The plan for the last 2 years has been for me to continue working for the company I was working for, and working remotely from home. Suddenly that plan fell through when everything I'd been told for 2 years got ripped out from underneath me. I had to make the unfortunate decision to put in my notice, because I now had to figure out what my life was going to be in Canada with this new twist. My income, health insurance, house plan, etc. was all gone thanks to an unfortunate need to not be truthful with me by a company I'd been with for 13 years. It was (and still is) heartbreaking, but life has to go on.
So the full court press started of getting to Canada as quickly as possible. Despite me wanting this to happen within a couple of weeks, too much has to happen when you haven't even gotten started on the end game. I began packing, and tying up loose ends. Hired a moving company (Trans Canada), and just tried to keep moving. My fibromyalgia did not cooperate, and everything came down to the wire (I was packing literally as the truck was being loaded for Canada). Finally all of the details were done, and it was time to go.
This is when the drama started (not that there hadn't been enough to get to this point). I went to Atlanta for the Xtina concert, thinking I'd have a day or two to finalize everything at the house when I got back in town before Steve flew in for us to drive back to Canada that week. I got a call from him on the way home from ATL on Monday that winter weather was heading in for the NE States and New Brunswick at the end of the week, and he had to stay in town to wait on my furniture to be delivered before he could go anywhere. So basically it was either I drive by myself to beat the weather, or we wait on him and pretty much guarantee we go through a lot of bad roads. There wasn't a choice. I packed up the car Monday night, and hit the road Tuesday morning with the two cats.
Tuesday's drive went slowly at the start because I was so tired from driving from ATL, plus packing all night that I kept having to stop because I was so tired. Once I got a 5 Hour Energy things went smoother (I don't do well with caffeine, so I was taking teeny sips every 10 minutes or so, but it served its purpose). The problem was, I was so mentally exhausted that by the time I made it to Cincinnati, 10 hours of driving and Harvey at her peak of "I'm over this drive" put me at my limit. I knew I couldn't stop at Cincinnati because that would put me in a horrible position for the next day, so I pushed myself to Columbus and stopped for the night.
Wednesday we set off and hoped to make up time. Did pretty well as the day started, then started getting calls. We'd been working with Trans Canada about not knowing whether I would be in town by the time my goods got there or not. They told me Steve could sign for everything as long as they had all of the paperwork signed by him, and a copy of his passport (which we got to them). Steve showed up Wednesday to sign for everything, and border services wouldn't clear it because the goods weren't his, plus he didn't have the B4 form filled out (which Trans Canada told us nothing about). Trans Canada tried to get him first to lie and say they were his, then tried to get him to pay the fee just to get everything across the border so they could keep moving. Steve, of course, refused both. He called me to fill me in on what was going on, then I called the rep for the company to see what he said. He claimed we'd had the conversation about Steve lying to customs the whole time. There NEVER would've been a chance I would've agreed to this, given we've been going at this for 4 years. I'm not going to do anything to put my immigration in danger. Then the dispatch officer called me and claimed the reason the shipment was rejected wasn't because of us not lying about the goods, but because Steve didn't know my status as a resident in Canada. At this point I lost it, because I told him we'd been working on this for 4 years, there was ZERO chance he didn't know that, so I knew I was blatantly being lied to. And between Steve and I, we were getting a different story every single time. I set back out on the road, and Steve spent the rest of the day on the phone with border services/the warehouse, and they both told him to stop talking to Trans Canada, because they were flabbergasted at the position they'd put us into. So I'm talking to Steve at the end of the day Wednesday, completely exhausted both mentally and physically, going down a mountain in the middle of the night, and suddenly I see in my rear-view mirror Harvey has escaped her carrier. That was the straw. I burst into tears, hung up on Steve, and tried desperately to find a place to pull off on the side of a mountain to get her back in her carrier (those familiar with past blogs know my fear of heights, so this was a worst case driving scenario). I got her back in, and we drove for another 2 hours after that/finally stopped for the night in Cromwell, CT.
I knew Thursday I'd have to get up early because I lost almost 3 hours from the drama the day before. I hit the road at 7. That day was pretty uneventful, driving-wise. I get to the border and...
"You can't move to Canada."
I was numb at this point. I let them tell me all the reasons I supposedly hadn't done things right. Once they were done, I asked them if I could go outside to get Steve the keys to the car so the cats wouldn't freeze to death (he'd come to the border with a friend to help me drive the last leg). They were ok with that, so I went out there and immediately told him to get our immigration lawyer on the phone. 2 hours later (the story is too long and complicated to tell) we hit the road towards "home". 5 hours + a dinner stop later, we were able to go to bed. A 15 hour day for me.
Friday morning, we knew we needed to go to the warehouse to get the paperwork, go to border services to get it stamped, then back to the warehouse to get the goods released. After that, it would just be getting it unloaded at the storage unit. We figured maybe 3-5 hours. Wake up Friday morning: blizzard. Left the apartment at 9:00. Should have taken us about 20 minutes to get to the warehouse. Took us 3 hours. The snow hit almost a day earlier than they were expecting, and was a lot worse than called for. So lots of people didn't have their snow tires on their cars yet, therefore were causing a bunch of wrecks/delays. We had a few things we'd planned to do after the move, and that all got thrown out the window. Thankfully, the actual process of paperwork went super smooth. We got to the storage facility at 3:00, and figured we'd be done around 6:00. We left there just before 8:00. It's a long, frustrating, painful story that isn't worth going into at this point because of how long this blog already is. The one positive thing I WILL say about Trans Canada is the driver was amazing at his job. Problem was, they had him as the driver/unloader, so everything got done wrong in the storage unit, and they had to start over once he saw that was the case. At the end of the day, we had to pay an extra $1500 for the delays that Trans Canada had caused. On top of the thousands we'd paid for the move itself.
12 states. 2 provinces. 4 days. I told you all we'd have an incredible story for you by the time all was said and done, and this is it... in a VERY condensed version. Apparently 4 years of emotional turmoil wasn't enough.
To give a current update: we're all here in Halifax, and our only current dilemma is the fact Harvey's nose is torn to shreds from busting out of her carrier (the zipper cut it all up). It's looking better every day, I just hate her being hurt. But both kitties are doing well in their new (temporary) environment. Here's hoping we find a house soon so we can start our new lives in Canada!
Omg what a story. But in the end, your here and life can start anew. Congrats to you both and after all that mess... Only good things in the future.
ReplyDeleteThank you!!!
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