No More UPS Or Canada Post Ground Service Either....Yay Tariffs!! Gleep!!!

 My husband is disassembling the  box of goodies he planned to sent to our son south of the border.  After finding out that FedEx was no longer an option for us, our son suggested we try using UPS as he has had to send many paintings to Canada for art exhibitions in the past year.  Weeeelllll....that is no longer an option for sending personal items south.  We rolled up to their office this afternoon and my husband carried his box of stuff inside.  Less than one minute later he emerged, still carrying the box after being told that UPS no longer sends packages via ground transport to the USA.  Too much hassle with paperwork, brokers etc.  He told us to try Canada Post, so although we had little hope of getting the parcel sent that way we took the time to go to an outlet and ask.  Weeeelllll, we COULD use Canada Post....IF we create an online account and then send them the info as to what is in the box, then they will assess what tariffs and other customs costs we will owe and whether or not they will allow us to send it at all, then we pay any costs with our credit card and they email us a special certificate of sending that we print off (thankfully we do have a printer), and take to the post office here to prove that we have permission to send the parcel across the border.  How long this process takes we have no idea and having our credit card on yet another website is not appealing so we will likely never have to find out. Hence, our son will just have to do without the items we wanted to send. One of them should fit nicely into my husband's luggage for our summer trip....a used item that our son once had a great deal of fun with and would enjoy having back again.  

How can you tell we haven't mailed anything stateside since last August when all these new rules and regulations came into effect? hahaha We knew and assumed and are not surprised things have changed drastically, but gosh darn it, what a hassle to send a small box to our own son.  Well, guess he will only be getting new items that we can send through American Amazon from now on. For now at least......

AND gosh darn it all over again....if it isn't going to rain could the steel grey clouds and chilly wind gusts of the past three days just go away so we can enjoy some sunshine???   

My husband went to the doctor this afternoon to hear the test results from his annual physical examination.  Everything is A-OK other than, as usual, his iffy cholesterol count.  The doctor wants him to try one more experiment with his present statin  and then if the new experiment also fails like the last two did and the debilitating headaches return, all he has to do is call and leave a message for the doctor and a new med will be prescribed.  He will run the experiment next week when he returns from his upcoming camping trip. The doctor pronounced him, apart from the cholesterol, "healthy as a horse"!!  So happy for him. It is great news; even greater news at his age!

As is usual for me when he is at the doctor's office, I go along for the ride and shop at the store next to the clinic.  Today I found not one, but two replacement summer dresses for one I had to get rid of. They will be perfect for bopping around in NYC in the heat in August. So inexpensive....so happy....so easy to pack them in my carry on bag....so relieved!! A good day. 

For Our Farming Relatives

 Hello farming family: I am disappointed to report that other than a very brief shower of raindrops around midnight the other night, no true rainfall materialized all weekend. Sigh….it is already scarily dry here. While it is helping local farmers catch up on their late snowfall induced seeding season, the seed isn’t going to germinate properly now if we don’t get some serious rain soon. Over the weekend we were forecast to have anywhere from 30% to 60% chance of rainfall three days in a row but what we received was a big fat nada! Happily no thunderstorms or hail, but….

Sorry about the group post but it saves sending the same report to all of you individually. Happy farming season you guys!

Late Night Kid Noise But No Early Morning Goose Wars! Yay!

 After a long and busy day that included a cup of deliciously strong tea which kept me awake late into the evening, I was very pleased that the Goosey Turf Wars from that morning seem to have ended….for now. The weekend event in the park where most of those geese normally reside, that drove them over here for the weekend, ended sometime close to dinnertime last evening so by bedtime all the geese had returned home. This morning we have only our usual five regulars who do very little squawking. Whew!

Our little troupe of middle eastern kids who play outside often even on school nights until midnight or later was at it again last night after a blessed two night reprieve. Last night I didn’t care at all because the tea had ME bouncing off the walls until nearly 1 am….the same time the kids finally went silent….a nice dovetailing that gave me a good start on staying asleep for the night. 

I am grateful! I feel almost awake this morning! Yay!

Goose Wars At 5am….Sigh…..

It was a short night around here sleep-wise. At 5am the latest territorial goose wars erupted on the front lawn immediately below my bedroom window.  An hour and 45 minutes later the war rages on. Apparently across the entire two block long unbroken expanse of fresh green grass at our complex nowhere is as green and fresh and desirable as the patch right here, ten feet below my sleeping quarters. Aaaaargh! Oh the incessant honking, the screeching, the beating wings, the chasing, the nipping….one couple is not even physically involved in the war between the two couples vying for the below my window greenery. They are standing on the sidewalk across the street, four lanes of traffic away, hooting and hollering like banshees while the four combatants under my window chase each other around on the lawn. Big sigh….. My husband is sound asleep in his cool basement hideaway where the goose war cacophony does not penetrate the thick concrete walls. Lucky guy….. I am not sure how well I am going to stay awake to fully enjoy our day out of the city after only five hours of sleep. The motorcycle racers and muffler deficient stunt drivers that enjoy utilizing the wide streets around us didn’t quiet down until around midnight. 

My alarm is set for 40 minutes from now. The geese have finally ceased their squawking. I am sleepy. If I fall asleep for such a short time how groggy and miserable am I going to feel when I wake up? Hahaha…what a crazy start to the day….AND what is this I hear? Apparently the time out is over for the geese. Here they go again….aiiii yiiiiii……at least that answers my question about going back to sleep. 

A Happy If Brief Reconnection!

This morning online I stumbled across a woman and her husband who we went to Bible School with back in 1976! After the school term ended we went our separate ways, but occasionally reconnected. The last time we saw the husband was in our home in Alberta several years before we moved to Tokyo, so it has been about thirty years since our last contact. So today I decided to take a chance and send her an email to say hello and I received a lovely response so we have been sending emails back and forth all day today. Geographically we are rather far removed from each other and likely won’t be in touch again, but it was so great to get caught up with each other. Both husbands are church ministers who are now “retreading” rather than retiring. It was a cool and unexpected way to enjoy my day! 

We Are Going To Miss Being Able To Use FedEx!

We only occasionally send items to our kids in the States and we have always used FedEx for those "couple of times a year" mailings.  So when we headed over there the other day to send the first such parcel in many a month we got a nasty surprise!  We found out that in order to use their ground services delivery we now have to get ourselves a customs broker!  In order to do that we have to sign all manner of paperwork and also provide said broker with a Power of Attorney that allows that person to act on our behalf.....uhhhhhh....nope, not gonna do and pay for all that.  Not worth it to send two or three hundred dollars worth of gifts each year.  We could still use their air transportation services with the base price being two hundred and fifty dollars!  Nope, not going to do that either. The cost associated with air transportation would be more than the cost of the gifts! 

So our son is going to contact us today and explain to us what better ways are available to us for less hassle and cost. He ships things all the time between countries both for his work and for personal items, so he is up to date on all these things.  There are other ways of course than using FedEx, but they have been so delightful to work with, every package arrived on time, it was easy to track each one's whereabouts and the staff at the desk here have always been so efficient and so great at explaining things to us....as they were the other day when they were explaining the customs broker requirement.  If we were sending things regularly for business reasons it would be worth it to have a broker....or at least MORE worth it.  

The times they are a'changing...(thank you Mr. Dylan for those song lyrics and you are so right about that!)   

Looking Forward To Tomorrow's Adventures!

 Although we may be sodden with rain by day's end tomorrow, I am really looking forward to a day out of town!  My husband is taking the service at one of our former parish homes, so we will be surrounded by old friends, he is having a meeting with some soon to be ordained younger folk, while I enjoy a fabulous Japanese lunch with a friend. Then we are going to spend the rest of the afternoon with yet more friends.  I think a whole day away from here, rain or no rain but with lower temperatures at last, will be very refreshing for us both.  I can tell my husband is excited too. He already has his sermon completed and ready to print.  Since he has been able to take on so few commitments as he heals from this latest round of CFS etc., he had lots of time to start writing it earlier on, finish it with lots of time to spare and have time this afternoon to start preparing good sized plant pots for transplanting the newly purchased herbs from their teensy hot house pots.  I believe he doesn't have another commitment after tomorrow's until August 2nd.  YAY!

We have been so housebound for so long. What a treat it will be to see somewhere else, somewhere familiar but definitely "other".  So grateful for this opportunity!