Telling it like it is

Welcome to the New Year, same as the old year. Although we did have 4 inches of snow overnight so I broke out the gas-powered snowblower this morning. I also re-commissioned our trusty little electric snow blower to clear the patio and the deck. I'm glad we kept it now.

So we got the new passport photos, and went back to the INS. They took fingerprints and signatures, then took our employment authorisation cards and stamped our passports. We're in the clear. The passport stamp is good until the greencards actually arrive, which could be up to another year. But we're both authorised to work and travel freely in and out of the country now!

Dory (our new cat) spent the whole night in last night, even with the cat flap available to her. She woke me up about 5:30 - not sure why, but I went to see what was up and she came and curled up on the bed with us. This morning we went to do the final step of the greencard process only to be told when we got there that we had the wrong type of passport photos. The INS used to need three-quarter photos, showing nose profile and ears etc. Now they just need "regular" passport photos but we didn't know. We have another appointment this afternoon....

The first couple of days with our new cat have been interesting. The first night we shut her in and gave her the run of the house. She ate and drank and used the litter box, and woke us up every hour - just like a newborn baby. The second night, we closed off the kitchen and left her in there and in the morning I found her hiding behind the washing machine downstairs. Then I made the mistake of test-fitting a collar on her and she took off with it on, trying to get it off. I teased her out with some kitty treats and took it off, and I'm now persona non grata with the cat :-( I went to World-O-Pets, or Pet-O-Rama, or Kingdom Of Pets or one of those pet superstores and bought a cat flap today. With a little creative thinking, we now have a cat flap in the back door. Creative thinking, in so far as we have a storm door too. The storm door is now minus its bottom panel so Dory can step through it and into the cat flap, or vice versa. So far, we have to hold the inside door open, an...

Holy snot. We're just getting reports of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in the sea off Java. 22,000 people dead from 15m-high tsunamis which swept ashore all around the region. This has happened just three days after the 8.1 deep-sea quake 420km west of Auckland. Both quakes are on the same plate.