In today's border-crossing adventures I was unlucky to go through the line of a young borderVogon who didn't need coffee, and so was alert enough to notice my expired work permit. I was sent over to the new customs and immigration office they've been building for as long as I've been going across there and was told to go inside and talk to them about it. There were about 5 people sitting in uncomfortable chairs who looked like they had spent the night there, and nobody standing in either the customs or immigration lines. I was confused, and so I just walked up to the counter from the "exit only" side of the line and presented my papers. The questions were these:
"Who are you working for in Canada?"
"What do you do?"
"What KIND of research?"
"What disease are you studying?"
"Is that the one that's killing all the oaks on Vancouver Island?"
I gave them the official story from Ottawa that the disease was not, in fact, present in Canada at this time. Even though it is. But it's not killing all the oaks on Vancouver Island or I'd know about it.
So they looked up the status of my visa, and found that it was all in order and took my expired one, telling me that it was "property of Canada", and that I should tell them at the border next time I cross that my new one is coming in the mail. I did that today and they sent me inside.
But the really good news is that when I got home tonight, it was in my mailbox. According to the website it hasn't been processed yet. In any case, my travelling will be a lot easier from now on.

Thetis Lake

I meant to post about this earlier, but I've gotten behind.

For Canadian Thanksgiving, which was last monday, I went hiking at Thetis Lake park with my friends and their dogs. Everyone and their dog was there, including a very large man with a very small chihuahua. The little dog was confused when his owner got too far ahead of him, but then he spotted him and took off. It was a good thing that Sue's dogs are more friendly than Carl was. Still, I miss that old guy.

It must have taken us about 2 hrs to go all the way around both upper and lower lakes and the weather was perfect. I think we'll probably do that again at some of the other parks. The dogs were completely worn out, which was a good thing.

Afterwards we went over to their house and had chicken and various vegetable dishes, and some wine that Andy's dad had made. He said that when he was a kid they stomped the grapes, but now his dad uses technology of some type to crush them. They had their real Thanksgiving on Sunday with Andy's family and there was a hullaballoo as usually happens when his family gets together. They're the kind of Italians who create lots of drama and sometimes dishes get thrown.

The Aud Bod

That kid is getting so big! And wily. Char told me how she was resting up out in the living room, and Audrey was in the kitchen, and it got quiet for a while so she went to investigate, and found that the meinkey had pushed her little plastic table over to the counter, climbed up, reached up to the top shelf of the cupboard (I don't know how she did that and I don't want to know), got the sugar sprinkles, climbed down, moved the table away and put a chair there, laid out a couple of lines of sugar, and was about to go for it when Char busted her. Can you imagine?

She's into expanding her range and the table and chair do very nicely because they're lightweight and she can even stack them up, for added danger. She was wanting to sit on the stove when we were cooking the other night, but that got too dangerous too fast, and she was pretty pissed when we made her get down. She threw a fit, but then Char put on Shrek 2 in French, and she was absorbed.

Here is an article in The Stranger about Patrick Wolf, who we saw Saturday night:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=413556
A fun time was had by all.

I left Seattle at the buttcrack of 630. It wasn't even light out. But Eric had just dropped Audrey off so I got to see her for a few minutes. And there is a surprising amount of traffic on I-5 at that ungodly hour, but there wasn't a lineup at the border. The bordervogon hadn't had his coffee yet so he just glanced at my passport without looking at my expired visa and waved me through. I was even able to get the 9:00 ferry, so I got to work at a more reasonable time.

The USS Abraham Lincoln is in town and leaving tomorrow, but downtown was very busy tonight and there was a line out the door at the Irish Times pub. Lots of sailors walking around and also large groups of eligible females not far behind. According to my friends, the Canadian navy doesn't have any aircraft carriers, and certainly nothing as big as this one. I'm going to see if I can catch a glimpse of it tomorrow. This picture was taken in San Diego. Jason (my landlord) is stationed there with the Canadian Navy. I have no idea what it is that they do, and he has never volunteered any info. I think they mostly travel around to nice places and sip umbrella drinks.

Tonight a bunch of us from work and formerly from work went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant where they cook at the table. The last time I did that was when we went to Okinawa eons ago. It was fun. Faustin said he was getting in touch with his Japanese roots again (he's African) and ordered some sake. He said his karate instructor had once told him that he was more Japanese than a Japanese. I had a drink called "The Karate Kid" which had vodka, guava juice, and coconut milk. It would be very easy to drink too many of them. The chef cooked our meals on the big grill and flipped stuff on the plates, and did a juggling act with the salt and pepper shakers. Lots of people were there for their birthdays and periodically the waiters would go by beating a drum and singing "Happy Birthday" off key, and the Birthday Child would get to wear a samurai wig and a kimono and have their picture taken.

Earlier today at work I heard Roger exclaiming some profanity across the hall in the printer room. I think it was done for our benefit because then he came over and said that the budget for some acronym project is 5 million dollars for the next two years, and it involves several forest industry groups, and his group is also involved and gets a big piece of the pie. It's unclear what they actually do, though. I decided I'm in the wrong business.