Yes, I Speak English Very Goodly

Sean recently posted The Final Insult.  It is about the ups and downs of our trying to become official permanent residents of Canada.  Sometimes I wonder how it is that we are not yet official permanent residents.  We've been here for the better part of a decade.  Keren and Gavi have lived here longer than in the US.  We own a home.  But it's still not official.  This is through no fault of ours.

I used the phrase "ups and downs."  Mostly it's been downs.  Canada lost our application; there went nine months.  We had to start over.  Canada lost our medical reports.  By the way, I live here already.  If I have some illness I caught it here.  Canada closed offices dealing with our application.  In this time, my residency started over, due to Canada's losses and a necessary trip back to the US.  I lived in my own home as an official tourist for four months.

The best part, in entertainment value anyway, was the English Proficiency Test.  I am proud to say that I did better than Sean on the written part of the exam.  We tied for the oral.

The oral exam is administered from a book.  The examiner must ask the questions from the book, and may not deviate.  Clearly this book was not written for Americans.  My question was "Please tell me about your national food."I spoke of hot dogs and apple pie, although I believe cherry pie is a strong contender due to the story of George Washington and his father's cherry tree.  I spoke of going to ball parks where our national food could be combined with our national pastime, baseball.  I spoke of regional differences in toppings, from mustard to ketchup, sauerkraut, fried onions, relish, or, as in Chicago, everything but the kitchen sink.  By the end the examiner was laughing so hard he was crying.  He couldn't figure out why I was there.

Sean followed me.  The (same) examiner asked, "Tell me about your national costume..."  I hope we made his day.

Did I mention that after 4 years of working on this Canada has streamlined the process for those already living here?  It should take a maximum of 14 months.