On the road...er...in the air again...er...

With shoes for perspective
Originally uploaded by Nancy Dunne

So, here's an update/timeline for you three or four loyal readers that I have here at the Lettuce...

23 March
Receive check for retirement account refund from SCDMH. Do myriad of happy dances. Make mental note to include myriad in next blog post. Rediscover twitter, twitpic, and blip.fm. Completely lose control of rest of day.

24 March
Stop happy dancing at news that funds will not be available to use for flights, luggage, sushi, etc. until possibly 25-26 March. Resolve to charge now, pay later, and hope that the pet relocation people won't be too quick to turn in the debit to the bank.

25 March
Book travel for everyone except me. Have short breakdown over thoughts of sending my precious ones in a plane without me, then put my chin back up and move on. Remind self that I must learn to at least look British. Hold chin a bit higher, stiffen lip, and fill out mountains of forms for animal travel. Book final appointment with vet for 31 March.

26 March
Surf around checking out flights. Discover that BA is, oddly enough, cheaper than Delta regardless of not being a non-stop. Purchase terrifically snazzy carry on bag at Garden Ridge and resolve to purchase entire new set of GOOD luggage for journey. Set leave date for 7 April. Decide to wait one more day to purchase ticket.

That brings us to today...and I still haven't purchased my ticket. It's going to have to be today, though, because I don't think the sweet fare on BA will last much longer. All the holds placed on the funds in my account are lifted, so I can get my ticket as well as pay off my credit cards. So things are looking up...until I think of how much I'll miss Greenville when I drive down main street...or shop at Target...or just drive my car. But the changes coming will be good and are needed, I think. Now if I can just figure out what to do with the stuff that's left behind!

Happy Friday!

Almost home...
Originally uploaded by Nancy Dunne

I'm trying something new for me...being positive. Here goes.

I'm positive that it's been too long since I've seen my husband.

I'm positive that I'm just going through the motions here and that my heart and soul are already in the UK.

I'm positive that I won't get the $7K I need from my car to make travel arrangements for my animals.

I'm positive that I love blip.fm or I wouldn't have put it at the bottom of my blog (hint hint, scroll down!).

I'm positive that South Carolina isn't home anymore.

There, how's that?

After Vacation Blues

The Hounda
Originally uploaded by Nancy Dunne

Not really...more like the "I Can't Seem To Get To The UK" blues. I've got to do some real work to get my car sold. Somehow the idea of selling it on Craigslist or other such wasn't appealing...it's like I've had Ghost for so long now to sell her to someone I don't know doesn't feel right. But what feels even less right is that I haven't seen Simon since January 28th.

I think the easiest thing is to go to Carmax and see what they will give me for her. Boy, even considering the fact that if I don't see Simon soon I'll explode, that still seems harsh. They can't see what I see in her. They don't see the car that took me to Sandy Paws to pick up Daisy after taking me and Profile for one last ride from Austell, GA to the vet in South Carolina. They don't know that it was Ghost that took me to see Simon for the first time, or that provided me with a safe and warm place to camp at the Renn Fest.

They don't know that the hole in the front bumper represented the first time I thought my move to Montgomery was a mistake. They weren't there when I got Joanne to believe that the rusty spot on the side (barely noticeable) was from being shot at while driving rather than a rock hitting me on the highway. They've never looked back into gorgeous brown greyhound eyes staring intently into Ghost's rear view mirror.

She holds a lot of memories for me, good old Ghost, and it's just all part of what has become my life now...a lot of letting go. Leap, and the net will appear, right?

Eyes Wide Shut

sleep
Originally uploaded by Nancy Allen

I noticed as I was coming out of the grocery store the other day that I shut my eyes a lot when I walk. Once I've cleared the area where cars might run me down and I know how many steps there are left to the car, I close my eyes and walk a few of them in darkness. I don't know why I do that, but I've always done it. When I'm going up the stairs at the old house, for instance, I close my eyes and one-two-three-four-five...all the way to number 15 at the top where I open them again.

I think we spend a lot of time with our eyes closed, both figuratively and literally. Not sleeping, mind you, just closed. We shut out things that are too bright, too colorful, too painful or even too joyous for a minute or two so that we can get a grip on them before we have to see them again. We close our eyes to concentrate on a math problem or to find just the right words in a conversation. I close my eyes when I feel tears coming on, which has been often lately, so that I can somehow quell the tide before they stream down my cheeks, possibly making me seem weak in the eyes of whatever or whomever has brought me to that point.

What am I blocking out that I need to see? What am I missing in those moments that I shut my eyes, whether walking in the parking lot or sitting at a coffee shop with friends? Am I missing things on purpose? Things that I can't or don't want to see?

Lately, I've been trying to keep my eyes open more...to memorize what I see around me. When I come back to the US to visit, things will look different to me, and I want to remember how they look now. Eyes wide open, taking in Greenville and Cleveland and Atlanta and all my friends and family...at least for the next three weeks. I might even keep them open for once as the plane takes off.

Let it snow, let it snow...

Let it snow, let it snow...
Originally uploaded by Nancy Allen

Finally we're settled, sort of, at Anne's...after a rainy two days loading a moving truck (that wasn't big enough), a third day of trying to move in the snow (you haven't lived till you've carried a desk down a snowy stair with quarter sized snowflakes getting caught in your eyelashes...and a fourth day of basically squatting in my former house waiting for my parents to return with a rental van to get the rest of my junk.

But during that snowy adventure I saw my Daisy girl play, really PLAY with her new housemate Ray. My Mills has achieved a new level of brave living with his new feline housemate, Molly. And I've pushed myself beyond what I thought I could do...and I'm not dead...yet.

Now, off to sell my car...anyone want a 2003 Honda Element with almost 190k miles on it? The Hounda is a Good Good Car that has been very good to me and the dogs. It's a Honda, so it probably has another 100k in it. Going for $7k...which is a steal for one of the first Elements to roll off the assembly line if you ask me.

I'm going...somewhere...

TO KEIGHLEY...

From my email box today...

Your visa has been issued.

Wow. WOW! That's it...UK here I come...

Leap, and the net will appear...or the mail will, at least.

(Many apologies to Christine Kane for that title...that song is keeping me sane these days, so it's no wonder it's at the forefront of my mind.)

Well, somewhere about an hour or so after that blog post about my passport, I decided that there was nothing I could do to fix it until the PO updated their website tonight and I knew where my passports/marriage certificate/etc. had ended up.

I didn't check it until I'd been to Anne's and we had a great dinner followed by much fun in an altogether TOO quiet Target. I'm still smiling.

Label/Receipt Number: xxxxxxxxxxx
Status: Delivered
Your item was delivered at 11:13 AM on February 17, 2009 in NEW YORK, NY 10022. The item was signed for by J BLTH.

Dream, and the way will be clear. Pray, and the angels will hear. Leap...and the net will appear... C.Kane, "Right Outta Nowhere"

And speaking of my thumb...

My fun fact for the day from Wikipedia:

Hitchhiker's thumb

The thumb when extended (as in a "thumbs-up") can extend backwards toward the nail and outwards, a recessive congenital condition known as "hitchhiker's thumb", whereas for other people it will extend straight out with little backward bending. Having either condition appears to have no effect on the thumb's function. While most people have either "hitchhiker's thumb" on both thumbs or neither, in some people, the condition only presents itself on one thumb.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

I have this condition. In both thumbs. Think I'm going for another cup of tea now.

Passport to Nowhere

Here's the current visa application ordeal, in bullet points:

• Got all the paperwork collected and colated and paperclipped and sent on 5 February.
• Realised that I hadn't sent my passports in with said application on 6 February, ran to the post office and sent them on along after the application.
• Got confirmation that the paperwork had arrived on 7 February but never got same for the passports.
• Got passports returned on 8 February, but since I was working I couldn't sign for them so they were held by UPS until 9 February.
• Spoke to the folks at the consulate on 8 February, assured them that once I had the passports in hand on 9 February I would overnight them so they would have the complete application on 10 February.
• Was told that they don't hold applications (even though at the start of this conversation the man had called me to see if he should hold my application because my passports were not included and was I sending them on along?) and that I'd get the paperwork back by 10 February.
• Cried, yelled, and threw things out of sheer frustration, exacerbated by not having seen my husband since 28 January.
• Collected all my materials from UPS, got a certified check for another $12 so that they would send my materials back AGAIN, and sent everything off in the mail on 13 February.
  
• Checked with the USPS employee when I sent all of this overnighted to make sure that even though it would arrive on Saturday, that they would still accept it? (I'm not paying almost $20 to send something to have it sent back, thank you.
• Checked the tracking number on Saturday, 14 February after 12pm (guaranteed delivery time) to find THIS on the website:

Label/Receipt Number: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Status: Undeliverable as Addressed

Your item was undeliverable as addressed at 10:50 AM on February 14, 2009 in NEW YORK, NY 10022. It is being returned if appropriate information is available.

If anyone happens to see my sanity running around anywhere, could you please just step on it and hold it in place until this whole ordeal is over and I am where I should be, which is with my husband in England? Oh, and if you have any spare change lying around to help me get the dogs and Mills to England that would be great too.

Seriously...I have come closer to my absolute breaking point more times in the past month than I have in all my 37 years. And yet I go on, hoping against hope that they will try one more time to deliver it today before they send it back (not likely it will be overnighted BACK) and I have to get ugly at the post office.

I just want to point out, though, that it says that they will be returned IF appropriate information is available. IF. Appropriate information was available for it to be delivered (I copied the address directly from the website for the consulate) and it wasn't, so I'm having a mini panic attack that I may never see my passports again. And let's just don't even consider what waiting six weeks more for a new one before I can apply for the visa again will do to my ability to walk upright and use my prehensile thumb...

Visa Photos, Take One...

So I head out to put my visa application in the mail, planning a stop at Walgreen's to get my photo done. I'd been trying all day to do it myself because I'm cheap, but it's incredibly difficult to set up the camera exactly right so that you get just your head and shoulders and not this:


(I was on the phone to Simon, who was looking up the regs for the photo for me.)

Or this:


(Ignore the state of the bed, I seem to create a playground for the girls to NEST in if I ever try to make it properly...)

Or my very favorite, titled "How on EARTH could I not see that I was that FAR out of the center of the lens?"



I got to Walgreens shortly after four, thinking it would be easy in and out. WRONG. I was to be thwarted in my plan by a Certified Photo Technician Manager type who clearly had an imbalance in his green teeth/acne to authority-given-by-the-store ratio. Ten minutes after I'd told him what I needed, he had the background set up (it pulls down out of the top of one of the rows, not tough), had found the camera used to take passport photos, and was ready for me to sit down. Another ten minutes and we had the picture taken. I wish I was exaggerating.

We then went to the machine that makes the picture into a passport photo. He's clicking along through the screens and ended up on one that says "What type of document is this photo for?" or something like that (with considerably better grammar, of course). Doogie (as I'm choosing to call him) scrolls down and clicks US Passport. Now during the 20 minutes it took for set up and photography I've told him at least three times that this is for a VISA for the UNITED KINGDOM and not a US Passport.

Me: Sorry, did you just click US?
Doogie: Yep.
Me: But this is for a UK Visa, could you click UK?
Doogie: It's the same.
Me: Well, I'd feel better if you clicked UK then.
Doogie: Well, I don't know how to do the UK one so I'm using the US one.
Me: I thought you said it was the same?
Doogie: Well, it is, (here's the important part) but it's bigger on the screen, the head is, and I don't know how to arrange it, so we're gonna use the US one.

(I feel it is important to mention here that I have read, re-read and re-read AGAIN the regs for the visa, the photo, the PETS Scheme to get the animals into the UK, and even the weight and size limits on baggage over the past year and I can probably quote the UK Border Agency Home Office's opinion on all of them if needed.)

Me: You mean the aspect ratio is different? It is, you're right, so can we switch to UK?
Doogie: It's all about the same, we'll just use the US one.
Me: Okay, so when I send this in and they reject it because the photo isn't right, I can just bring these back and get new ones done properly for free, yeah?
Doogie: Well duh. Hey, do you know anything about computers?
Me: What?
Doogie: I'm a computer tech, right, and they're expecting me to use a DOS machine. This store sucks.

He hit continue and then nothing happened. We stood there a few minutes and finally I asked if they would be ready to be picked up any time soon. He said yes, they were printing right now. I had to get away from him before I hit him and so I went to pick up something I needed elsewhere in the store and came back. Doogie was gone, so I stared down another employee until she asked if I needed anything. I said that I was waiting on my passport photos. Doogie, who clearly has superhuman hearing, shouted "Oh, is SHE back already?"

Finally he printed them and then...after I've been in the store for 45 minutes...says "Oh, these aren't right."

Sorry? What?

There was a teeny bluish haze around my shoulders. I told him it was fine, they won't care, it's not the same as if I had a plant behind me, can I please have my photos so I can go? He started ringing me up but kept grumbling about the blue and how they may not accept it (apparently setting it for US when it's UK doesn't matter, but a faint blue in the background will grind the process to a halt).

Me: Look, it will be fine, I did my own photo for my American passport and they took it.
Doogie: What do you mean you did your own?
Me: I mean I took it with my own camera, printed it at home, cut it to size and sent it in.
Doogie: You mean they took that when it didn't come from a professional?
Me: (deciding that I didn't like his tone and whipping out my passport to show him) They sure did.
Doogie: (shoves the bag at me) Have a great night, ma'am.

I know, I should have called a manager when he first refused to change it to UK...Needless to say, I didn't make it to the post office before it closed.

Things That I Know

I know that not everyone thinks my move is a good idea.

I know that it is not going to be an easy thing, even after I get to the UK.

I know that not everyone understands how I feel about my animals, and that some people think that paying money to move them to the UK with me is unreasonable.

I know these things. What you, the unamed masses who unwittingly strive to make me feel guilty or down on myself or otherwise negative toward the upcoming change in my life, what you need to know is this. To quote Christine Kane, "some choices hold you down. Some chances set you free."

The chance to be Simon's wife and to have him in my life is one that will set me free. Free to be who I am. Free to live and to love. I can't pass on that chance. I won't.

That is at the root of the things I know.

Thus ends my rant.

Almost ready...

I'm almost ready to go upstairs and get into that big bed alone. Well, alone until Daisy figures out that I'm alone and joins me...and until Mills wraps himself around my head and purrs.

Simon's plane has crossed into UK airspace which means I can't use the flight tracking software I found online to watch where he is anymore. Last I looked he was over the big blue ocean...

Anyway...

I am constantly amazed at the attitude a lot of people have nowadays that they are the only person on the earth. I will admit that, as I was watching Simon wind through the line for the security checkpoint, I was hoping that I was the only person on earth. I was standing there crying my head off, looking like a total nutter. When I lost sight of him I started for the car, tears bouncing off my scarf. As I stepped through the automatic doors out into the drizzly afternoon, my ears were assaulted by some guy on a mobile phone, screaming about text messages. He was apparently on his way to Florida. He didn't get the text message someone sent him and he didn't want them to effing ever send another one. People were staring. I was staring. And for a moment I forgot the searing pain in my heart and replaced my tears with laughter at this sad little man who had nothing better to do than make a fool of himself screaming in public.

When his eyes met mine across the way and he saw me laughing at him, I moved back into abject pain and averted my again tear-filled eyes. Don't get me wrong, he still looked ridiculous screaming into the phone...but he also looked like he could have pitched that phone like John Smoltz and lodge it right between my eyes.

I'm home now. The house is quiet and lonely, despite the three greyhounds and a cat that are trying their best to distract me. My eyes are getting heavy so maybe I can make it upstairs to sleep. If not I suppose I can sleep in my chair.

D-Day

D is for depression...the one impending because after today I'm functioning with only half of myself. Simon goes back to England today.

D is for Daisy...the bright spot in my day and the first one to give me consoling kisses when I wake up in bed alone tomorrow. Not that I want the kisses, mind you, but that never seems to stop her.

D is for downtown...as in where I hope all the traffic is in Atlanta today so I can get in and out of the airport quickly and not have to sit on 85 for too long.

D is for...well, I can't say that word, but it has to do with having to wait until my visa is approved to see Simon again.

It's D-day, and I've got to go hop in the shower so that we can run last minute errands before taking my heart to Hartsfield and leaving it on the other side of the security barrier. Later, internet.

For those keeping score...

Simon called Fulton County yesterday to check on the marriage license. After a most definite run around, he finally got someone that told him that we were being "put into the system this week" and the license would go out in the mail this week.

This week. Almost one full month after the wedding.

Once I get that back and get a certified copy of my birth certificate, I can send in the visa paperwork and then wait. Simon and I have a few things to get printed off and certified today like a copy of his passport and some bank statements to add to the stack of STUFF that has to be sent in to New York.

Simon leaves to go back to the UK tomorrow and I stay here and wait.

I'm not good at waiting. Stay tuned for further hysterics.

Road Trips and Disappointments

This is the last weekend that Simon is here in the states before he returns to the UK, and I thought we'd do something cool. We left yesterday (later than intended) to go to Helen, GA and I'd planned to take him to Young Harris College as well so he could see the little valley that nearly ruined my life...I mean "where youth are inspired," and I spent the first two years of my college career.

Disappointment number one: We still haven't received the marriage license in the mail from Fulton County (Atlanta) so we still have no real idea when I'll be able to join him in the UK.

Disappointment number two: A paycheck from a job I did is late, so I have little to no cash and bills to pay. I know, that's the American Dream these days, but it still puts a damper on Road Tripping.

We headed out (late) and made it to Helen with the dogs around 3:30pm. Helen, when I was kid and then at Young Harris, was this cutesy little place where I could spend too much money and at the least get some fudge that would make Jenny Craig sit up and pay attention. What happened? Did I grow up or did the cutesy facade fall away, revealing a tired old town without much to offer save a great ice cream place on the outskirts of town and a nifty fountain? Anyway, that was a disappointment. I'd been talking about taking him to Helen and how much fun I used to have there as a kid, and we basically parked, walked, and got back in the car...all in the space of about an hour.

Having officially given up on Young Harris because I knew that would just be more disappointing, we drove toward Cleveland (we promised my parents a visit) and took a detour up toward Unicoi Gap State Park. "It's so pretty up there," I promised Simon. Yeah, it's pretty...in the spring when things are blooming, or in the summer when all is verdant and lush....or in the fall when then the leaves are fantastic shades of autumn. Not so much in January. I called Dad to see if we could at least see Anna Ruby Falls from the car (it was getting colder and the dogs were tired) but you can't. You have to park and walk about 15-20 minutes first.

We had a great meal with Mom and Dad and then headed home. All in all, I think I'd like to have a do over on yesterday. But in truth, I'd like a do over on everything since the wedding. It feels like Simon just got here last week, and now I'm going to be taking him to the airport next Wednesday.