The Devil is in the Details

It is all fun and adventure to live in another country.

Until that country is bilingual, and packages all of its products in two languages, and you are at Costco on a Saturday and you are in a rush.  You just want to know if the blankty-blank juice is indeed fruit punch or if the ziploc bags are gallon size so you don't buy the wrong thing and then get home and have to go out again for what will be the millionth time to the millionth place because youdon'thavetimeforthat. Because you've already had no hot water this week (fixed) and a broken dishwasher (also fixed) and a traveling husband (back) and you just want to run your blankty errands.

Then it isn't always so fun. I mean, it still IS, just not in that moment.  I think people sometimes suppose Canada is like America-lite, but it is not, friends, it is not.

We had to go to the American Consulate in Toronto recently to get E's passport renewed. Kids' passports are only good for 5 years.  You remember that one of the scariest places in the world to be, beside a military base in a combat zone, is an embassy/consulate. They had bomb alarm evacuation guidelines.  Also, excellent posters from the 80's that said "Feel the Spirit!" I would have taken a picture but I was allowed to bring nothing in, not even my key fob because it had a keyless remote.  I was allowed to pay in American dollars.

Ultimately, I do like living in another place. It is the little things like this that somehow exhaust me, though.*

*Like, what is Vim? And why would you clean with it? Is there a partner cleaner Vigor?
**Homework: please look up on google maps the town of Regina.