Update somewhat late - I got sent off to Albuquerque for 3 days on a business trip.
Well, we're now moved in to our house - 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a truly enormous lounge & kitchen/diner, along with nice polished hardwood floors, a neat fenced yard shaded by trees, even a brook running along the back of the property - altho it might just be a drainage channel I suppose.
Of course, as I don't have a social security number yet, we can't get financing for anything, so we only have a small amount of rented furniture, and the place feels pretty empty, but that will resolve in time - especially once all our junk arrives from Britain, in July. Still, nice to have somewhere more permanent (and cheaper!) than the motel.
Cat has been busy this week shopping for all the small bits you need for a home, and stocking the freezer & shelves (well, a few of them - the kitchen has so much storage, I can't conceive what we'll ever do with it all): so it's feeling more homelike, and she's starting to cook dinners so we aren't eating out all the time.
Brandy & Midnight took a day or so to forgive us for moving them *again* - they'd basically just recovered from the trauma of the long haul, when we packed them up and moved them again: but now they've discovered the Great Outdoors! and the joys of wading through the grass and sniffing the trees, for the first time in their lives, and I think we're well forgiven :) Even with the fenced yard, I'm a bit paranoid about letting them have free reign outside yet, so we have to herd them back inside when we go out.
Meanwhile, we're wandering around furniture stores identifying what we want to buy, once we're in a position to do so (however, I do fear we may get tripped up by another factor once the social security card arrives, namely, No Credit History - a pretty tricky hurdle to get over. Still, we'll find out about that pretty shortly I guess.)
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Finding our feet
The first day we were here was thankfully low stress. Ray Summers had offered to drive over from Oklahoma to chauffeur us around and help get us adjusted, but got delayed arriving with an issue with his car, so we spent a real quiet morning recuperating, and once he arrived just did a little initial scouting.
Friday was productive, tho - I got social security application underway (you can't do hardly anything in the USA without a social security numer), and opened a bank account, then joined Ray & Cat in starting the house-hunting, which consumed pretty much the rest of Friday & all Saturday. Ray & Cat had already looked at a couple of places when I joined them, and one looked quite feasible: but to widen the search, we got a listing from a rental agency.
We started by looking at the cheapest places (well, the cheapest we would consider) - my mistake, they were mostly dreadful, or at least rough, and located in some pretty shocking areas: quite a few we didn't even bother getting out of the car to examine, after counting the boarded-up windows & security notices. Once we worked our way up the list, we started having more lucky, and Saturday evening we saw 4 places in a row that were all very promising, so set up an interior viewing for each for Monday.
Sunday we had a look at a couple of the more expensive places (ones that didn't seem too far out of the city), but none of them looked worth the extra - one was pretty shoddily built & right beside a burnt out house, and another just looked a bit ... haphazard I guess, and didn't inspire any curiosity or positive feelings. After that we went to look at a car yard waaaaay out in North Little Rock, mostly because it was offering a BMW 325 at a decent price. Car yards being closed on Sundays here, all we could do was an external inspection, but it looked pretty good.
Ray left to drive the long haul home, around 5, and we just vegetated the rest of the day. I'm still amazed at his generosity and hlepfulness: I've known him for 9 or 10 years on the 'net, but never actually met before - that was somewhat of a surprise too, I thought he'd look like the typical geeky gamer, overweight & glasses, but he was actually quite Jimmy-Stewart like, both in appearance and in his manner - courteous & gentlemanly, and incredibly helpful.
Friday was productive, tho - I got social security application underway (you can't do hardly anything in the USA without a social security numer), and opened a bank account, then joined Ray & Cat in starting the house-hunting, which consumed pretty much the rest of Friday & all Saturday. Ray & Cat had already looked at a couple of places when I joined them, and one looked quite feasible: but to widen the search, we got a listing from a rental agency.
We started by looking at the cheapest places (well, the cheapest we would consider) - my mistake, they were mostly dreadful, or at least rough, and located in some pretty shocking areas: quite a few we didn't even bother getting out of the car to examine, after counting the boarded-up windows & security notices. Once we worked our way up the list, we started having more lucky, and Saturday evening we saw 4 places in a row that were all very promising, so set up an interior viewing for each for Monday.
Sunday we had a look at a couple of the more expensive places (ones that didn't seem too far out of the city), but none of them looked worth the extra - one was pretty shoddily built & right beside a burnt out house, and another just looked a bit ... haphazard I guess, and didn't inspire any curiosity or positive feelings. After that we went to look at a car yard waaaaay out in North Little Rock, mostly because it was offering a BMW 325 at a decent price. Car yards being closed on Sundays here, all we could do was an external inspection, but it looked pretty good.
Ray left to drive the long haul home, around 5, and we just vegetated the rest of the day. I'm still amazed at his generosity and hlepfulness: I've known him for 9 or 10 years on the 'net, but never actually met before - that was somewhat of a surprise too, I thought he'd look like the typical geeky gamer, overweight & glasses, but he was actually quite Jimmy-Stewart like, both in appearance and in his manner - courteous & gentlemanly, and incredibly helpful.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Landing, cats and things
Well, we've been here a week already, which seems a bit amazing all by itself.
The flight to Washington went well, even landed an hour early - just as well, as all that extra time was soaked up dealing with Immigration & Customs, and getting our cats inspected for the flight onwards to Little Rock. Speaking of which, the little furballs didn't like the trip in the least - at the Washington stop they were pretty unhappy, but calmed down once Cat had cleaned their cages of stuff, and replaced the towels. Unfortunately, the flight to Little Rock was delayed by an hour, and when we went to board it, we saw the cat cages had been brought out and left on the tarmac beside the hold while all the baggage was loading - a particularly thoughtless and cruel thing to do, as the area was INCREDIBLY noisy with jet engines revving up everywhere. Cat remonstrated with the (I think Haitian) attendant, to absolutely no effect of course (the rules must be obeyed, ja wohl?)
Once we got to the motel and decanted them, they were both pretty traumatised from the noise, and the uncertainty, and it took a couple of days before they recovered enough to even show interest in cat treats or tuna. They're still a bit disgruntled, but I think that's partly just the change of routine, plus the small area they have - one room plus a bathroom.
I started work on Monday but they werent/arent ready for me, so I still haven't done anything worth speaking of, nor even gotten the basic paperwork done: nice to see HR departments are equally useless all around the world! More on this next time :)
It appears we now may have a rental property arranged for a 10 month lease - 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, enormous lounge, and fenced back yard to keep the cats safe. Havent heard definitively yet, but it seems to be going well (there are also a couple of other nearby properties if this does fall through).
Weather has been warm to hot (up to 90 one day), and some humid.
More tomorrow
The flight to Washington went well, even landed an hour early - just as well, as all that extra time was soaked up dealing with Immigration & Customs, and getting our cats inspected for the flight onwards to Little Rock. Speaking of which, the little furballs didn't like the trip in the least - at the Washington stop they were pretty unhappy, but calmed down once Cat had cleaned their cages of stuff, and replaced the towels. Unfortunately, the flight to Little Rock was delayed by an hour, and when we went to board it, we saw the cat cages had been brought out and left on the tarmac beside the hold while all the baggage was loading - a particularly thoughtless and cruel thing to do, as the area was INCREDIBLY noisy with jet engines revving up everywhere. Cat remonstrated with the (I think Haitian) attendant, to absolutely no effect of course (the rules must be obeyed, ja wohl?)
Once we got to the motel and decanted them, they were both pretty traumatised from the noise, and the uncertainty, and it took a couple of days before they recovered enough to even show interest in cat treats or tuna. They're still a bit disgruntled, but I think that's partly just the change of routine, plus the small area they have - one room plus a bathroom.
I started work on Monday but they werent/arent ready for me, so I still haven't done anything worth speaking of, nor even gotten the basic paperwork done: nice to see HR departments are equally useless all around the world! More on this next time :)
It appears we now may have a rental property arranged for a 10 month lease - 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, enormous lounge, and fenced back yard to keep the cats safe. Havent heard definitively yet, but it seems to be going well (there are also a couple of other nearby properties if this does fall through).
Weather has been warm to hot (up to 90 one day), and some humid.
More tomorrow
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