanent residents, with paperwork and everything. Although we need to...you know...actually relocate now. (In all honesty, though, I can't stop myself from envisioning the scenario where we apply for the PR card and then learn that the nice CIC/border agent--with the gorgeously Gallic nose--missed something during the "landing" process, and, well, too bad for us: Do not pass "Go"; do not collect $200.)

It's still largely a secret. Oddly, my (non-Dearest) best friends don't know. Dropping the bomb on Mom has been postponed b/c she's already lost one of her "babies." I don't think Dad--to whom I had to go for certain familial details for the application really takes it seriously. But we've been a full time zone apart since 1979, so what's another time zone, really?

The Office Illuminati d--n sho' don't know. Normally, I'd let the chips fall where they may--"Short-timer's Syndrome" is already setting in. But information is power. And not much insight has been coming my way lately, so I indulge a certain semi-spiteful payback in kind. It won't last much longer, though: It's just not sustainable.

In the meantime, I'm trying to cultivate an ethic of trying to accomplish one thing toward the goal of moving per day. That's not going so well, but the dust is already settling re: recent "extracurriculars," both planned and not. With each little inch forward, though, I can feel the sense of adventure rising, and that's a feeling I wouldn't mind developing an addiction to.

Documents in Montreal

FedEx came through, and the package representing much collective effort (on my part and Dearest's) was delivered--so far as I know--without incident. I'm annoyed with the paralegal for not replying to Tuesday night's email asking him to skim the list of enclosed documents had any red flags. Will nag tonight. On to finding something else to fret about, be it a screw-up on my/our part or a particularly crabby CIC agent reviewing our app. & documentation or whatever...

Second milestone (hopefully) reached

Two pounds of paper in a FedEx envelope, sixty-four bucks on my credit card, and a guilty twinge of my conscience over the carbon footprint of overnighting something to Montreal, all before my first cup of coffee. Hopefully, that's all that's needed to convince the CIC folks that they should let us in as productive members of Canadian society.

No red carpet required--nay, nary even a butler to open the door while the valet parks the car. Just pretty-please-with-organic-fair-trade-chocolate-sauce-on-top no more having to take off in the middle of the day to stand in front of desks or counters. No more freakout moments of "Oh, $#!+--we were supposed to have that notarized!" No more digging through boxes to find documents that have no relevance to our day-to-day existence. No more being told that we'll have to pay handsome fees for 6-8 week waits. And for love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, no more gut-dropping moments when we realize that some faceless bureaucracy has dropped the ball.

But most importantly, I just hope that we have, in fact, dotted all "i"s and crossed all "t"s. After the package--His Noodliness willing--lands on the paralegal's desk tomorrow morning, the second round of waiting begins. I'm not particularly good at waiting, but given the choice between waiting and scrambling...yeah.

D-minus way-too-friggin'-little

The second to last piece dropped into our laps last night, largely thanks to Dearest's persistence, and the last piece was handed to me early this evening. All should--Flying Spaghetti Monster willing--be safely stashed in the fire safe now. Weather permitting, I should be able to FedEx the whole lot to the paralegal no later than Monday.

I won't moon Fate by considering this a done deal: There could be any number of hurdles, delays and other bureaucratic nightmares in store--in fact, I'll be shocked if there are not. But I'm celebrating this milestone nevertheless...and toasting from my usual half-empty cup, hoping that I/we haven't overlooked something. I just wish that I could share the Snoopy-dance with a few more folks.

My most immediate boss took the news pretty well, all in all, and was actively looking to find ways to keep me working for the firm even after the (still hypothetical) move goes down many months hence. Which was quite touching. Still is, actually.

D minus 70

Finally was able to drop the bomb on the boss as discreetly as possible. It seemed to go well enough, particularly as I held out the possibility of either working as a contractor or with folks already up there. The funny part is that he asked me to write the first draft of my own job documentation letter for the immigration service. Tonight's gonna be full, with the workout and all.

D minus 88

My second-to-last document came in today. I'm holding off asking for a letter of reference (more like a description of what I do, but oh, well...) for a bit longer, for reasons that should be obvious. Dearest's last school is driving me up a wall--I'm almost ready to grab the wheel on this bus and make life miserable for the superior of the woman who's supposed to be (but patently isn't) figuring out why there's no record of graduation on file.

Grrrrrrr....and I thought I loathed the gatekeepers at my last mega-corporation job... Then again, it's been about a decade since the last time I had to push the "Screaming Unreasonable Bitch" button, so maybe I'm due.

This had better be worth the annoyance and expense. But, on the positive side as of next Monday, it will be illegal to use a cellphone (the usual way) while driving in the province of Ontario. Something that should be a no-brainer, but you could line up American idiots from here to the moon who will scream that insisting that they stop endangering other people's lives is a violation of free speech. Actually, I rather like the prospect of lining them up to the moon, because that means that most of them will have to be in space, which will definitely keep them off the roads...and hopefully chlorinate the gene pool in the process.

So maybe the annoyance isn't quite so annoying nor the expense quite so dear...assuming that the immigration process goes reasonably smoothly, of course.

D minus 130

Huzzah, three more documents rolled in today. That leaves four apiece for Dearest and me. And the passport photos. But those are an instant gratification kind of thing, so I'm not really counting them.

D minus 131

Frabjous day, three sets of school transcripts arrived in today's mail, leaving only one of those in the "pending" state. Not that I'm feeling complacent--just a bit of gratification.

I couldn't help but notice, though, that the attorney's flunkie wouldn't give me a straight answer to my timeline question. Even more frustrating, the Canadian Immigration website won't release processing time estimates, purportedly because they don't have enough data after jacking around the process to jiggle the queue. (Ummm...I'm expected to do it, and with far more unknowns, folks!)

But even another baby step forward is encouraging at this point. I'm just hoping we make it out before the crazee gets too thick.

D minus 132

Yay, something to fret about! Dearest is missing one employment letter of reference and a diploma. So not quite everything is in flight, even after yesterday's jaunt to the post office for certified letter and money order. Oh yeah, and we still need the passport photos. So that's something else to take my mind off the exercise of wondering whether letters/checks were lost in the mail or are being ignored until the last minute by a bureaucrat (public or private).

You've no idea how badly the geek in me wants to plug all this into project-/bug-tracking software like Mantis...

D minus 134

Well, it seems my reputation for being the ever-so-slightly more organized one. Dearest emerged from the dusty-box spelunking adventure with the high school diploma and college degree; I only found the former. So it will set me back forty clams and 6 - 8 weeks to get a copy of my Bachelor's degree. Still more running around in the morning on behalf of other documentation that will cost only $20...but requires the nuisance of a money order.

Fortunately--in a silver lining sort of way--I already have to stop at the Post Office to send a registered letter to the afore-mentioned previous employer who, I suspect is the proverbial dry husk of its former self. The other real prize of my foraging among old papers and other memorabilia is more documentation for my time with that employer--things like performance reviews, recognitions, etc.--in the event that my gut feeling is correct and they will ignore all requests for documentation.

Hopefully, though, tomorrow will see the last of the requests going out the door. Between the processing fees Canadian Immigration, the extra we're paying the lawyer to help us dot "i"s and cross "t"s and the (partially self-inflicted) nickel-and-dime "incidentals," Permanent Residency is not a trivial expense. Canada had better be the Promised Land, I tell ya... ;-)

After tomorrow comes the hard part--a.k.a. the waiting. Actually, no--scratch that. We still need to have a handful of passport-style photos taken. Maybe I'll procrastinate on that so that it doesn't feel quite as though waiting is the only option. ;-) ;-)

D minus 137

Kind of mind-blowing, really, how much of the day just a few letters/forms can chew up. I'm sending out requests for school transcripts and getting the info. for Plan B, if things like degrees/diplomas/etc. can't be found in the boxes in the garage.

If I gave bureaucracies any credit for human introspection, I'd suspect that the paper-gathering required for this move is not only an attempt to weed out those lacking will, but also to force people to think about the past from which they are--geographically--distancing themselves. There's a bit of that, but it's the proverbial two-edged sword. Writing to my high school to request transcripts brings back fond memories of the playground it truly was (after the prison that was junior high), but also makes me feel chagrined at the disparity between the then-certainty that I would do something enviably remarkable, and the reality that is the latter-day workaday me.

But, don't they always say at commencement that every end is a new beginning? I can sip a of rejuvenative hope and perhaps even courage from that bowl.

And with that, it is time to send several pieces of paper through the printer and out the door...

D minus 139

Eek! In the stressing over the extraneous personal check, I totally missed the fact that the visa applications were actually delivered yesterday. That would have been D minus 140 for producing the rest of the documentation. Nothing like an extra shot of adrenaline to go with the coffee-spiked milk I just poured...

Am officially taking Friday off to make all the calls that would be impolitic to do at work, even over lunch locked in the coat room with my cellphone. Still wrestling with the issue of whether or not to trust my current employer to be adult and professional about this, though. Gotta make the mind up soon...

This is your brain on a caffeine deficit...

As part of the Canadian visa process, Dearest and I have to have documentation from the FBI that shows that neither has a criminal record. We bundled up our fingerprint forms and credit card authorizations and such up into separate envelopes last night, which was all well and good.

But when I was at the FedEx office this morning, I completely spaced the fact that the credit card authorizations were in the packets, had a minor panic, scribbled out a check, and tossed it into the packet. Now I'm fretting-fretting-fretting-fretting-fretting that the folks at the FBI will take one look at the check (which is not a valid form of payment) and use it as an excuse to can our apps without even opening them.

Frack, frack, frack, frack, freakity-fricking-frack.

Don't it always seem to go...

Just had an email from the immigration attorney's paralegal to the effect that the Permanent Residency applications for Dearest and me have been formally submitted. So the bacon's in the pan, and the scramble to muscle or scrounge supporting documentation resumes in earnest. We're at D-minus-140.

Knowing that the arrow has been loosed has me fighting off a little freakitude, which isn't surprising for someone whose brain waits for the sound of one of life's doors swinging closing behind her to turn around to see what's being lost. Whether what's being lost is actually of consequence is itself inconsequential, but that's not the point. There are any number of people I will miss, and some are guaranteed to drop off my radar purely from inertia as life moves ahead.

Yet one look at the headlines--liberal, conservative, or non-partisan--is enough to tell me that we're doing the right thing. Pathetic that I have to move to another country to find the values that I was raised to believe were the hallmark of democracy. More pathetic still that the target country is, nominally, a monarchy. I read The Toronto Star (week)daily, so I like to think I have some idea of what we're getting into, politically and otherwise. No paradise, certainly, and more certainly not lily-white. But nevertheless politically saner and more fiscally sound than what's below their southern border. And if Putin keeps that crypto-right-winger Harper busy playing Tom Clancy cat-and-mouse games in the arctic, at least that's fewer CPU cycles he has for trying to re-create the rest of Canada in Alberta's image.

But, at any rate, I can officially say it's Game On, after years of ranting and desultorily collecting paperwork. [Deep breath.]