12/08/08: The end of transition

It's been almost a year since we landed in Canada. Just another month to go and we will have been around the calendar in Toronto. The purpose of this blog -- to document our transition -- is pretty much complete. So, I'll try to briefly bring the story up to the present and then say good-bye.

We are all settled in our third and permanent apartment. We started sleeping there in early September, and the unpacking and rearranging continued for another couple of months. We acquired a couple of new pieces of furniture -- a dining room dish cabinet, several bookcases (some free at curbside), and a table to use as a kitchen work island. We had our first dinner party in October, and then we hosted an Election Night (U.S.) party for other bi-national queer couples in Toronto. We like the apartment pretty well, certainly well enough to not contemplate moving all of this stuff again for a long time!

Recently, we managed to find a family doctor who was accepting new patients, and so we began a relationship with the Canadian health system, and have been pleased. No money changes hands, all records are computerized nationally, and we have not encountered any sloppy care or long waits, so far.

We finally did buy bikes. Fumiko got a one-speed with a basket through her Japanese electronic bulletin board for $40, and I traveled the hour and a half to Scarborough and got a nice folding bike for $95, three-speed with luggage rack and kickstand. I am very happy with mine, Fumiko less so, as hers has one hand brake plus foot brakes, which she has never used before and finds confusing. However, either or both is handy for quick trips here or there, together or separately; Fumiko rides hers to school once or twice a week.

Over the Canadian "Thanksgiving weekend" (I can't really take it seriously yet, being October 13 this year -- same day as U.S. Columbus Day), we got up very early one morning and biked to the nearby Humber River, which is reputed to have salmon swimming upstream in the fall. By patiently watching, we did indeed see several large fish attempting to leap up the several-foot-high "steps" in the river. None were successful, but it was thrilling to see them try repeatedly.

Fumiko continues her part-time job and ESL classes. This fall, she and two of her classmates entered a spelling bee contest for ESL students. They had a list of 300 words to learn (like irrelevant, secretaries, seize, and conscientious). I told her -- and her classmates, when I volunteered occasionally to help coach them -- that these are hard not just for immigrants, but for native speakers, too. That if you stopped a Canadian on the street at random, they could probably only get 50% of them right. Anyway, it was really good for Fumiko's English, even if she didn't win. She got her picture in the newspaper: http://www.thestar.com/article/520889

It is still being difficult to impossible for Fumiko to find a full-time job in her chosen field, which is very discouraging. She may have to shift fields, from caring for the developmentally disabled (what she did in Japan) to something in food preparation (a major interest and pleasure of hers). Also, winter is coming -- we've had a couple of snows already, though only one that "stuck" -- and Fumiko is still not used to the Canadian winters. So, for her this Canadian life is still a struggle.

For me, I am retired and I find a lot to amuse me -- Toronto is not so different from New York, just smaller and gentler. I attend academic meetings at the U of T from time to time, and I keep up with two women's book groups, go square dancing, and see some theatre and the odd art gallery. We went to the newly re-opened AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, and the fireworks at City Hall at the end of November were wonderful. The exchange rate is now in my favor, so my U.S. pension is worth more Canadian dollars than when we arrived.

Funny Canadian language: They use the term "the tax man" for the government tax authorities, where we would say "IRS." Looking it up in Google, apparently this is a term used in Britain (see the Beatles' song "Taxman"). This language oddity reached a peak for me in the following from a photo caption in the Globe and Mail, of a long line of men in business suits waiting in a drizzle "... to get into the Internal Revenue Service's career open house held Tuesday [10/28] in New York City. America's tax man planned the special event 'for professionals interested in moving over from the private sector,' and ...the timing couldn't have been better."

As I write this, I am in New York for ten days, staying with my daughter in Yonkers. She had a baby boy on November 6th, and I am now enjoying being a hands-on grandmother. He really is terminally cute and cuddly. In the same month, my mother died at age 97, peacefully in her sleep. We held a memorial service for her in New York during my visit here. Also, I had a dental crown replaced by my old dentist on West 94th St. -- I have great dental insurance in the States, and none in Canada (teeth aren't included in the health plan). So, between a new grandchild, an old dentist, and cheap vitamins, I may have to keep coming back to the Big Apple from time to time.