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I Got my Work Permit


My Canadian work permit arrived on Friday. It’s somewhat of an anti-climatically thing however since the move to Texas appears to be back on – in theory anyway. We will know more next week after Rob chats with the man in charge of bringing all the project elements together. 

The first thing I did upon opening the envelope from the CIC was to glance through the Fort Record to see if there were any jobs of interest. A pointless activity as I have no intention of getting a job until my daughter is in school full time and even then there are more things that don’t interest me than do. Teaching for example is only of slight interest and drops to negative interest levels when I ponder the prospect of teaching in Texas. I turned down an offer from the Houston Independent School District long ago. In Iowa we are taught to believe that any school south of our own border is teaches Genesis in place of Darwin and a twangy version of English grammar. Besides when I was offered the position back in the late 1980’s it was well-known that Texas schools were just looking for new hire straight out of college fodder to plunk down in the worst schools. Socially and economically disadvantaged kids grew on trees in Iowa then too and I didn’t see the point of being underpaid in an expensive place to live when I could do the same thing in Iowa within my meager means. Anyway, I have a very negative view of the American education system right now. It stifles good teaching in favor of bad policy. And it’s not fun. Why would I want a job that is joyless to perform? Even if I am good at it. 

I sent out emails back in January, when I thought Texas was a surer thing, soliciting letters of recommendation. I got four positive replies and assurances I would have the letters by March at the latest but now we are into the second week of April – no letters. Hmmm. Whenever I have been asked for a letter and committed to writing it, I have them to the requester within days. But that is just me. And I wrote letters for anyone who asked really regardless of their work for me. The way I saw it was even if the person (a student usually) didn’t do much for me wasn’t any indication of how they would fare somewhere else. A lot of what we call “underachievement” is really just due to bad fits. Of course some people never find the right fit and that is another matter all together. Anyway I don’t have the interest in tracking any of these letters down, so I will just let it go but for this blog piece. C’est la vie.

So I have no letters, but I have one published writing credit to my name and about three rejection letters. I think that makes me a writer in most people’s eyes, but I don’t think you are allowed to include the rejections on your resume. I had a Technorati authority of 15 but it dropped a bit of late. Someone unlinked me I guess or the link expired. They do that. I don’t really understand the whole blog ranking thing. It’s a bit of a puzzlement and probably doesn’t mean much unless you are actually engaged in advertising on your space. In terms of writing resumes, blogging doesn’t count for jack even with that curious prohibition many literary outlets – paper or virtual – have on self-publishing.

Dilemmas. Dilemmas. I have a work permit. Now what do I do with it?

It’s Not a Dudley DoRight Experience


The Mounties came to tame our noisy low-rent neighbors last weekend. My husband wrote about the incident in more detail on his blog, but the short version is that our next door neighbor is a Guitar Hero junkie who likes to fire up around ten or eleven at night probably after he is finished watching the hockey games or CBC’s line-up. I guess it could be worse. He could be one of those who then switches over to the soft porn shows on the Montreal or Toronto stations (yes, Canadians are very European after hours). I guess we should be grateful for a loud and lousy air guitarist neighbor instead of a quiet pervert, right? 

Anyway, Rob called the RCMP, which is Royal Canadian Mounted Police or Mounties to the rest of the world. One of our loyal readers, Girl, made the comment saying, “Man, I want to live in Canada, just so I can call the Mounties on noisy neighbors! The Mounties!” And I can understand why she would. I am an American too, and my only experience with the Mounties was the cartoon Dudley DoRight.

 He was in the Rocky and Bullwinkle line up on Saturday mornings. Just a take off of the silent film area kind of like Penelope Pitstop. There was a villian, Snidely Whiplash and a love interest, Nell, who creepily in retrospect seemed to have a thing for Dudley’s horse, Horse. Dudley wore the old time traditional outfit of the Mounted Police, the jodpurs with the red jacket and the cool looking hat and riding boots. I thought it was a very smart outfit, and I am apparently not alone in my female admiration for it. Rob’s father was a Mountie back in the 1950’s and wore the uniform when he was standing guard duty at the Parliament building in Ottawa. He told tales of American girls who would proposition him while he was on duty. Many of them wanted to take him off into the trees and have their way with a “man in a Mountie uniform”, but he would keep them waiting until he got off duty (which if you knew the tales of Rob’s dad that I knew you’d be marveling at his self-restraint). I don’t know if he wore the uniform to met any of these girls, but American girls, in late father-in-law’s opinion, were pretty forward as my husband would more delicately put it.

The RCMP of today do not wear the garb of old. They aren’t mounted anymore either unless it is for a parade or other ceremonial duty. They are fairly typical of law enforcement officers anywhere, in my opinion. I have had only one encounter myself when I went to get my fingerprints taken for my immigration application. It wasn’t a Dudley DoRight experience.

Lisa Parker lived close to the heart


Like most WordPress bloggers (or any blogger really) I am fascinated by the searches that people do that lead them to by blog. Probably the search term that comes up most often here is the name Lisa Parker. I first wrote about her in a piece called Going to the Movies. Rob and I had taken in the Viggio Mortensen film, Eastern Promises. Parker was the production unit manager for the film and it was dedicated to her, which is not uncommon in the movie industry when a member of the cast of crew dies during its production. Being me, I googled her at the first opportunity only to find that while her body of work is well-documented, there was little to no personal information to be found. That was frustrating to me at the time but now I find it quite fascinating. The public has this image of those in the movie world being eager for recognition to the point that any and all things about them are fair game and here comes Lisa Parker. A film is dedicated to her memory. A good film. And there is nothing to be gleaned about her save the work she left behind. How about that? Being remembered for your accomplishments only and not your dress size or tumultuous personal life.

I have searched and searched, in vain mostly, for more information on Ms. Parker. I haven’t uncovered much. She was just 39 when she died on June 4, 2007 at Charing Crossing Hospital after a brief illness. She was well-known in the Irish film industry and had worked on international films as well in many capacities. Her funeral was held shortly after her death in London with another memorial service in Dublin, Ireland the following fall. She was survived by her mother, sister and many friends. Donations were asked to be given to the Battersea Dog Home.

The second tim I wrote about Lisa Parker was in a piece about search terms. I thought it an odd memorial to her that people would find in the original blog piece that often brings them here. One of her obituaries carries the quote “she lives life close to the heart”. What a beautiful thing to have said about a person after he/she has gone. To me it means that she lived out her life doing what she loved and with that people who mattered most. What a lucky woman. And what better way to be remembered than as someone who followed her heart.