Early this year Jan said she wants to go to Disneyland, and as Luke refuses to take her, I said I would happily do it.  So then we discovered she’d need a visa to enter the US as she’s a landed immigrant and holds a Thai passport.  I thought how hard can it be and as it turns out, quite hard.

The worst of it was finding and then filling out the 10 page application form.  It contains many questions about whether or not the applicant is a terrorist, or has any nefarious plans for their visit.  It’s hard to believe anyone would answer yes to those questions.

Sometimes it was the technology of the form that would thwart me, so it took me about 10 days to slowly fill it in.  Then Jan had to get photos taken, which I submitted, and nope, wrong.  So back to Walmart for another set, and this time the photos passed.

After that we received an appointment date and time at the American consulate in Vancouver.  Luke and Jan drove down and back in one day, and Jan joyfully announced the civil servant at the embassy said she was getting the visa.  We were overjoyed.

And now it’s actually come in the mail, and is attached to a page inside her Thai passport.  On the site it seemed to indicate the visa would be good for 120 days, but her expiry date is October 2028, so I said to her it looks like you can travel to the US for the next ten years.

It’s going to be a heady time, as Jan thinks the gremlins in the movie of the same name, are real.  Isn’t that adorable?  So imagine Jan in the Disneyland theme park, or at Universal studios.  This woman is going to come home completely energised from non-stop excitement.

Now I’m going to hunt for cheap flights and then get us the rooms and tickets.  We plan to go sometime between now and Christmas.

And speaking of being ga ga with excitement, my vocal teacher said I’m ready for her to bring in the karaoke machine!  I said oh my God, I’ve never sang karaoke before, so this’ll be great.  I said to Charissa, that reminds me, I wonder if it’s silly for me to buy an amp and microphone?

She said no, not silly at all, and something that’d be tremendous fun.  Can you imagine the neighbours on Hall Road hearing Delta Dawn belted out tunelessly at full volume?  I never in a million years thought retirement would be this much fun.

And then if I find myself over stimulated from my life, I sit down and spend an hour colouring in my colour by number book.  You should try it as it’s surprisingly calming.

We’ve had a fat black bear sleeping at the base of one of the Ponderosa pines on the neighbouring property for the past few days.  He’s very nice and all, but as Nicky said, he really can’t live on Hall Road like that.  I’m surprised he (or she) never discovered my bee hive.

Nicky chased him off by the noise of the chain saw, so let’s hope he’s gone for good.