Canadian passport eh!
Bdot is finally back from B.C. and should be home for awhile now. I think she is still on B.C. time and not completely over the jet lag and the long two weeks away. It certainly feels like the wedding afterglow is over. Hopefully this week will be better. Once again we are not off to a great start this week.
Well I gain another year in a week today (the 26th) and my Mother’s birthday was the 14th so we had a little get together on Saturday at my sister’s. I got up early (well early for me on a Saturday) to try and renew my passport. I’m hoping to join my BiL to see a Bills game on December 9th. Fortunately, the government has made renewing a passport somewhat easier by removing the need for a guarantor. So I got my photo done at Walmart, which was pretty quick and painless then off to Brampton I went. I don’t go to Brampton very often any more, maybe once every six months. I always notice how exponentially busier Brampton is. The Passport Office was no different. When I got there the waiting line was snaked to the door. I didn’t want to come back so I waited. There were people everywhere, sitting, standing, waiting… Still the line moved pretty quickly and the process was efficient considering the volume. There were three info clerks and thirteen processing clerks. Once I got a number (maybe 20m) I waited another (35-40m) then D649 was called. I filled out my form ahead of time so everything went smoothly. The friendly clerk said I shouldn’t have a problem getting the passport in time for the game. Huzzah!
After getting home it was a quick turn around to get back in the car and head north to Barrie. We made a brief stop to browse Chapters then slid over to MEC to pick up lights for the dogs. It is dark now by 5:30pm…. it is good to know where your dog is when it is off leash… There was a nasty looking accident as a big rig turned over onto its side on the 400 ramp north of Barrie so we had to take a more adventurous route to get to Horseshoe Valley road. (Remarkably when we came home around 11PM… the ramp was still closed and emergency staff were still there….!) At JP’s football was on of course, especially since Notre Dame was playing. Notre Dame shut out their opponent and appeared to coast to an easy win. Dinner was delicious: Lasagna, pork tenderloin and pasta. I’m surprised everyone didn’t fall into a food coma after dinner. Phew…stuffed.
We decided to play a new game we recently bought and had not tried called Funglish. It was strange at first… it reminded me of pyramid where you are giving word clues in order to guess a word. What makes Funglish challenging (or impossible at times) is you are limited to the words provided by the game. There are about 60 words. After a few rounds you understand how the game works and it becomes more of a searching for word x game than anything else. It was certainly a lot of fun and it is interesting how adding or subtracting a word influences the answers given by the guessers. I’d play it again. After all that exhausting gameplay we had dessert which was a delicious Limoncello cake from Cappuccino Bakery. It was amazing. After our second helpings of cake (cough) we opened presents. I’ve joined lululemon nation with my first lulu, a very cozy purple hoodie. I can see why lulu has become a license to print money, their stuff seems very well made. I also got a gift certificate to Golf Town which I will eventually put toward a new set of clubs. My sister gave me Rabies (wow that sounds strange) as a gag gift. Sadly I’ve given it to the dog. So now our dog has rabies. Poor Tanga. Phew… I’m looking for a bigger tea mug for work and like magic my mother gave me one for my birthday. Unfortunately when I was removing the sticker off the bottom, it slipped and I killed it. Sigh. I was looking forward to using it, how disappointing. A big thank you to all the gift givers.
Sunday was slow moving. Eventually we starting doing some house cleaning. It never ends and never feels completely done. There is always another task that requires attention… I have no idea how people with kids keep their homes clean. Perhaps they simply don’t. By late afternoon we were itching to get outside so we took the dog to Palgrave Forest for a walk. It was a nice walk, someone had decorated a pine tree (sorry no photo) with Christmas bulbs which was really cute. After the Kraken’s energy was diminished we headed over to Canadian Tire for some Christmas lights. Yes I think we are one of the few homes still using the old inefficient, first generation, energy sucking outdoor Christmas lights. We figure it would a few hundred dollars to change over to LED… it is always something we’ll do next year. It is curious how the light options change every year. I recall the colour fading lights from last year seemed to be absent this year. Instead there are strange new shaped lights and lights with odd patterns on them… mostly cosmetic differences… no new light technology per se. Oh well. If Bdot and I can ever agree on lights maybe we’ll take the leap in technology. I think we’ll have to soon anyway, every year the gen one light bulb section is getting smaller and smaller… The evening was quiet with some Walking Dead. I think Rick has lost his marbles…
I think it is crazy how many people already have their Christmas lights up. It isn’t even December yet?!! Sure the spirit is great but wow… too early humans.