passport

Ruth and ScottM came over last night to watch Manhattan on our DVD player. We ordered in Swiss Chalet, and Scott brought over something called halvah for dessert, which is a Middle Eastern confection made from sesame seeds and honey. Fun movie. Yummy halvah.

I went running just before they arrived, out to Coronation Park and back. It felt like a tougher run than usual even though I've done the distance before, possibly because it was warmer. Or maybe it was all the popcorn I ate with Ruth the night before (she came over Monday night to hang out :-)). Should be interesting to see how much tougher the run is in the full summer heat!

In any case, I've decided to stick to my current running distance for the next couple weeks instead of continuing to push it further every time. According to my pedometer, it's about a 3.5 mile route, and I do it in about an hour (walking at the beginning and at the end for warm-up and cool-down, some stretching, running in the middle). I'm still the slowest runner in the world, but that suits me fine. So far, this running experience hasn't been anything like my first foray into running ten years ago (when I quit after only a few weeks because of knee pains).

I applied for a passport renewal this morning since my passport expires next month. The passport application process has changed somewhat since I last renewed, obviously because of the Sept.11 attacks. The application is longer, for instance, and it takes a minimum of two weeks to get your new passport instead of same-day processing. I'll be picking mine up the day before I leave for Marcon.

When I arrived 20 minutes before the passport office opened this morning, there was already a big line-up ahead of me. I came prepared with my MP3 player (loaded with a mixture of Ron Hawkins, Hawksley Workman, and XTC) and a book (Animist by Eve Forward, a gift from Michelle).

I hate being stuck in a line-up with nothing to do. In fact, I think I'm going to add this to my list of Official Peeves on my personal homepage. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to find that once the office opened at 8 am, I only had to wait about fifteen minutes before it was my turn.

I have to admit that I breathed a sigh of relief when the woman behind the counter stamped my documents after checking them; I haven't had much luck with bureaucracy lately. Hopefully the CCRA will be as satisfied with my audit documents as well. :-)

Today's Blatherpic:

The photo at the top of today's Blathering is of doll that my father brought from Japan for Sara or Annie. She even had real cotton underwear (yes, I looked)!