Groundhog Day

Well it was a big day in North America as both Canada & the US paid heed to their respective groundhogs emerging from their den to forecast the arrival of spring.  Fortunately the best known Canadian prognosticator Wiarton Willie in Wiarton, Ontario never saw his shadow, meaning an early end to winter and early spring.  His counterparts in America varied, but generally saw there shadow, forecasting a prolonged winter.
  In keeping with this momentous occasion, Patti hosted her annual groundhog day lunch, to which she invites over a dozen ladies in the park.  Like last year, Marg attended this year where they sang some hilarious songs about the famous rodents and impending spring weather.  No males are invited, so that meant over a dozen of us left to find our own lunch.  For my part it was a tomato and cheese sandwich, a far cry from the delights that awaited the ladies attending Patti's lunch.
   My morning started out with a bike ride with the guys.  It was a nice sunny morning and warmed very quickly as the sun gained height.  We had a short tour today, only made about 4 miles, but it was a good workout.  After that Marg joined me to go to Lowes & pick out a light fixture for the walk-in closet in the trailer.  I also needed to get a circuit tester to avoid getting a jolt like our heating guy did.  That was a good lesson on safely working with electricity for me.  In retrospect it was pretty funny when he was jumping around, but it could have been serious.  With that we had to make a stop at Walmart to return the battery one we had previously purchased.  This gave me something other than sandwich making to do while Marg was at her lunch.  By the time she returned both tasks were completed.
  After lunch we went out to the IRS office to get a tax form.  It seems we need to complete a Closer Connection Exemption Statement for Aliens as we are sometimes in the US for more than 120 days in a calendar year.  Ignorance is bliss they say and that is truly the case with this.  If not for the rumour mill down here, we would never have heard of it.  It appears they look to collect income tax from people here for more than that many days unless you can establish another country as your primary tax residence.  This is also where the 183 day max. comes in where you have no choice other than pay taxes here.  This seems to be the result of information sharing on border crossings between the 2 countries electronically and they can now see how long aliens are in the country.  In the past they could only see when we came in and Canada could only see when we returned.  Turns out they never had the form, it can only be obtained on their web site or by a phone request.  So the only outcome of the visit was my getting to meet a stern young man with a pistol who checked me at the door to ensure I was unarmed.
   On the way back to the park, we stopped at a roadside stand and bought oranges.  It seems these are the last they will be able to get, likely the end of the season for them, this way anyway.  For the future we will have to go to a u-pick farm or to the ranch market, I guess. We also stopped at Costco on the way back.  We really have not been shopping there very much this year.  With their changing the credit card issuer in Canada we are no longer able to use it here.  This eliminates the rebates & with them some of the appeal.  We got back just in time for happy hour.  The women out-numbered us today, nothing unusual.  Lots of talk about the super bowl today and then about the Phoenix open.
  After supper Marg went to do laundry and I went to play poker.  They were short of players today otherwise I was only going to play once a week.  Will have to see about Wednesday now.