Greener Pastures

Whoa Nelly.

Tardy Tart
Three weeks since my last post. There should be some kind of Hail Mary for negligent and reticent bloggers. Forgive me Blogspot, for I have sinned. It has been twenty days since my last blog. That's fine, my child. Say ten Hail Blogspot, full of Spaces and all will be well.


Summer is half over. And we have nothing to show for it save for a couple bright spots and two fun events. The bright spots are/were Holy Sun attending morning summer school this past month. It's being taught by an inspiring and amazingly fun Teacher Man dude. Case in point, said son actually looks forward to going each day. The other bright spot is our gorgeous new canopy bed suite. Photo, stage south. I'm a liking it. Alot. Bye bye 80s white melamine furniture. Hello new millennium.


The other pic is our rear window view. What you can't see through the forest of trees is that, to the right, there is a neighbor whose family room faces our bedroom. We don't yet have bedroom drapes or blinds. You should see the stealth, tactical moves I perform to get in and out of bed each morning and night, particularly upon remembering I ain't in the old gray house anymore.

Hair of the Dog
These same neighbors (immigrants as only transplants from California can be in these parts) have two beautiful yet annoyingly barky beagles. Their dogs are cute as can be, but trust me - multiple the whiny woo woo wooof woooof woof of a beagle ~ a sound that really can't be adequately replicated on a blog ~ times two, times 90 second durations at odd and inconvenient moments most days of the week, and trust me ~ you too would know with a certainly born of acute irritation that these dogs are getting really old really fast.

But not as old as the chihuahua two doors down. If those neighbors, a really nice couple actually, hadn't dropped by with a particularly lovely bottle of cabernet sauvignon as a proto-apologetic for quasi-ownership (they're rarely home) of a certain proto-canine, then I dunno. I really don't. I hate to think what might have happened to their tiny, pathetic excuse for a mutt. Let's just say it wouldn't be doing Taco Bell commercials anytime soon. It wouldn't be quiero'ing much except life perhaps. I may be speaking prematurely at any rate. I've been looking up cruel and unusual recipes on the Weber website, which can't be good.

I'm thinking I need to meet and befriend all these dogs, as we have Sarah, the 16 year old je ne ce quoi breed of doggie next door. We already love her. She takes up squatting rights in our front yard. We've already negotiated walking rights. Part-time walking of the neighbor's dog beats the high hell out of owning our own and it's way cheaper than FlexPetz. Thank God for the white living room carpet (ahemmmm.....what the heck were we thinkin'?!) - it will buy us a lot of time - hopefully two entire childhoods.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation
But I digress, which is blogspeak for I'm back blogging.

Anyhoo, our first of two fun outings was the auspicious occasion of the mid-July, Tragically Hip outdoor concert nearby, on what proved to be the hottest summer day thus far. It was a smoking 100 degrees (smoking by Seattle 2007 dismal summer weather standards) and we, along with 1,996 other ex-pat Canadians living in the area showed up with our blankets, picnic items and pent-up Hip lusts and fixations.

I can't believe in all my live long years, I had never been to a Hip concert. It was sad if bittersweet to be catching them on American soil. Bittersweet because it felt like we had teleported to Canada for a night, and sad because only a couple of thousand people showed up. One of....no make that Canada's the, all-time top bands and only a couple K riff raffers show up. Clearly a best-kept Canadian secret and little-known export. Although to be fair, I did hear Blow at High Dough piped in while grocery shopping at Slaveway last week. Case in point though, the very next night, the Hip were heading north to Vancouver of BC fame, to play to an audience of some 25,000 fans.

But it was still great if not the bestest, because we got to see Gord Downie in all his antic-filled glory cavorting across the stage and captivating all of us with his showmanship. I hoisted Holy Daughter up in the air and she waved her little Canada bear in the mosh pit - bless her heart for her tenacity because let me tell you, it was stink-y toil, grooving with the beer and sweat-marinated freaks. But Gord looked her way, smiled and waved and redemption was immediate for our concert pilgrimage.

So that was our one wee night-off from our July moving madness.

Beastly Blather
On a much sad note, I ended up having to cancel out of the SSBM first annual blogger getaway, held in Cannon Beach this year. I was looking forward to it more than any of the others ~ ie. Jeri, Tanya, Becca, Grace (of secret blog fame? - do tell, Grace!), and Christina, but alas, it was scheduled smack dab in the middle of our big move weekend wherein we had friends in from Vancouver to help load and haul. Moving places should go to the very top of the qualifier list for true friendship. I can't think of too many friends willing to help pack, move, schlep.

Anyways, I missed the getaway due to moving madness. Said madness has pretty much extended from early-July straight through to this past weekend, when we held our Schmidt Galore garage sale. Hardly anyone turned out, comparatively speaking to past garage sales we've had. But the kids had heaps of fun playing store. They fought over who was Manager, who was Stock Clerk, who got to sweep floors and the creme de la creme, who got to wear the money apron. We or should I say my son - who has clearly inherited the family sales gene - managed to peddle most of the big stuff and what little of value is left (a desk and a kid's toy bins rack) will get listed on Craigslist.

Cube Dudes & Boxes
Which leads me to the second fun event - the obligatory company picnic yesterday. It was held at a local farm that caters to large corporate events. Microsoft Saturday, Boeing Sunday. It was good in that I got to meet some of hubby's co-workers - not the ultra weird ones though. After two years of hearing stories - stories that make you go ewwwwwhhh!, suffice to say, my curiosity was on sabbatical at a cat killing farm. I was really hoping to meet this one, really eccentric...OK, eccentric doesn't cut it - psycho killer is a more apt description....dude of two cubicles-down the row fame. He makes the weirdos and wackos in Office Space look normal. And that's as diplomatic as I can word it.

But he was a no-show.

Other than that, our entire life this past month has been devoted to all things moving. No, we aren't even close to being settled, but thanks for asking. Our garage is packed with boxes, none of which are labelled and most of which are filled with 100% genuine and pure, authentic, unabashed crap. Hence the reason that they are out of sight and not wrecking my little feng shui fantasy of sparse furnishing and zero clutter. Things will come together once we get our proverbial shelving and storage schmidt together in various rooms throughout the house. Or feel audacious enough to ditch one box per week on garbage pick-up day over the course of the next year while our spouse isn't looking. Whichever comes first.

The good news through all this, however, is that we received word that our green card application is, once again, a go. Un.freaking.believable. Apparently the July application freeze by the feds turned into a fiasco (quelle supreeze), with untold numbers of pending lawsuits and the like. Again, duhhhh. So they decided to honour (honour as in honour among thieves) these pending July applications for a new August deadline. Hello light at the end of the tunnel.

So yet another $1,500 poorer and pages of documents lighter, we are now in the pending pile. Amongst other piles, I'm sure. There were fees for everything. Fees to grant us out-of-country travel permission, fees for me to get a work authorization this coming fall (happy happy joy joy), fees for fingerprinting, fees for seven million passport photos (by compare, methinks deranged astronaut chick looked far more civil and attractive in her police photo than the image I presented for posterity in my frightening passport photo posing. If we aren't granted green card status, it will all be on account of my picture, no doubt about it).

But Inshallah, or even if God doesn't will it, please someone else, do so!, it will all soon be done and Amens and Hallelujahs and God Bless Americas can finally be sung on this front. I'm already planning my Americanadian PermaRes Bash in anticipation of getting green cards in hand next year. You're all invited. Fingers crossed that it will be next year and not the year after or the one after that.

So that's my story, morning glory, and by golly, I'm stickin' to it. Like Venus to a flytrap. Or something like that.