Working hard........

Lest anyone think I am just lazing around, I want to let you know that I have brought the immigration forms with me and will be working on them as diligently as possible between swimming in the Bay of Fundy, sleeping in, gardening, and sitting on the deck watching the sun set while sipping from a glass of homemade red wine.

Post Script

This is St John, New Brunswick which sits on the wide and beautiful St John River which flows into Maine creating the St John River Valley in Aroostook County, Maine. It is 418 miles long. In fact it is the second longest river in the US. The longest river is my completely, bar none, favourite river, The Susquehana River which flows through Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York. If you are driving south on 95 toward Baltimore, you will cross the Susquehana when you go over the Millard E. Tydings Memorial Bridge. The Susquehana is 444 miles long. [Millard E. Tydings was a long time political figure in Maryland politics.]

Breezing through customs...........

Reporting in from St John, New Brunswick: Wiley Coyotte and I skimmed across the border. No car checks, no putting my name through the computer, no unkind custom's agent. The whole experience took less than 5 minutes. Woo! Hoo! Tomorrow the Princess of Acadia Ferry. Later..............

Wiley and I will remain steadfast.....

As I prepare to cross into Canada tomorrow with a fully loaded car, I am mindful of the challenges this will present.

Beautiful and peaceful Hampton

As noted in Monday's blog, the lighthouse is located behind our house. This is a view from the wharf.

Latitude and longitude of Hampton, Nova Scotia is as follows:

Constant Latitude is 44 degrees 54.1 minutes North;

Line of Longitude is 65 degrees 21.2 minutes West.

There are differences for latitude and longitude in terms of their north/south east/west directions. Sometimes latitude is east/west and longitude is north/south. As I become familiar with the differences I will include the why of it.

In the meantime, the suitcase is being packed, the car is being loaded, tyres [British spelling; a tip of my New York Yankee's hat to my love's heritage as well as how Canadians spell tire] have been checked for air, all fluids are at the correct levels, maps at the ready, passport, and I have loonies & toonies. Canadian one dollar coin, no bills, is called a loonie for the Loon on one side of the coin and the Queen on the other side. The 2 dollar coin is called a toonie. One would imagine 2 loons on the coin with the Queen on the other side. Wrong. The 2 dollar coin has a polar bear and her cub on one side and the Queen on the other side. The 2 dollar coin is called a toonie because it is a 2 dollar coin. Get it?

Beautiful Nova Scotia, New Scotland

Leaving Thursday for Hampton, Nova Scotia via the Princess of Acadia ferry from St John, New Brunswick. The journey takes 3 hours as the ferry essays through the Bay of Fundy docking at Digby, Nova Scotia. The trip from Digby to Hampton is a little over an hour by car. I will be in Hampton for a month with the object of my love.

The lighthouse was purchased by the Hampton community, population approximately 398, for one cent CDN. It is one of Hampton's tourist attractions. Behind the lighthouse is the beautiful Bay of Fundy. The lighthouse is around the corner from our house. Volunteer guides relay its history as well as showing them the spectacular view of the Bay which has the highest tides in the world. Our shift will be later this month.

Moving forward.

I am happy to report that in spite of the blistering heat today [99 degrees or 38 Celsius] I completed the 3 page Application for Permanent Resident Status!

In case you are interested here are the formulae for converting

1- Fahrenheit to Celsius: F=9/5C+32 and

2- Celsius to Fahrenheit: C=5/9(F-32)

As you can see I am still looking for the white out.

[I apologise for the poor quality of the photos on the right and left]

In an effort to remain serene I have been using Bach Remedies [photo on the left] to attain and then maintain my equilibrium as I attempt to fill out the form on the right. This form is labeled: How to Obtain A Police Certificate. United States of America. It is an FBI form. When I discovered that, I immediately squirted [10 squirts] Rescue Remedy sublingual. Rescue Remedy is a combination of clematis vitabla, impatiens glandulifera, & heliantheum nummlarim. Rescue Remedy is specifically made to help reduce stress. Unfortunately, the FBI site was not clear and I could not find the form I needed. So I will forward this task to my sister, Mary. The link by the way is FBI Indentification Record Request. Actually you need to google the link and in a flash you will be directed to the FBI website. And I am happy to report that I am still serene. The next form I will attempt is called: In-Canada Application for Permanent Resident Status, Schedule 1. Background/declaration. It is 3 pages long. Updates to follow.

The Fourth of July 2010

Today is the Fourth of July 2010.

Since 1775 until the present, American deaths have added up to 1,342,529+/-. [This includes 2976 deaths from the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States.] There are no exact numbers for the dead from all of the wars, insurgencies, conflicts in which America has engaged both internally and externally. And what have we learned along the way? It would appear nothing because we have lost 1,342,529 lives.

Martin Luther King said: "I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of.....war that the bright daybreak of peace.....can never become a reality."

Here are some of the forms needed for immigration. They range from requests for demographic information: name, age, address, and so forth to forms needing to be sent to police as well as the FBI. These police/FBI certificates reveal if there has been any criminal activities in any of the states and/or countries I have lived since I was 18. If I have lived in the US or out for 6 months or more then I am obligated to get a report. Here is a partial list: Rome, Italy, Frankfurt, Germany, Washington, DC, Mount Rainier, Maryland, Miami, Florida, & Maine: Poland, Lewiston and Portland. There is a requirement that I get a fingerprint card from the FBI which necessitates my going to a police station or finding a private fingerprinting business [who knew they existed? Isn't that illegal?] in order to provide the FBI with the prints. There are costs associated with procuring these reports. Another form is called the Medical Report: Section A - EDE which I must take with me when I go to the medical examination by a designated medical provider. Of course the medical providers are in Canada. A list is attached with the forms. There are fees attached to all of these forms. For example, the medical examination will cost $200. to $250. dollars Canadian. I have hired my sister, Mary at MLB@Trimtabllc.com to assist me in this endeavor. She does this sort of thing for a living through her business. She is patient. She is kind. She is polite. I can be refractory [stubborn, recalcitrant: I am trying to improve my vocabulary :)] and mulish.

Canadians offer a plethera of information and websites on immigration. This site: www.cic.gc.ca/english/index.asp is very comprehensive. All the information one could possible need is located here. And the forms, of which there are many, are also available at this site. I was advised to hire an attorney. In Canada attorneys are referred to as either solicitors or Queen's Counsel. Solicitors are not admitted to the bar and cannot plead cases in superior court. A Queen's Counsel is a barrister [a lawyer who can plead for the defense or the prosecution] who has been appointed to be counsel to the Queen or if there is a King, the barrister is referred to as the King's Counsel. In order to qualify to be a QC, a lawyer must be a solicitor for 10 years. The lawyer I hired is a QC. His retainer was $4800.00 Canadian or, at the current rate of exchange, $4560.00 American. For a fantastic read get Leon Uris' "QB VII" which refers to Queen's Bench, Courtroom Seven.

I planted this tulip tree [Liriondendron tulipifera], also known as tulip poplar, yellow poplar, canary whitewood, in my front yard sixteen years ago. It was a foot high. It is now over twenty feet high. It bloomed prodigiously for the first time this year. The flowers are so pale they sometimes are invisible. The sapling emigrated from western Massachusetts in a Folger's coffee can which was nestled in an old box stuffed with outdated sheets of the New York Times. No one took notice when we crossed the borders of New Hampshire and Maine. It was indistinguishable from other saplings: a long and thin wisp of a twig. Intentionally setting forth to transplant one's self might seem as simple as the journey made by this young tree. No guarantees.

According to the Advanced English Dictionary, an application on my iPhone, immigration, a noun, means in part: "....the body of immigrants arriving during a specified interval..."Immigrate, a verb, is defined as "...com[ing] into a new country and chang[ing] residency." I am in the process then of migrating, transmigrating, arriving, getting to Canada. William Least Heat Moon writes in his book, Blue Highways: "Maybe the road could provide therapy through observation of the ordinary and obvious, a means whereby the outer eye opens an inner one." The journey is engaged and I am traveling along very worn paths.

First Blog Post 25 June 2010

My reason for immigrating is Love. Yes, I have fallen in love and the object of that love lives in Canada. My idea of immigrating was showing my passport, filling out a few forms, kicking back while they were reviewed, and then getting high fives, you're in, from Canadian immigration. How wrong could one person be. It's been exhausting.