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The Adventures of a Canuck in California

By Renee Slowley

Episode 1: The Transition

In 2003, I married a marine. How in the heck did I manage that!! Well it’s a long story… He wasn’t a marine when I met him. That was 8 years ago. But I‘ll come back to that later. Most Americans have misconceptions about Canadians, some think we all live in the tundra in igloos, wear snowshoes and look at beavers and moose, play hockey and drink Molson Canadian beer all day. Some think that the police always ride around on horses, and the only word we know is “eh”. My goal wasn’t to come down to the States and prove all Americans wrong or anything, but just start my life over fresh. I got quite the shock of my life on the way here to California. Since my husband was going to be stationed at Camp Pendleton, we arrived in LAX, only to our dismay when we found out that it would have been a lot closer if we had gotten a flight to San Diego! I was excited about being in Los Angeles and the aura and sensationalism of the city, but my husband and I were not happy about having to take a taxi from LAX to the Horno gate on Pendleton. It was cool looking at the freeway signs with familiar city names on it (Compton, Inglewood, Long Beach, Anaheim, etc) and seeing the occasional expensive sports car pass by too, but the meter on the taxi was on 200 dollars by the time we got to Ward Lodging near the Back Gate!!

The checking in process was pretty annoying, both at the hotel and onto the base, because we didn’t have a car when we first arrived, and I made sure I dressed up real nice along with my husband who was decked out in his Alphas to go to G Pac to check in. we had to walk about half a mile up the street and all the while getting strange looks. It was quite uncomfortable to say the least. Since we had gotten married in Hawaii and I had my first taste of Jack in the Box there, I was elated to find out that there was one across the street from the hotel. I became addicted to their cheddar bacon wedges, and we ate them almost everyday during our stay at the hotel (maybe it was more of a craving because I was pregnant with my daughter at the time.) We finally rented a car, a Green Mitsubishi Gallant that guzzled gas like it was water, and it didn’t help matters either because my husband had to drive to the 43 area back to Mainside every day until our real car shipped in. I was taking in all of the new sights and sounds, sights like people dressed in uniform everyday, flag raising and lowering, marines marching and PT’ing and sounds like revely and the sounds of artillery and gunfire at the range.

We moved out of the hotel and into base housing, my husband and I were excited at the fact that we were living together for the first time in a house! I was pretty shocked to learn that the Base not only had its own jack in the box, but its own grocery store that had a fancy name (the commissary) I was gearing up getting ready to buy some of my favorite food (mostly junk like Joe Louis’, smartest, ketchup chips and strawberry passion awareness Fruitopia) but to my horror, they didn’t have any of those things there!!! No where to be found were my favorite places to eat and shop here in California! Even the milk tasted different! I had to tell myself that I was in for the long run and that I would have to put up with not having the nearest Tim Horton’s donuts or eating a poutine at KFC to go to for comfort, because they didn’t sell them here in the states!

With all that said I have come to appreciate the new things, like the job my dear husband and marine have to get up Monday to Friday at 5:30 for. I appreciate the beauty of the state with its calming beaches and warm sunshine (I don’t miss winters in Canada!) I appreciate the countless opportunities and amenities base life has to offer, (who can beat working out at a gym for free and discount child care!) I was going to miss home, but it would take some getting used to being in my new home. I will admit that I am terribly homesick and would love to visit home at the drop of a dime, But I’ve learned that I have to give my new home a chance, even If there are some different things about it.

Episode 2: Staying here permanently and dealing with deployment

The last time we left off I was just getting settled onto Camp Pendleton. Everything seemed fine until I realized that I won’t be returning home for a long, LONG while. The next thing for me to do would be to become a permanent resident here in the United States. Little did I know that I was in for a stressful ride. Given the time it took my husband to become a citizen here himself, I wasn’t ready to deal with it at first, until he explained to me the possibilities that would open up to me as soon as I became a resident here permanently. I was getting very aggravated at the thought of sitting at home not working or contributing to my household when that’s what I was doing before I came to the states. Seeing as how there is a legal office here on Camp Pendleton, we went there for advice and to see how long it would take for the whole process. After that, then we received the long paperwork, and began filling it out. Then came the ugly photos required for the package. I didn’t feel too hot seeing as how I was a few months pregnant at the time, and the picture turned out like a mug shot! I felt upbeat that the ball was starting to roll on this project, until we were hit with a bombshell. My husband was going to be deployed to Iraq.

I wasn’t ready for all of this yet! My husband leaving me behind! The great thing that came out of the whole thing was that he was present at our daughter’s birth and got to spend a couple months with her before he left. The day he left was a hard one, as it is for most spouses when they have see a loved one go or leave one behind. I went home and cried my eyes out and wondered what I was going to do with myself for the next 7 months. I was in charge of the household, my daughter and everything else that goes along with the job. On top of all that it was hard watching or reading the news because I feared that id get the infamous knock or the telephone call. I tried as hard as I could to keep in touch with my husband while he was stationed in Iraq He tried to call me as much as he could and I tried to talk to him via instant messenger when he was available. I couldn’t sleep the nights he told me that he was going on a convoy. I feared the worst! I think I even emailed the commandant himself asking if there was any way my husband could be brought home! Then another A bomb dropped. My husband had a minor stroke while on the convoy, and was on his way home.

After that piece of information hit I was truly flabbergasted. How can a 25 year old man have a stroke? Well, it happened like this. While on another convoy a day or so before, he jumped off a 7 ton truck and unbeknownst to him, he hairline fractured a bone in his foot. There was clotting, and the clot traveled up to his brain and got stuck causing deep vein thrombosis and causing a minor stroke! I thanked the Lord that it wasn’t worse because he could have died. There was such a waiting game for him to actually arrive back home, because of the many stops, in Baghdad, in Germany, at Edwards Air force Base, another air force base here in California, then finally in the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. He only spent 2 months in Iraq before he had the stroke. I didn’t know whether to be happy that he was home early or sad that he was injured and had to deal with the after effects for the rest of his life.

To this day the love of my life is still recovering, and he has aftershocks caused by the stroke and has to take medicine for the rest of his life. He’s been in and out of the hospital because of them, and its torture to see him suffer the way he does. But several months after he came home, we resumed the process of getting myself here as a resident permanently. I had to get a medical exam and fingerprinted. I was pregnant with my son (conceived a couple months after my husbands return) and it was funny to hear the doctor look in my mouth and exclaim, “Wow you have really pretty teeth!” I thought to myself “well I thought a dentist would say that “and laughed to myself. After the medical exam, we got all the necessary documents together and send them all in along with the fee, only to our shock that it was sent back because we overpaid INS (immigration and naturalization service.) After the recalculation and re-mailing, it was a nail biting waiting game. 3 months passed and I received a phone call about attending a workshop on how to pass the INS interview. I had to ask the gentleman when my interview was and he told me it was the following week (we moved into a new house and the notice went to my old address) needless to say I was psyched but very nervous at the same time! What if I said the wrong thing or answered the questions wrong? When D-day finally arrived I made sure I looked my best and practiced what I was going to say. I was lucky enough to get a really nice interviewer who asked like 3 easy questions, and fell in love with my children ( we brought them along) I passed the interview, but still had to turn in some fingerprints for the rest of the paperwork to be processed. After that was done it was another waiting game for a couple more months and December rolled around and I got the greatest Christmas present ever, the Welcome letter that lets you know you are now a Permanent Resident! I jumped up and down! I kissed my husband! Then it hit me…. I still have to wait for the actual card, because they mail that after the note. The letter says 3 weeks but 4 months later I am still waiting for the thing in my mailbox. I check my mail every day waiting for it to come. I’ll keep you posted when it actually does come and the next adventure begins from there!