Tag: Canadian_Passport

The Blogosphere : My Own Wishing Well

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

It has been a while as usual. I have now taken on a new challenge. I am studying Global Development through an online university and it is taking me a lot longer than prescribed to go through the material. It seems that I am somewhat of a slow reader.

Apart from that, two very important things happened. First, my son has his first Canadian passport. I do not think it is any thanks to his father; Canada is just a civilized country, which has respect for its citizens, regardless of their age, and does not discriminate against single mothers, whether they were Canadian or not. The father has given me a little lip recently about going to the Australian Embassy in Pnom Penh and wasting some of his precious time. I just let it slide, as I usually do. So we now have travel dates, and it is going to be absolutely fine, with a bit of administrative juggling to report Robert as a Canadian citizen here in the US. My employer would take care of that but it simply means that as far as the US government is concerned he would have to stay Canadian for as long as we stay here, and he will have a considerable advantage over his South African mother, I do not mind that.

Another amazing thing was, that I got my own little slice of window in a new office. It was purely through an act of providence that I got this blessed change of scenery. For once, the dreaded grapevine of office gossip served me correctly and I was recommended for an open plan cubicle without formally asking for it. I can only say, it was just good karma coming my way, or perhaps the magic of putting my desires and wishes out on the blogosphere; my own wishing well. A few weeks ago I blogged about my old hobbit hole of an office.

Next time I will wish for something more substantial.

Dear Blog: I want a tall, dark single dad with a sense of humor, and preferably with a connection to Africa.

Readers, cross your fingers for me, you will be the first to know if this works.

Worse than Useless

~ marobbie ~ Leave a comment

My son is starting to receive picture postcards from faraway places. He has two already, not the usual bright happy postcards, these seem to have a melancholic feel to them. The first is a picture of elephants bathing in a river in Thailand, while the other shows the backs of a mother and child kneeling to offer some food to a pair of orange-clad monks, it is from Laos. His father sent them, in his strange all-capitals printing style. They are signed LOVE PAPA & CLAIRE and always have the same silly remark “I hope school is not boring!”.

I first found out that my ex husband was a world-traveler on the one occasion when I needed him to do something for our son. Robert’s passport expired in March and I started applying for his new one in February. It turns out that South Africa requires me to have the father’s signature, even though I have full custody of the boy. I sent him the forms and asked him to sign them at the embassy but I am sure he never did.

I thought I would tackle it differently by applying for a Canadian passport for Robert. Last week I was reassured by one of the young officials at the embassy, so I went ahead and started the paperwork. Today as I showed them the forms for review, another older woman told me, to my dismay, he has to sign at the nearest embassy. So I go and email the father again. He said that the nearest Canadian embassy would be in Phnom Penh, and they won’t get there for some weeks.

I find it ironic that my son and I might ultimately be stuck here in the USA unable to go home, or anywhere else,  just because his worse than useless father is traveling the world. No wonder the cards injure my sensibilities. Not for the first time I cannot help the thought that we would have been better off without having the father in the picture.