It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new.
But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.
There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
Alan Cohen
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx
The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

On a Day like Today ....

It was a busy day today, starting at 6 am.
Anyone who knows me, knows that this is close to being considered torture or at least inhumane treatment of Me.
But for some reason, I woke up and while my sweet husband was being quiet and letting me sleep a little longer, I was awake and ready to get up and face the day/bureaucrats/silliness known as the Argentine Immigrations Office.
We got there bright and early, lovely taxi ride in very little traffic. ( this means so much ).
We walked past all sorts of lines and people standing and went to the man we saw last time, who told us to SEET.
So we sat.
A while later he got our papers, passports and we continued to seet.
We noticed that there were many Chinese people waiting with us .. Have I told you how much I like Chinese babies? My favorite was today, a wee little boy .. wobbly and fuzzy haired and intent on escaping, by way of around me and of course, this gave me all sorts of opportunities to feel his fuzzy head and make him smile at me.
I am pathetic... give me a baby, I am content.
Finally after much time and meeting a lovely lady from Taiwan who now lives here and speaks fluent Spanish and English ( how to feel like a moron in 1 easy step) .. she asked the man when he gave us our papers, freshly stamped but not actually giving us The Stamp ... why ? why no stamp?

Apparently, when the two huge buildings and offices of Argentina Immigration merged, there were a gazillion files.
And ours are missing. So they have the paper, that we have .. that says we are permanent, so every 3 months they just stamp that and our passport and we stay legally , permanently but not officially stamped.

So we go back in February. I will bring coffee and pastries and we will all have a nice breakfast together, since we are all such friends now, you know, seeing as we visit them every 3 months for the past 4 years.

So we came home ... and .... what do you do when you want to cheer up ?

We went shopping. Patio Bullrich .. I was very controlled, I got a fabulous top that I will wear when we go out on our anniversary and a pair of really great shoes... from my favorite shoe store .. Sybil Vane ( don't you just adore that name?)

Then we came home and took Pup for his walk.
Of course, no walk with Pup can be just a calm nice walk in the park. Not here.
We were cutting across the big parks, headed to a cafe on the corner where we could sit in the shade and have a cool drink, when I heard someone call ... saw a man ... saw his huge black Giant Schnauzer running ahead ... thing looked like a locomotive speeding towards us ... Pup, totally clueless to what was coming was sniffing along beside me .. as I stepped toward him to grab his collar, the locomotive hit him .. tried to mount him, I was pulling Pups collar, Pup turned to attack back and the man that owned the dog arrived, thank God, and grabbed his dog by the ears !!
Cooled that dog off fast .. but Pup's leg had collapsed under him and he was limping now.

We walked to the end of the park, to our cafe, where the sweet sweet waiter brought Pup copious amounts of cold water and we all sat and cooled off and calmed down.

The walk back was slow and easy and mom and dad were on the look-out for anything resembling another dog, there were none.
And now we are home and resting and happy that with all the excitment, no one is showing lasting effects.

As I said to my husband, walking through the park, cool breeze blowing, palm trees fanning, birds very noisy in their new nests, that on a day like today, I am happy to be here.


The Shoes

11 comments:

  1. Love your outlook and attitude!

    And can you post a photo of your new shoes?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cherie, I will be happy too LOL
    It will only convince my husband further that shoes and I have an unnatural relationship.

    ReplyDelete
  3. They come in natural, black and a great coral red. I wimped out on the red and forced myself not to get yet another pair of black shoes !

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love, love, love those shoes. Too cute for words, but would you mind sending me the red ones?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you Anony ... I will see what I can do.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Love the shoes. Hope pup is ok Mt Vernon

    ReplyDelete
  7. Poor Pup and you! I hope there are still no "lasting effects" physical or otherwise!
    I once had to pry a vicious Labrador's (I know, usually so sweet) jaws off my little Chibi's (a Cavalier) neck. It was horrible and my adrenanlin was pumping so strong that I got the huge dog off of her just as the owner was running up. So scary, she was okay but I had to carry her home.

    Thank heavens you had those shoes to bring a bit of joy to the day! They're fabuluos!
    xo J~

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love the shoes too!

    How similar your experience sounds to my past experience in France, finally it seems that bureaucracy is the same the world over! Just the settings and language change!

    Are public buildings there in lovely old buildings steeped with history as well? This is quite often the case in France which makes visiting them somewhat more agreable as I love looking at architecture.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Piglet ! One building was in a huge old important structure downtown, with vast high high ceilings and amazing tile work and dark gloomy rooms full of cranky people .. the new buildings are combined in a new set of buildings near the Ports, where the naval police are in charge and we are still shuffled around like cattle but the employees seem happier so they actually smile sometimes.
    At least these buildings are brightly lit with many windows .. they are white stucco and there are palm trees and grass and flowers around so it is much less gloomy than downtown.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Reminds me of when I settled in Germany. Bureaucracy seems to be the same the world over.


    Sorry, but those shoe's wouldn't suit me.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Symdaddy, "those shoe's wouldn't suit me " .... I will keep that in mind the next time :)
    I used to hear jokes about South American bureaucracy and never thought it was 1- true 2- I would be living it !
    Oh well, so far, we still think it is worth it :)

    ReplyDelete

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