Frustrations

1. It's frustrating when your government confiscates your house plants, along with their pots, and incinerates them. Especially when you've had some of them for more than a decade--and ones that have sentimental value (Beth's 21st birthday, the plant from my grandfather's funeral, etc.). It's even more frustrating when they've only been outside of the US for just over one year and they've never been more than 2.1 miles from the US border. But apparently they're a threat to America.

2. It's frustrating when in order to get your car titled & licensed you have to get documentation from US Customs since you've had it titled outside of the US for a year. Actually that's not the frustrating part. The frustrating part is that in order to get the documentation from US Customs, you have to get a letter from the car manufacturer stating that it meets US EPA and DOT standards. And that's going to cost around $90 to get that letter. From a car we bought in the US, that was manufactured in 2004 and has only been outside the US for one year and it got tested in Canada to make sure it met Canada's emission standards, which are more stringent than the US. So, in order to prove that our car is okay to get tilted in Minnesota, it'll cost us $90--to show that a car we bought in the US, have previously had titled in the US and have driven in the US for most of it's life.

That's bureaucracy in action.