In which I display a charming naivete
G'day all!
Estes Park fibre festival has slipped beyond my reach. I won't get to meet Chris or Margene or any of the knitbloggers who will be there or catch up with ones I've met (Kristi). Sniffle.
But on the bright side we have a few more days with the cats and more time to tidy up the yard and plant stuff and offload stuff onto friends.
OK, why naive? Cos I trusted the US govt to deliver when it said it would. The guy at the "interview" said it would take two days to issue the visa. With a stupid public holiday (normally I *love* public holidays but when you are unemployed every day is a public holiday) delaying things by a day, I thought the visas would be here by Wednesday - after all our interview was on last Thursday. They told a guy who was flying out this Saturday that his visa would be issued by then.
Alas, I should never trust a government (department) that says something will be issued quickly. Most Australian government departments say it will take X weeks to process, so when you get the thing in a week you are delighted. Always underpromise and overdeliver - people get grumpy first and then get a pleasant surprise. I especially should not trust a government who will be calling me a subsidiary (temporary) alien or words to that effect. Man it just makes me wanna put on a pair of blue shrek-type ears and wander around being an alien....
So I have forewarning of what it will be like dealing with US government departments. They will take away everything you could entertain yourself with (you could tell the clever ones who had done this game before - they had a book), make you wait for ever for your "interview" (interviews involve talking to people and getting some idea of who they are, not just looking at forms, eyeballing you to see if you look like the person in the photo and also taking your fingerprints like you are some sort of criminal), provide "entertainment" in the form of a DVD screensaver (ie a box bouncing around the screen of a widescreen tv, I kid you not), then tell you that you have not filled in a form that they didn't previously tell you to fill in, a form that has the same information in it that the other two forms have but is a combination of both, send you to the back of the queue again, then an hour or so later look at the forms, ask you a dumb question about your marriage date (why YES it is September 11. What is wrong with that?) and your weight and say whatever it is will be issued in two days when they really mean some indeterminate time of their choosing.
Not that I am bitter or anything.
(Yes I realise that many Americans are genuinely nice people, but your government depts seem to be tied up in red tape and you also use personal cheques for everything rather than eftpos plus you use imperial measurements and your speed signs are rectangular with words rather than being numbers in a big round red circle. However, I won't hold that against you ;-)
So today I go do some shopping. We do not have enough food in the house to make nice meals. We have plenty of food that we don't like, mind you, but not the stuff we do like. I can continue to tidy up the place - it is almost done and suddenly the house feels MUCH bigger. So much less crap. We can do our inventory of the stuff that is going in the air cargo. I envision many happy hours counting socks, undies, various items of clothes and about 250 knitting books and sheet music books. I am not counting all the balls of yarn. We have time to work out what will fit in the suitcase and backpack.
I might even take a photo of my current knitting project. Yes, there is only one of them! There are some wips but I have to find them again... And now I am thinking I should go find another project that I stored and see if I can fix it up over the next couple of days. Or maybe I can torture you with pics form the past - intarsia and fair isles that I did in the 80s and 90s!
anon!
Estes Park fibre festival has slipped beyond my reach. I won't get to meet Chris or Margene or any of the knitbloggers who will be there or catch up with ones I've met (Kristi). Sniffle.
But on the bright side we have a few more days with the cats and more time to tidy up the yard and plant stuff and offload stuff onto friends.
OK, why naive? Cos I trusted the US govt to deliver when it said it would. The guy at the "interview" said it would take two days to issue the visa. With a stupid public holiday (normally I *love* public holidays but when you are unemployed every day is a public holiday) delaying things by a day, I thought the visas would be here by Wednesday - after all our interview was on last Thursday. They told a guy who was flying out this Saturday that his visa would be issued by then.
Alas, I should never trust a government (department) that says something will be issued quickly. Most Australian government departments say it will take X weeks to process, so when you get the thing in a week you are delighted. Always underpromise and overdeliver - people get grumpy first and then get a pleasant surprise. I especially should not trust a government who will be calling me a subsidiary (temporary) alien or words to that effect. Man it just makes me wanna put on a pair of blue shrek-type ears and wander around being an alien....
So I have forewarning of what it will be like dealing with US government departments. They will take away everything you could entertain yourself with (you could tell the clever ones who had done this game before - they had a book), make you wait for ever for your "interview" (interviews involve talking to people and getting some idea of who they are, not just looking at forms, eyeballing you to see if you look like the person in the photo and also taking your fingerprints like you are some sort of criminal), provide "entertainment" in the form of a DVD screensaver (ie a box bouncing around the screen of a widescreen tv, I kid you not), then tell you that you have not filled in a form that they didn't previously tell you to fill in, a form that has the same information in it that the other two forms have but is a combination of both, send you to the back of the queue again, then an hour or so later look at the forms, ask you a dumb question about your marriage date (why YES it is September 11. What is wrong with that?) and your weight and say whatever it is will be issued in two days when they really mean some indeterminate time of their choosing.
Not that I am bitter or anything.
(Yes I realise that many Americans are genuinely nice people, but your government depts seem to be tied up in red tape and you also use personal cheques for everything rather than eftpos plus you use imperial measurements and your speed signs are rectangular with words rather than being numbers in a big round red circle. However, I won't hold that against you ;-)
So today I go do some shopping. We do not have enough food in the house to make nice meals. We have plenty of food that we don't like, mind you, but not the stuff we do like. I can continue to tidy up the place - it is almost done and suddenly the house feels MUCH bigger. So much less crap. We can do our inventory of the stuff that is going in the air cargo. I envision many happy hours counting socks, undies, various items of clothes and about 250 knitting books and sheet music books. I am not counting all the balls of yarn. We have time to work out what will fit in the suitcase and backpack.
I might even take a photo of my current knitting project. Yes, there is only one of them! There are some wips but I have to find them again... And now I am thinking I should go find another project that I stored and see if I can fix it up over the next couple of days. Or maybe I can torture you with pics form the past - intarsia and fair isles that I did in the 80s and 90s!
anon!
i agree with almost everything, except don't go around trying to use personal checks. very few stores will accept them, and you'll piss off everyone waiting in line behind you. i say this as someone who has worked in retail :D
ReplyDeletedealing with my government almost always pisses me off. the only time i've ever been impressed with them was the immediate free health care i got when i was pregnant, with minimal paperwork to complete.
you could have asked "us" about the government red tape here we would have told you...i feel bad that it has messed up all of your plans :-( but i am not surprised...seriously not being rude but the red tape pisses us off as well...but at least you notice that the government garbage isn't what the citzens are all about....sorry that the start of your journey here is wonky, but when you get here we will welcome you and you will have friends here! :-D
ReplyDeleteYou poor thing!
ReplyDeleteI am starting to understand why so many Americans move to Australia!
I hope it all sorts itself out soon. What a pain in the butt
Katt
What a pain but at least you get more time with your kitties. Try to stay positive, its all part of the adventure. (And no adventure would be complete without its scary bits and cliffhangers!) ;-)
ReplyDeleteSo now you have some time to breathe anyway.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, 'sheet music'? What instrument do you play, ye of the hidden talents?
Alas! :( Darn it. I'll be around Ft Collins until Thursday morning, but doesn't sound promising.
ReplyDeleteHey, we don't use personal checks for everything anymore. :) But the govt red tape? Totally predictible, alas.