I think it's my theme song

Not Ready To Make Nice

24 hours cursing

Crap, rats, damn stupid m*therf**ker, bollocks. Before you flag this post as offensive hear me out.
A month ago we booked tickets to Stuff Happens a drama about why we went to war in Iraq, and I rashly made a bet with Steve. Now, people who know me know I NEVER BET UNLESS I AM CERTAIN OF WINNING. When we booked the tickets it was mid April and four generals had come out and called for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. And Dick Cheney's poll numbers were in the 20s. So I felt very safe making a bet that they would be out of government by the time we saw the play. If Steve lost he would have to wash all the windows in the house, and there are forty windows here so it was some hard labour. Steven then searched for a suitably arduous task for me: in the totally unlike event that I lost I would have to be nice for a week. I had to ask for some clarification because I don't know what "nice" is. He specified that I wouldn't be allowed to lose my temper or swear for an entire week.
The bet expires at 2 pm tomorrow and it looks like I will be the loser. Doubly a loser because Rumsfeld and Cheney are still in power. So I am going to get all the anger off my chest in the next 25 hours.
F**king b*st*rd bet.

And now for the good news

Central Park is going wireless. So in summer if it finally stops raining we will be able to sit on the Great Lawn and surf. Finally something for free.

Presidential Pass

According to GW Bush immigrants should be able to get in line for citizenship if they can prove they have learnt English and have been working and paying taxes. Now I think my English passes muster and I've been paying taxes, many taxes, way more taxes than I paid even in Belgium, land of the tax burden. But I am expressively forbidden by the terms of my visa from working until we have our green card.
So my question is: did the Prez just give me permission to go out and break the law?

Rain

It's not just Raining in Connecticut but also Huntington, NY. Our weather here like our cell phone service is more aligned to CT than NY. Bands of rain cause flash floods along the Nassau/Suffolk border and particularly over the beautiful Incorporated Village.
I am again a prisoner in my own home, the courtyard is flooded, the north drive is flooded and its teeming down. Also, Steven took the hard top off my jeep two weeks ago and hasn't had time to put the soft top on. So I'm topless, which with this weather means I'm also carless. I was so bored I created this movie for you. Maybe I should have a nap like all the animals.

green card update

We knew it was too good to be true. Our application was approved by the Dept of Labor and the lawyer filed with the appropriate Case Office in Vermont. Now we had a visa application number (yes it has taken 5.5 years to get a number) we could check progress on the USCIS (US Customs and Immigration) website. Excitedly we typed in the number and immediately had a timeframe for a decision: 90-400 days. BFD!
Still, we signed up for automatic email updates and hoped it would be low end rather than the high end of the estimate. A few days later we got an email to say our documents had been sent to Texas as, in the interests of streamlining and efficiency, they would be handling all I140 (green card)applications for the East Coast. Once again they urged us to check the case status online. Great news. Texas was handling cases from January 2006. That didn't seem too bad.
Then we got another email to say our documents had been received in Texas, and once again to check the status of our case. Bad news. Estimated time for the Texas Case Office to make a decision: 400-450 days. WTF?
No wonder people come here and wander out of the system. Bureaucracy sucks. I can only wonder what will happen to the immigrants here, legal or otherwise after Congress passes the proposed Immigration Bill.

No spa

No US adventures again this month. We were supposed to be off to New Hampshire for a weekend of pampering by the sea but we had to cancel it yesterday. Steve phoned me from work to tell me he had to be on the 7:15 pm flight from La Guardia the day we got back form the spa.
The spa is in Wentworth by the Sea, New Hampshire and we live on Long Island, New York. It takes 2 hours 30 mins to get from the spa to the ferry in New London, CT. The ferry takes an hour and three-quarters. We live a couple of hours form the ferry terminal at Orient Point. Then it takes an hour to the airport and check-in is an hour before take-off. So we would have to leave early in the morning, drive like crazy (worse than Steven's usual driving) and hope nothing went wrong. Not very relaxing! Plus we would have had to cancel the treatments we had booked for that morning. So it didn't seem worth it.
I'm pretty pissed off at this point, and even more stressed than I was when Steven first suggested the break as a way for us to get some R&R.
Rats!