Restful Weekend(s)

We took it easy this weekend. That was perfectly fine by me as I was busy last week with a trade show in Detroit. Saturday morning I slept in until 9. Hawk and I had lunch together, then met a friend for dinner. Sunday we saw other friends for lunch and to hang out with for the afternoon. That was pretty much it.

The previous weekend was relaxing, too. We stayed home. As we did the previous weekend, as well. In fact I haven't done more than putter around on a weekend since getting back from Florida— the star-crossed combination leisure/work trip interrupted on both ends by weather— at the end of September.

Partly it's the weather. We're having Fall weather now (yes, for more than just 1-2 weeks!) so it's not as nice going out to the places we like to go out to. Still, I can't place all the blame on the weather. I've let myself drift for a few weeks. On the one hand, it has been a few weekends of well deserved rest. On the other hand, there's such as thing as taking it too easy.

Global Entry Interview: Scheduled. Tomorrow!

Twoe weeks ago Hawk and I applied to renew our Global Entry credentials. They expire in December and January. The government quickly approved us conditionally— meaning our credentials were provisionally extended for several more months. We'd need to complete interviews to renew fully for another 5 year term. That sounds like a sensible process, right? The problem was interviews are almost completely unavailable for the next 12 months.

"I'll check back periodically," I promised myself. I know that often the way government schedules work is that appointments are made available in small blocks on some regular schedule, like once a week or once a month. I checked two weeks ago Monday... nothing. I checked last week Monday, too; also nothing. I checked on a few other days of the week, as well, since Monday is not always the key.

I checked again today... I hit pay-dirt! I found about two dozen virtual appointments open Tue-Wed-Thu this week. (And nothing for the rest of the year. They might only load appointments a week at a time.) I booked one for myself tomorrow midafternoon and called Hawk at work to let her know. Now she's got one for Wednesday after work.

I'm glad we'll get these taken care of early and via Zoom rather than having to keep checking back for in-person appointments all over the country, or worrying about what the lines might be like for doing "Enrollment on Arrival" the first time we return from a foreign trip. We don't even have a foreign trip planned at the moment. It's nice to clear this bureaucratic hurdle separately from all the other complexity of traveling overseas.