October panties in November

Hello! I hope that you are well.

To those celebrating Thanksgiving across the border, I hope that it was enjoyable and memorable.

Canadians celebrated in October. I managed to make a Thanksgiving meal (a past post) for my parents and me between two trips. I was pleased because we didn't have a lot of leftovers left over.

I had meant to post my October panties that I got in the mail. Things got a bit busy. I ended up flying stateside twice. 

I am not travelling for a bit, so I can attempt catch up with my posts here.

Here's are the lacy panties that I got.

 The front: 

 

The back:

The colour scheme screams Halloween. They are comfy and nice.

Rules and guidelines on masking in the US

The hotel in which I stayed in the United States is a part of a large chain. The official wording on its clean policy is that for guests staying at its US hotels, you do not need to wear a mask at the hotel if you are fully vaccinated. Staff are required to wear face masks.

As a cautious Canadian, I threw that guest policy out the window. I am fully vaccinated. I got my booster shot on Thursday. All is well. I have a sore arm. That's it. I'm boring that way. I'll take boring any day!

Whether I was heading downstairs to the kitchen area to fetch breakfast to take up to my room or doing laundry, I wore a mask. Heading to and from my room? I had a mask on.

As for staff, housekeeping never had masks on. When I headed to my room to check in back in late November of last year, I had to walk by two housekeeping staff without their masks. Luckily, I had mine on.

I'd say that 50% of the time, staff at this hotel had face masks on. The front desk was much better at it.

What I am trying to get at is that there are rules and guidelines on wearing masks, but they aren't enforced. We are still in a pandemic. Not wearing a mask in a public area is ridiculous these days, vaccinated or not.

The moral of this story is to mask up, to protect yourself and others from the various COVID-19 variants that are out there.

Rare Monday night outing

On Monday night, I went out to get a free meal at a cool Mexican-Latin-America eatery. The food was amazing. I'll definitely need to return for more.

The place is owned by a husband-and-wife team. They were so warm and welcoming.

It was raining all night. It felt soothing driving through the rain heading over there and then home.

I did stop to get some bubble tea after eating dinner. It was the perfect way to end my outing.

Canadians don't celebrate Memorial Day

It's the Memorial Day long weekend in the States. A handful of Americans on a social site that I'm on were nice to wish me a happy Memorial Day weekend. They meant well.

The problem? I'm Canadian. I don't have this day off.

I can understand that perhaps we are similar in many regards. I am mindful of holidays that Canadians have, but Americans don't, and vice-versa. However, I seem to be frequently grouped in these well wishes. I wish that I weren't.

I've actually had to tell three people over the weekend that Canadians don't celebrate it. They don't seem to check where anyone is from and default to everyone being American. One of them apologized, which was nice. The other two didn't say a thing.

The next holiday is Canada Day on July 1st and the 4th of July for my neighbours. I normally don't get too many mix-ups, but there could be a first for everything. I'll keep you posted.

US election and the need for process improvement

The US election. I like watching election results because I'm a numbers person.

After all these years, I don't fully comprehend the electoral system. I find that the entire voting process drags on and could be scaled down to be more efficient.

That's just me, though. I look at inefficiencies with whatever I see and do. I do that at work, and make suggestions and proposals to make things better.

Luckily, I'm not tasked with making the US voting process simpler and easier. I applaud the record turnout. However, it seems ridiculous to spend eight hours lining up at a polling station to cast your important vote.

Anyway, I am still watching the election programming. I like that I can watch Global TV on Amazon Prime. It's cool and convenient.

Black Friday - ugh!

Happy belated Thanksgiving for all celebrating the day! I loved living in the States for a couple of years, mainly because I was thankful twice each year. I got to celebrate Canadian and American Thanksgiving.

Black Friday makes me cringe, though. I do not understand why an American trend is now alive and growing like the plague in Canada, other than for commercial reasons. Last year, I refused to participate. I am in the same boat today.

I think I am turned off by these alleged deals in Canada because I don't have anything to buy. I plan my gift-buying so well that I have been done my Christmas shopping since October!

If I do get the itch to buy at discount prices, I will either give Cyber Monday a shot, or wait till we have Boxing Day sales in December.

My rant about Boxing Day sales getting extended in recent years to Boxing week sales merits a new blog post down the road.

My guy, who is an avid shopper, doesn't mind Black Friday. However, he feels the same way that I do about the prices. He hasn't found decent prices on items that he wants. Meanwhile, he loves Boxing Day sales as much as I do.

Election to the south and Canada's immigration Web site crashed

In 2000, I moved to a city in Minnesota to start a new career, which has served me well ever since. It was the same year in which this Canadian had to endure the U.S. election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

I tuned in to ABC that evening. The results were tight. I went to bed. The following day, the results were still up in the air. It all came down to hanging chads and the archaic way of using punch-card ballots, which were made by my employer!

I sort of feel the same way with the U.S. election results right now. I don't expect an immediate, definitive result because the race is so tight. It is also sad that Americans seem to be voting for the lesser of two evils, relatively speaking.

One thing that my ex and my guy have in common? Politics. The former was a professor of political studies. My guy has an interest for politics. As for me, I have a love for math. So, I tune in to election results because I like numbers.

It's an important election. If Trump wins, some Americans have vowed to move to Canada. Our immigration Web site crashed a few hours ago. It's that bad.

It's funny, but my guy and I both heard about the site crash and we immediately told each other. We are one, even under weird circumstances like this one.