Dog days

We've gotten pretty complacent these last few months, since Mr. O's open work permit came in. It is summer after all, and at this point any official accreditation he gets feels like just more paperwork and rubber stamping - our quality of life won't change much from here to there - which only serves to underline my basic argument that spouses of citizens should be granted open work permits from the outset, and the system would run a lot smoother for everyone. This blog probably wouldn't exist.

So in true summer fashion I'm not only lazy with posting but also with following what's been going on in the latest round in our little immigration game: Mr. O got his legalized fingerprint form back from the U.A.E. embassy in Ottawa last week, and so he'll now have to send that and a copy of his old residence permit and passport to the Ministry of Interior in Dubai. There are also some fees which he needs to "contact them" about - and the site is also a bit vague on the timelines, as they recommend getting "a friend" in Dubai to help you out with the forms to speed up the process. When we lived there Mr. O's Finnish employer had a local Arabic-speaking fixer to take care of such things, but we have no such connection now.

Of course, with all our easy summer dawdling, the permanent residency process is delayed even further - nothing will move until he gets his certificate of good conduct back from the Emirati government and into the hands of the CIC.

He also has to renew his OHIP card, which he tried to do the other day but there must have been some kind of big deadline because the line at Service Canada was out the door, so he'll have to go back. Wouldn't it be nice if the government's many heads could talk to each other, and they could confirm that his permit had been extended (say, in a database somewhere) and just mail him a new card? Because lines suck, especially in August.

Tra la la la, off to the cottage...