It's looking like J. may well have his work authorization -- and a fast-track to the green card -- by July 6!!

This will be exactly in time for him to begin his old-gig-under-a-new-name as originally scheduled.  Moreover, it means we won't have to live on my meager salary for weeks or months, and it also means that I WILL get home to Chicago for a ( Read more... )

It's in the upper 90s here in the Deep South, and we are NOT enjoying the weather. This is my third summer here, and it seems to take a couple of weeks of exhaustion to adjust to the dramatic heat and humidity. So that's where we're at now: EXHAUSTED BY THE HEAT.  We were in bed last night minutes after the WGN news came on.

The weather is also ( Read more... )

Y'know how when you clean on a weekly basis, there are some chores (mmm -- like dusting a zillion bookshelves and picking up all the kitsch that gathers on them around the books?) -- that you relegate to the back burner thinking, "Ya, I need to clean that, too, but not today'? Unfortunately for me, that today has come, and I'm going to spend much ( Read more... )

I am amazed that I've failed to mention that J. and I are giving "the vegan lifestyle" (supercilious quotation marks are intentional) a try for the month of June. Can you believe it?

So far, it's going well. Since this is a try-on rather than a strict regimen, we've made some exceptions, but we've been able to stick to the rule that we are ( Read more... )

We have dutifully, politely, and efficiently resubmitted the allegedly-wayward form as part of J's aplication for permanent residency, and we have even supplied MORE EVIDENCE than they asked for in support of the form ( Read more... )

We've been feeling pretty good about the green card/work permit process for J. I mean. we're working on a tight deadline and all, but things have been skating along nicely ( Read more... )

Meet the Atlanta Braves' newest fan!

As a coping mechanism for life in the GCW, we've managed to spend the last two weekends in Atlanta. On Sunday, we took in an afternoon baseball game -- Brewers at Braves -- at Turner Field. It was J's first MLB game, and he was like a kid on Christmas.


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I haven't meant to be away from posting, but I've been rather consumed by work these last weeks. Sadly, much of it was work-drama, not work-work (though I did manage to confirm and award 420 degrees a couple of weeks ago ( Read more... )

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My Twitter update sums it up: the green card process is unintuitive, the USAF is rigid and antiquarian, and I'd like to tell the USCIS to kiss my ass. We are in the midst of the green card process for John, and it is hell: not only is it the antithesis of user-friendly, but the language is simultaneously redundant and unclear (and this is coming ( Read more... )