Going Domestic

everything is bigger in calgary

We received our 2008 Property Tax Assessment for the house we own in the mail yesterday. Oh, City of Calgary - you're such a bunch of dreamers!

round the world in 365 days

A year ago, we were living in St. John's, Newfoundland and feeling kind of smug that we got to celebrate the arrival of 2007 before anyone else in Canada. Now? Well, let's say that one of the benefits of living so close to the international date line is that we're already more than halfway through the first day of 2008.

It's also the warmest January 1 I've ever experienced. Mid-twenties here in BKK.

I can't remember if Chris first mentioned it while we were still in London for our winter holiday or whether it was two nights ago when we'd just arrived home, but 2007 was our Most-Travelled Year. I think that I may have taken as many flights when I was a grad student, traveling between Vancouver and Edmonton all the time, but that ninety-minute flight is nothing compared to what we've experienced this year. The flight from Bangkok to Heathrow was about twelve hours, similar to all of our flights between St. John's and Edmonton or Calgary, but those hours in the air pale in comparison to the roughly 24 hour jaunt between Alberta and Bangkok. Which I've done three times this year. I really should be collecting some sort of frequent-flyer points. Thank goodness Chris does, as I kind of like waiting for my flight in airport lounges instead of at the gate.

For 2008, I want to keep my feet on the ground a little more.

I didn't quite meet my goal of finishing Madeline's 2006 scrapbook by the end of 2007, but I'm awfully close. I have four more photos to paste in, and then some small journalling. Scrapbooking and champagne don't mix very well.  Instead, I finished knitting the second fingerless glove of a pair.

Last night, before watching the second installment of LOTR, we caught a re-run of Martha (who knew that she had an avid audience in Thailand?), and she was making German Apple Pancakes. So, I did, too, for our first lunch of the new year.   

now you see it, now you don't

I want to believe in Ogopogo, the Loch Ness monster, and that aliens have visited earth. Perhaps it just follows, then, that I believe that the mystical forces behind the Bermuda Triangle have made our new apartment the new focus of their attention. Things have started to go missing around here, quite inexplicably. First I noticed that one of my favourite sandals was missing. I remember unpacking both of them when our shipment arrived, but there has been only one of them at the bottom of my closet for at least the last couple of months. Next, Chris's package of Aeroplan upgrade cerificates and Air Canada lounge passes vanished and it's doing an excellent job of evading detection. Third, one of Madeline's favourite outfits - her "crabby" shirt and the pair of beach pants she always wore with the shirt - has gone AWOL. I've looked every plausible place for them, and the best explanation I can come up with is that birds took them off of the clothesline. Or the Bermuda Triangle thing, of course.

If new blog posts stop appearing in the near future, well, maybe I will have vanished too ...

technical difficulties

Today things aren't going so well. I'd actually written up a new post earlier this afternoon about our Saturday adventure at Chatuchak, but encountered a Typepad error during posting, so all of my writing vanished into oblivion.

Then, things were looking up because I started organizing the photos for my scrapbooking backlog. I haven't printed a single photo since last August. And by "last August", I mean the one in 2006. One hundred odd-photos later, I realize that I forgot to buy a set of refills for the Kolo album that is serving as the scrapbook before I left Canada. Oops!

Hopefully the banana bread that Madeline and I baked this afternoon turns out okay ...

Ode to a 1993 Ford Tempo GL

O Tempo

Fourteen years is a good age for a car

Especially for one manufactured on this continent, methinks

100,600 kilometers

Two provinces and many points in between

You seem angry to have been left behind

For Newfoundland

Mocking me, falling apart since my return

New battery, new brake disk, new flasher

New belt of sepentine variety

And now, a new left turn signal bulb

Are you finished exacting your revenge?

Twenty-one days

and we will go our separate ways

What else will break on you?

monstropolis rambings ...

So, about eleven days after arriving back in this monstropolis of a city, I decide to call my physician's office because I am overdue for my annual check-up and am concerned about skin cancer. I remember that it's often hard to get appointments for less than ten days to two weeks in advance, so I request an appointment for some time in May. And there's a waiting list. Groan. Doomed, I tell you. My check-up is only one of the many things that I need to do before the end of May, when we're supposed to be moving again.

What is good about this city other than it's time zone making staying in touch with friends and family easier? The traffic is insane. Chris asked me to drive him to the airport next weekend, and I'm already freaked out.  I have successfully avoided driving on those roads that lead to the airport. They were scary enough when there were fewer people on them!

I can't stand how I am scared to spend any money here. Even if it's groceries, or expenses that Chris and I have previously agreed upon. It seems that we never have enough to make life in Calgary feasible.

I've been passing the time by cleaning out closets. It's amazing that how going without things for a year makes you realize how little you need them.

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night

We're packing up the computer tonight! Will chat more in April! From Calgary! In my house!

most auspicious day

Never have I ever been accused of being a convicted criminal on my birthday before, until today. I was at the Moter Vehicle building in Mount Pearl to get a new driver's license, and the clerk working at the service counter was very skeptical of my Alberta license. She questioned me on all of the codes and endorsements (I can only drive a motor vehicle with the usual number of axels, must wear corrective lenses, etc.), but was really stumped on a few of them, and annoyed that I didn't have the answer key for the codes. I was a little flabbergasted when she asked me, "Why did you take a driver's education class? Do you have a conviction that you're not telling me???" I responded that I took a class to learn to operate a vehicle and learn the rules of the road, which I thought was normal,  but the clerk seemed really suspicious. Maybe it's common here not to take driver education unless ordered to by a court; I really don't know ... In the end, I must have been deemed trustworthy enough as the clerk took my Alberta license away, asked for $100, and gave me a new piece of plastic so can legally drive around Newfoundland for another five years. We're probably only going to be here for another 3-4 weeks :)

I was really hoping that my Knitpicks Options that I ordered on February 11 would be waiting in my mailbox when we got home from the Motor Vehicles office, but they're still MIA. Instead, the (t)rusty mailbox held for me a copy of The Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques, Just Hats, and a few cool things from Etsy, like a set of lovely stitch markers and my very own Black Apple print. So, still some awesome mail, and I only bought one of those items myself :)

Amazing Adventures of Philatelist Man

  Cool Stamps! 
  Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

Mail delivery has been a little perplexing for our family lately, but today was kind of fun because this package from an Etsy seller was in the trusty (rusty, actually) mailbox today! Aren't those stamps nifty?

Back to our mail issues ... We have had our mail forwarded from our address in Calgary to our address here in St. John's since we moved here nearly thirteen months ago. I had to renew the forwarding service back in December when we found out that we'd be here longer, and the currently service expires on Feb 28th. The problem is that Canada Post started to deliver our mail to our home in Calgary as of last week, according to our home-sitter. What's the deal? I guess I'll be making some calls today.  This isn't the first time I've written a grumpy blog entry about Canada Post, either ...

amendment

I guess that I was a little harsh in my condemnation of the Ford Explorer. It does have two redeeming features: built-in satellite radio (hello, BBC!) and the seat-position memory (handy because there is a thirteen-inch height differential between Chris and I).