No really, I do, and it does. If you've ever gotten a letter from me, you'll understand what I mean. My letters are LONG. I often plug away for an hour or more, going from one topic to the next, recounting every last detail. This is a stubborn compulsion of mine, because I am utterly convinced that, without all that background information, how can anyone fully understand and appreciate the impact of what I have to tell?
It takes every ounce of will to keep a note just a note. To keep the kb count of an e-mail below 50. Sometimes I can do it, and I walk away very proud of myself. Most times, I give in to my natural inclination and end up glued to the computer with my son imploring me for my attention, "Mommy, Mommy..." and me saying, "Okay, just a minute." And that minute turns into several, which lapse into an hour... You get the picture.
I don't write letters very often, anymore. I have a lot of friends and family, and I hated getting stuck at the computer, compulsively vomiting forth every detail of my anecdotes countless times, trying to make each letter unique. Against my moral judgment, I started writing mass e-mails. But no one likes those very much, and I got a few hurt responses. After I joined Blogit and understood how I could make a blog into something other than a boring ol' daily diary, I started a public blog. This is specifically intended to repost some of my less incriminating Blogit blogs for friends and family to read. If they wanted. Without having to plod through five pages of an e-mail. And they could respond. If they wanted. Pressure off, right?
Wrong. My posts are often long-winded, because every story has important backstory and important details that are oh-so-necessary for a reader to attain a full appreciation of the bottom line. I struggle to keep my posts to a manageable length, and I walk away from the computer a happy camper if the word count is under 500 (I'm currently at 345, so I'm doing pretty well). For me, blogging is partly an exercise in being concise. And much like dieting, I still often fall off the wagon and give in to those natural tendencies.
But what I'm wondering is, Why can't I write this effluently when I'm working on a piece of fiction? Okay, it's extremely difficult for me to write a short story less than 5,000 words. It takes a lot of effort. And the more I write, the longer each story gets. My latest reaches about 25,000 words, and had outgrown its original short story status and now wears size Novella jeans. And it's a good story, too. Not a pleasant one, but it's my favorite and the most developed.
But here's the crux. With this disease of verbal diarrhea, why can't I write a whole novel? Why doesn't one pour out of me like a letter or a blog? Why aren't I as compulsive about getting down all those neat ideas I have (at least a dozen) and churning out novel after novel like some people do? Why can't novels be my medium of strength, rather than blogs and boring letters?
I need to excercise that muscle, is what it probably comes down to. I need to retrain my storytelling to flow undammed down the ravines of fiction, rather than overflowing the gulleys of personal experience. There's a lot of energy spilling out of me when I write. It's the same energy that I feel when I create music. I think it can be coaxed to flow as effortlessly through the fictive part of my brain, as well. Can't it?
Unfortunately, just like going to the gym or popping in that Pilates DVD, there's a lot of discipline to be developed, too. Like dieting and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, creating fiction takes work. Blogging is like sitting down and eating a Snickers. And it's all too easy to succomb to temptation and take the path of least resistance.
I better get started on that excercise routine.
Maybe I'll start on Monday. After coffee. After writing a blog.
Oh, and by the way. Don't ever call me unless you've cleared your calendar for the afternoon, or have mastered the art of gently and expediently guiding me through my long-windedness.
Hello. My name is SilverMoon, and I'm a verbaholic.
(742 words, by the way. Could be worse...)
Friday, April 28, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
A Brilliant Idea
I'm forming a new tactic in the Moving to America campaign. My husband is concerned we won't have enough cash to fund the venture. And as I lay in bed a few hours ago pondering this dilemma, I remembered something my mother and I talked about a couple months ago. Why not send me ahead to find a job, get health and car insurance and our son's schooling squared away, and send him money every month until we get our finances in order?
Isn't that a great idea? Before I leave, I could go through our stuff (half of which is still in cartons from our move last year) and sort out what to keep (a few sentimental items) and what to throw away (most everything). Then, my husband can take care of selling what's saleable, including the car, since he'd be doing all that on his own, anyway. And assuming our son goes with me, our expenses here would be cut in half because I'd be living with my parents and not accruing any.
That would work, don't you think? Huh? Don't you?
Now if I could only sell my husband on it...
Isn't that a great idea? Before I leave, I could go through our stuff (half of which is still in cartons from our move last year) and sort out what to keep (a few sentimental items) and what to throw away (most everything). Then, my husband can take care of selling what's saleable, including the car, since he'd be doing all that on his own, anyway. And assuming our son goes with me, our expenses here would be cut in half because I'd be living with my parents and not accruing any.
That would work, don't you think? Huh? Don't you?
Now if I could only sell my husband on it...
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
When You Piss and Miss and Miss the Mess
Ten days ago, our bathroom sink sprung a leak. Actually, it’s been weeks or even months that the thing has been leaking. Up until the moment I noticed that there was a pool spreading from beneath a set of shelves into the main area and heard water freely running down the elbow pipe, I thought the constant wetness on the floor directly beneath the sink was because of sloppy hand washing. You see, my son is six and my husband loves to flop around in the water when he washes his hands or takes a shower and lets it drip everywhere. Between the two of them, I’m always mopping up the mess on the floor. So you can see how I could have assumed the fault lay at the feet of the Y-chromosomes I live with.
So it was ten days ago when I noticed a serious pooling problem, beneath those shelves. And after a little nosing around, I quickly discovered our sink was leaking. Badly. Today, a plumber came to fix it. And when I saw the man walk through our door, I wanted to hide. I was still angry at him about our last encounter, and also horribly embarrassed.
When we first moved here a little over a year ago, we noticed a funny smell in our downstairs toilet. The smell got worse and worse, until finally, around the end of summer, we begged our landlady to get someone in there pronto to check it out. Up until that point, she had been dragging her feet, about the matter, telling us to pour water down the effluence drain in the boiler room to dislodge whatever might have gotten stuck in there. Never mind that I insister to her and to my husband that the smell wasn't coming from the toilet, but from the hole near the ceiling where a small fan used to be.
After insisting the problem would not go away on its own, our landlady finally called the local plumber. He was an older gentleman and a cloud of cigarette smoke wafted about him like a tarnished aura. He stuck his head in the toilet room and said, “I don’t smell anything.”
I insisted there was, in fact, an odor, and a very unpleasant one, at that.
“I don’t smell a thing,” he protested. And there we stood, arguing about whether or not there really was an odor.
I finally pulled out my trump card. “Well, we don’t smoke, and I can tell you for sure that it smells like something died in there. If you don’t smell anything, then you better figure out whether there’s anything to smell at all.”
So, about two weeks later, his thirty-year-old son came to sniff out the problem. His visit was a surprise. I had no idea he was coming. If I had known, then things might have turned out somewhat differently.
I led him downstairs to the strange-smelling toilet. He took one look around and said he didn’t smell anything, either. And wouldn’t you know it, the smell wasn’t so bad that day. In fact, it was hardly there. Still, I insisted that there was a bad odor.
He sniffed around the air vent (I suspected a bird, mouse or bat had fallen into the PVC piping that leads from the bathroom up into the attic where it remains open to anything that cares to fall in there), and said, “Nope, nothing.” Then he sniffed around the base of the toilet, pointed to the floor and said it was urine that was stinking up the joint. I looked to where he pointed, and I saw the unmistakable evidence of drying piss on the floor.
I was mortified. I knew that that morning, after a long night’s sleep, my son had been the last person to use that toilet before decamping to the main area of the house upstairs. Like most young boys, he isn’t always very accurate, especially when still crusty from sleep. He usually tells me when he misses, or cleans it up himself. But this time, he didn’t do either.
I insisted to this man, who has farmer-boy good looks and eyes that make my heart jump, that the pee left on the floor was a one-time occurrence, that it wasn’t the odor of urine that we’d been smelling. Really. There was a distinct smell of dessication going on somewhere behind the wall. Really really.
But the man wouldn’t believe me. He left the house shaking his head, and I, angry and irate, nearly shouting at him to believe me.
And now, eight months later, he was gracing my doorstep once again.
Neither one of us was very happy about it.
He uses a very thick SW German dialect, and it’s very difficult for me to understand him and the many other Schwarzwald natives in our neighborhood. When he spoke, I had to ask him to repeat himself and he was clearly unhappy to oblige. Mustering every last bit of adult reserve I had, I stopped myself from getting snotty back, and silently led him to the bathroom. He spent all of five minutes in there dismantling the elbow pipe and installing a new seal. He asked me for some paper towels, and when I gave him the roll, he smiled nicely at me. I managed to smile back, though I imagine my expression must have looked more constipated than friendly simply because he took me off guard.
When he was done, he politely said goodbye and left. And as I pondered the change between us, the doorbell rang again. I buzzed him in and he poked his head up the stairs and wanted to know if we were paying the bill. I said that I thought our land lady was going to do that.
He shook his head no.
Back on uncertain footing, I asked if he could send us a bill. And of course he said he would.
I know his daughter is in my son’s kindergarten class, because I’ve seen him there twice in the past few weeks. Both times, I did an about face and hurried out the door, feeling the residual anger and embarrassment of the summer before staining my cheeks. I’m not a bad housekeeper, and I certainly don’t let piss dry on my floors if I know it's there. But that one time, it got overlooked. And someone found out.
And I know we were not imagining the stink from the toilet. It’s not as bad now as it was last year. In fact, it’s almost gone, now. And I’m more certain than ever that something had fallen down that impromptu air duct and died.
We’ll never know for sure.
And I’ll also never know how many people now think the new folks on the hill (you never get over being the new folk in small towns) let piss dry on their floors until they have to call a plumber to find out what stinks?
I know I shouldn’t still be embarrassed, but I am. I might be able to face him the next time I see him at the kindergarten, but the memory that he caught me with piss on my floor will never fade.
So it was ten days ago when I noticed a serious pooling problem, beneath those shelves. And after a little nosing around, I quickly discovered our sink was leaking. Badly. Today, a plumber came to fix it. And when I saw the man walk through our door, I wanted to hide. I was still angry at him about our last encounter, and also horribly embarrassed.
When we first moved here a little over a year ago, we noticed a funny smell in our downstairs toilet. The smell got worse and worse, until finally, around the end of summer, we begged our landlady to get someone in there pronto to check it out. Up until that point, she had been dragging her feet, about the matter, telling us to pour water down the effluence drain in the boiler room to dislodge whatever might have gotten stuck in there. Never mind that I insister to her and to my husband that the smell wasn't coming from the toilet, but from the hole near the ceiling where a small fan used to be.
After insisting the problem would not go away on its own, our landlady finally called the local plumber. He was an older gentleman and a cloud of cigarette smoke wafted about him like a tarnished aura. He stuck his head in the toilet room and said, “I don’t smell anything.”
I insisted there was, in fact, an odor, and a very unpleasant one, at that.
“I don’t smell a thing,” he protested. And there we stood, arguing about whether or not there really was an odor.
I finally pulled out my trump card. “Well, we don’t smoke, and I can tell you for sure that it smells like something died in there. If you don’t smell anything, then you better figure out whether there’s anything to smell at all.”
So, about two weeks later, his thirty-year-old son came to sniff out the problem. His visit was a surprise. I had no idea he was coming. If I had known, then things might have turned out somewhat differently.
I led him downstairs to the strange-smelling toilet. He took one look around and said he didn’t smell anything, either. And wouldn’t you know it, the smell wasn’t so bad that day. In fact, it was hardly there. Still, I insisted that there was a bad odor.
He sniffed around the air vent (I suspected a bird, mouse or bat had fallen into the PVC piping that leads from the bathroom up into the attic where it remains open to anything that cares to fall in there), and said, “Nope, nothing.” Then he sniffed around the base of the toilet, pointed to the floor and said it was urine that was stinking up the joint. I looked to where he pointed, and I saw the unmistakable evidence of drying piss on the floor.
I was mortified. I knew that that morning, after a long night’s sleep, my son had been the last person to use that toilet before decamping to the main area of the house upstairs. Like most young boys, he isn’t always very accurate, especially when still crusty from sleep. He usually tells me when he misses, or cleans it up himself. But this time, he didn’t do either.
I insisted to this man, who has farmer-boy good looks and eyes that make my heart jump, that the pee left on the floor was a one-time occurrence, that it wasn’t the odor of urine that we’d been smelling. Really. There was a distinct smell of dessication going on somewhere behind the wall. Really really.
But the man wouldn’t believe me. He left the house shaking his head, and I, angry and irate, nearly shouting at him to believe me.
And now, eight months later, he was gracing my doorstep once again.
Neither one of us was very happy about it.
He uses a very thick SW German dialect, and it’s very difficult for me to understand him and the many other Schwarzwald natives in our neighborhood. When he spoke, I had to ask him to repeat himself and he was clearly unhappy to oblige. Mustering every last bit of adult reserve I had, I stopped myself from getting snotty back, and silently led him to the bathroom. He spent all of five minutes in there dismantling the elbow pipe and installing a new seal. He asked me for some paper towels, and when I gave him the roll, he smiled nicely at me. I managed to smile back, though I imagine my expression must have looked more constipated than friendly simply because he took me off guard.
When he was done, he politely said goodbye and left. And as I pondered the change between us, the doorbell rang again. I buzzed him in and he poked his head up the stairs and wanted to know if we were paying the bill. I said that I thought our land lady was going to do that.
He shook his head no.
Back on uncertain footing, I asked if he could send us a bill. And of course he said he would.
I know his daughter is in my son’s kindergarten class, because I’ve seen him there twice in the past few weeks. Both times, I did an about face and hurried out the door, feeling the residual anger and embarrassment of the summer before staining my cheeks. I’m not a bad housekeeper, and I certainly don’t let piss dry on my floors if I know it's there. But that one time, it got overlooked. And someone found out.
And I know we were not imagining the stink from the toilet. It’s not as bad now as it was last year. In fact, it’s almost gone, now. And I’m more certain than ever that something had fallen down that impromptu air duct and died.
We’ll never know for sure.
And I’ll also never know how many people now think the new folks on the hill (you never get over being the new folk in small towns) let piss dry on their floors until they have to call a plumber to find out what stinks?
I know I shouldn’t still be embarrassed, but I am. I might be able to face him the next time I see him at the kindergarten, but the memory that he caught me with piss on my floor will never fade.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
The Blogital Daughter returns home... to another list.
I've been feeling that creative urge again. It's been far too long since I've felt that way. The urge to write. The urge to immerse myself in the company of other writers, dickering with the grammar gurus and the punctuation police over the intricacies of who vs whom and comma usage.
In much the same way I've missed this particular forum, I've also come to miss my old writing list. It's quite a large list, actually, with members from all over the world. One of the unique things about it is that it is not just a writing list where dorks like me discuss the same boring old drudge about writing over and over again. It's also a list that plays host to a number of critique sub-lists. Fiction, Poetry, Romance, Scriptwriting, Non-fiction, Juvenile, and others I'm sure I'm missing.
A few days ago, I signed on to that list again. Only for the discussion list, however. I don't have the time right now to dedicate to writing fiction again. Blogging, right now, is tons less effortful and more fulfilling than writing fiction. Besides, with posting your work comes the obligation to critique others' works in return. And I just can't handle that at the moment.
But I did rejoin the discussion list. I'll probably keep most of my opinions to myself, as usual, unless something really gets my dander up. And I'll probably roll my eyes at the tight-assed, dogmatic opinions of certain individuals, as usual. But the point is, I'm back on the list.
And it feels good.
In much the same way I've missed this particular forum, I've also come to miss my old writing list. It's quite a large list, actually, with members from all over the world. One of the unique things about it is that it is not just a writing list where dorks like me discuss the same boring old drudge about writing over and over again. It's also a list that plays host to a number of critique sub-lists. Fiction, Poetry, Romance, Scriptwriting, Non-fiction, Juvenile, and others I'm sure I'm missing.
A few days ago, I signed on to that list again. Only for the discussion list, however. I don't have the time right now to dedicate to writing fiction again. Blogging, right now, is tons less effortful and more fulfilling than writing fiction. Besides, with posting your work comes the obligation to critique others' works in return. And I just can't handle that at the moment.
But I did rejoin the discussion list. I'll probably keep most of my opinions to myself, as usual, unless something really gets my dander up. And I'll probably roll my eyes at the tight-assed, dogmatic opinions of certain individuals, as usual. But the point is, I'm back on the list.
And it feels good.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Culture Clash: When Homeschooling Doesn't Add Up...
When kids go to kindergarten in Germany, they start at age three. The basic goal is to socialize the youngsters and make them aware of their surroundings, rather than filling their heads with useful, basic education. In their sixth year, the children begin first grade. This is when they begin to learn the basics. The prerequisite for children entering first grade is pretty minimal. They should be able to write their first name, follow directions, play nicely with others, recognize numbers in dot patters (think of dice), count to ten. Stuff like that. Sounds pretty reasonable, right?
So, when we started talking about going to America, we didn’t really think about what our son would need to know when he starts first grade this fall. We thought that the kindergartens were basically the same: to get the kids socialized and introduce them to some kind of educational structure. But last week, after my husband received his immigrant visa in the mail, it suddenly became priority to make sure that our kiddo has what it takes to enter first grade.
After contacting the principal of the grade school my boy may attend this fall (assuming we really do return to the good ol’ USA), I discovered that he is, in fact, about a semester behind schedule. I had been home schooling him a bit in German, up until this point, just to give him an edge when he starts German first grade. Good thing, too. But he doesn’t have the knowledge needed to advance to first grade in America. He should be reading basic words by now (about 40 of them), writing, counting beyond 110 by 2s, 5s and 10s, calculating simple math problems...
When did this start happening? I don’t remember doing all this in kindergarten. Okay, I don’t remember much about kindergarten at all. My memories of that class encompass Show and Tell day, cookies-and milk snack time, Letter-People. Oh, and I’ll never forget the time I handed in a kitty cat ditto and the teacher called me to her desk to ask why I hadn’t colored it.
“I did,” I said to her, “I colored it white. See?” I pointed to the places where my white Crayola had gone outside the lines and faded the blue outline. My teacher didn’t say anything. But before handing in the page, all the kids at my table had said that I was doing it wrong. That I had to color it a color. “White is a color,” I’d told them calmly. Little did I know...
When I returned to the table, the boy next to me leaned close to and whispered, "See? I told you." The two little girls on the other side of him nodded sagely.
What happened to those days of kindergarten, when the biggest issue was whether white was an appropriate color to color with, or who poked a hole in the inflatable Mr. D (for Doughnut)? I'm now doing hard-core home schooling in the afternoon hours when he should be watching Scooby Doo, or riding his bike in the driveway. Having to rush my child to catch up with the rest of the American kids his age is stressing him out.
And me too. And we're only in the first week.
So, when we started talking about going to America, we didn’t really think about what our son would need to know when he starts first grade this fall. We thought that the kindergartens were basically the same: to get the kids socialized and introduce them to some kind of educational structure. But last week, after my husband received his immigrant visa in the mail, it suddenly became priority to make sure that our kiddo has what it takes to enter first grade.
After contacting the principal of the grade school my boy may attend this fall (assuming we really do return to the good ol’ USA), I discovered that he is, in fact, about a semester behind schedule. I had been home schooling him a bit in German, up until this point, just to give him an edge when he starts German first grade. Good thing, too. But he doesn’t have the knowledge needed to advance to first grade in America. He should be reading basic words by now (about 40 of them), writing, counting beyond 110 by 2s, 5s and 10s, calculating simple math problems...
When did this start happening? I don’t remember doing all this in kindergarten. Okay, I don’t remember much about kindergarten at all. My memories of that class encompass Show and Tell day, cookies-and milk snack time, Letter-People. Oh, and I’ll never forget the time I handed in a kitty cat ditto and the teacher called me to her desk to ask why I hadn’t colored it.
“I did,” I said to her, “I colored it white. See?” I pointed to the places where my white Crayola had gone outside the lines and faded the blue outline. My teacher didn’t say anything. But before handing in the page, all the kids at my table had said that I was doing it wrong. That I had to color it a color. “White is a color,” I’d told them calmly. Little did I know...
When I returned to the table, the boy next to me leaned close to and whispered, "See? I told you." The two little girls on the other side of him nodded sagely.
What happened to those days of kindergarten, when the biggest issue was whether white was an appropriate color to color with, or who poked a hole in the inflatable Mr. D (for Doughnut)? I'm now doing hard-core home schooling in the afternoon hours when he should be watching Scooby Doo, or riding his bike in the driveway. Having to rush my child to catch up with the rest of the American kids his age is stressing him out.
And me too. And we're only in the first week.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
I've sought the company of others
I Admit It...
Yes, I've sought the company of others. Selfishly and shamelessly. And if I've learned one thing, it's this simple fact: There's No Place Like Home.
No one else can take the place of the one that truly holds your heart. Not cheap freebies, not those who lure you in with promises of variety and intricate gadgets. No one.
No other blogging site can take the place of Blogitland.For some reason, the best of the best seem to have collected here... and we all pay quite a lot, in comparison, for the privilege of writing and reading in this place.
We're writers, though. We're not supposed to PAY to write, are we? And yet we do. We are quite all right with the fact that we get less than a penny a click, and yet we continue to foster our abnormal and co-dependent relationship with Blogitland and other Blogiteers.
How many of us have gone away, and come back desperate to regain that sense of completion we have only here?
Why is that?
I've thought and thunk and thought summore.
It can only mean one thing,
We've succumbed to subliminal messaging. That's gotta be it.
I may continue to wander in search of greener pastures, looking for a cheap lay of land, but none are as verdant and fertile as the fields of Blogitland.
Yes, I've sought the company of others. Selfishly and shamelessly. And if I've learned one thing, it's this simple fact: There's No Place Like Home.
No one else can take the place of the one that truly holds your heart. Not cheap freebies, not those who lure you in with promises of variety and intricate gadgets. No one.
No other blogging site can take the place of Blogitland.
We're writers, though.
Why is that?
I've thought and thunk and thought summore.
It can only mean one thing,
We've succumbed to subliminal messaging. That's gotta be it.
I may continue to wander in search of greener pastures, looking for a cheap lay of land, but none are as verdant and fertile as the fields of Blogitland.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
A Surprise Visit from a Distant Friend
Last night, I ran across a friend online. Although I’m online at the same time almost every weeknight, I’d never seen her presence until last night. I met her maybe four or five years ago at an English-language play group in Stuttgart. She befriended me (it usually takes some effort to befriend me. I can be shy, at times!), and we really had some nice times together. We’d talk on the phone for hours, or meet downtown on Königstrasse to window shop. At first, our boys would accompany us, and then they each started Kindergarten so we got to share mommy and wifey stories in the luxury of their absence. I watched her belly swell as she grew a new child, and held that tiny little girl the last time we saw each other.
Her husband, once contracted under Daimler-Chrysler, decided he had had enough of being the ausländisches underdog and not being taken seriously by his coworkers. When he cancelled his contract, he returned to America with my friend and their children feeling profoundly disillusioned, leaving not only Germany, but his profession behind.
I had tears in my eyes when my friend and I parted ways. We didn’t see each other often, but I had an affection for her, and just knowing she was in the same city was a great comfort to me. I was sad when she left, but we traded e-mails for a while. And then the e-mails became less and less frequent. The last time we heard from each other was about six months ago.
But lately, she’d been on my mind a lot. I knew I had to write her, but I’ve been less busy than completely preoccupied. You know how that is? So, when I saw her on my Trillian contacts list, I was thrilled. I did a virtual happy dance, threw her virtual hugs, and we IMed for a good hour or so. For the umpteenth time, she offered to kick out their current tenant and rent out the other half of their Ohio country fixer-upper to us. I don’t know that we’ll ever take her up on her offer—or how serious her offer really is—but it’s fun to think of our families being neighbors.
Seeing her again, even if only virtually, did my soul lots of good.
Her husband, once contracted under Daimler-Chrysler, decided he had had enough of being the ausländisches underdog and not being taken seriously by his coworkers. When he cancelled his contract, he returned to America with my friend and their children feeling profoundly disillusioned, leaving not only Germany, but his profession behind.
I had tears in my eyes when my friend and I parted ways. We didn’t see each other often, but I had an affection for her, and just knowing she was in the same city was a great comfort to me. I was sad when she left, but we traded e-mails for a while. And then the e-mails became less and less frequent. The last time we heard from each other was about six months ago.
But lately, she’d been on my mind a lot. I knew I had to write her, but I’ve been less busy than completely preoccupied. You know how that is? So, when I saw her on my Trillian contacts list, I was thrilled. I did a virtual happy dance, threw her virtual hugs, and we IMed for a good hour or so. For the umpteenth time, she offered to kick out their current tenant and rent out the other half of their Ohio country fixer-upper to us. I don’t know that we’ll ever take her up on her offer—or how serious her offer really is—but it’s fun to think of our families being neighbors.
Seeing her again, even if only virtually, did my soul lots of good.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
I know this has happened to you
Can you hear my tortured cries across Blogitland?
I just lost my post because my tired old computer farted again.
And if you can believe it, and I'm sure you can because you've all been here before, too, after I got back online I even check to see if maybe, just maybe, my little humble musing got saved and posted after all. Of course it didn't. and so here I am, bleary-eyed and barely able to type without a mistake in every word, trying to make the best of it, trying not to waste my opportunity. Maybe, just maybe, that was meant to happen. Maybe I was meant to write a better post. Maybe about the same subject, maybe about losing posts to the ether.
But dammit anyway! I don't want to write the whole thing over again... I'm tired. I wanna go to bed. And tomorrow, well, tomorrow's another day, and I have laundry to do and toilets to clean and floors to wash and a child to homeschool...
But maybe it was simply meant to be.
Yeah, right. Or maybe, my fingers were just clumsy.
crap.
I just lost my post because my tired old computer farted again.
And if you can believe it, and I'm sure you can because you've all been here before, too, after I got back online I even check to see if maybe, just maybe, my little humble musing got saved and posted after all. Of course it didn't. and so here I am, bleary-eyed and barely able to type without a mistake in every word, trying to make the best of it, trying not to waste my opportunity. Maybe, just maybe, that was meant to happen. Maybe I was meant to write a better post. Maybe about the same subject, maybe about losing posts to the ether.
But dammit anyway! I don't want to write the whole thing over again... I'm tired. I wanna go to bed. And tomorrow, well, tomorrow's another day, and I have laundry to do and toilets to clean and floors to wash and a child to homeschool...
But maybe it was simply meant to be.
Yeah, right. Or maybe, my fingers were just clumsy.
crap.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Could it be? Dare I hope?
I'm happy to announce that, while we haven't formed any definite plans and have not fully committed to relocating stateside, my husband seems to be looking forward to the possibility.
And I couldn't hope for less, at this point.
Yesterday, he spent a good portion of the day on the Internet searching up activities of interest in the Chicagoland area. Soccer (he's German, of course he's going to look up soccer clubs!), swimming, cycling. He searched up a local writer's group for me. He spent a long time looking up first-grade entry requirements for our son. And together, we searched for local Canasta clubs. We found next to nothing that wasn't centered around online playing or linked to retirement communities. In fact, in the first search we did for Canasta clubs, we turned up nothing but pages of obituaries!
I spent a few minutes yesterday and today reassuring him that since we'll be sheltering with my folks, we'd be in a safe position. And, that for once, the burden of earning an income for our family wouldn't be his alone, anymore. Additionally, we already have a car and furnishings waiting for us, so we won't have to buy anything once we leave my parent's nest. Really, we have much more than most other immigrants entering the U.S., although our advantages stem from the fact that America is my homeland, and has been to my family for three generations.
He needs to be handled with kid gloves. It's a big risk he's taking, on a personal and professional level. And he's the type of person that, if he feels he's being pushed, he'll push back and do the opposite of what you ask.
Slowly slowly, he'll work himself up to the full committment. That's the way he works. I have my fingers crossed that this time will be no exception.
And I couldn't hope for less, at this point.
Yesterday, he spent a good portion of the day on the Internet searching up activities of interest in the Chicagoland area. Soccer (he's German, of course he's going to look up soccer clubs!), swimming, cycling. He searched up a local writer's group for me. He spent a long time looking up first-grade entry requirements for our son. And together, we searched for local Canasta clubs. We found next to nothing that wasn't centered around online playing or linked to retirement communities. In fact, in the first search we did for Canasta clubs, we turned up nothing but pages of obituaries!
I spent a few minutes yesterday and today reassuring him that since we'll be sheltering with my folks, we'd be in a safe position. And, that for once, the burden of earning an income for our family wouldn't be his alone, anymore. Additionally, we already have a car and furnishings waiting for us, so we won't have to buy anything once we leave my parent's nest. Really, we have much more than most other immigrants entering the U.S., although our advantages stem from the fact that America is my homeland, and has been to my family for three generations.
He needs to be handled with kid gloves. It's a big risk he's taking, on a personal and professional level. And he's the type of person that, if he feels he's being pushed, he'll push back and do the opposite of what you ask.
Slowly slowly, he'll work himself up to the full committment. That's the way he works. I have my fingers crossed that this time will be no exception.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
I never thought we'd come so far...
Well, here's a bit of good news.
Today, two weeks earlier than expected, we received my husband's US residency visa in the mail.
We've got six months to enter the US before it expires.
I've got half that long to make sure my husband doesn't chicken out and change his mind, and then to get us there in time for the new school year.
Wish us luck, everyone. We need this. My son and I, in particular, need this.
We just need that extra little push to bring us to the finish line. Please send us lots of positive energy...!
Today, two weeks earlier than expected, we received my husband's US residency visa in the mail.
We've got six months to enter the US before it expires.
I've got half that long to make sure my husband doesn't chicken out and change his mind, and then to get us there in time for the new school year.
Wish us luck, everyone. We need this. My son and I, in particular, need this.
We just need that extra little push to bring us to the finish line. Please send us lots of positive energy...!
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Choose Me! Choose Me!
This morning, I had a pleasant surprise. After bringing my boy to kindergarten, I settled down to a cup of coffee and checked my e-mail. I do this every morning not to see if I got any letters from friends, anymore, but to see if, while I slept, someone decided to inquire after my editing services.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I got two nibbles... but they were from two women who wanted me to employ them. I wrote back and expressed my sorrow that I could not take them on, but that I'd like to keep their resumes on hand "just in case."
So, as I waited for my computer to boot up (it took three tries to get online, the tired, farty old thing), I sipped my coffee and pondered the irony of receiving those two inquiries. Could I possibly list them as co-editors, to further entice potential clients to trust my expertise? And as I came to the conclusion that, no, that would not be very ethical, I logged in to my e-mail and saw in the subject line of one: Proofreading and Editing Services.
My heart skipped a beat. Would this be a potential client, or an employment hopeful?
Well, be still my heart, it was a request for my resume, editing examples and rates list. And it wasn't a one-time deal like everything else has been. It would be a permanent freelance position for a big non-profit org. Holy moly. It wouldn't be enough to pay the rent, by any means, but it would be regular work and enough to pad our income just a little tiny bit more. I immediately set to and gathered all my stuff together and e-mailed it away, attached to a nicely professional letter.
Now, I'm not silly enough to think I was singled out for this opportunity. No way. It came from the New York craigslist, so I went there, searched "proofreading", and checked out the competition. I was happy to see that I am in good standing, have extremely reasonable rates (cheaper than just about everyone else), and that I could have copyedited some of those ads and websites myself... though I wouldn't expect any potential client to know that, or else they wouldn't need a proofreader!
After I sent off my resume and examples, I wrote another potential client who has neglected to send me the disclosure agreement he wanted me to sign, as he promised he would do sometime this week. I don't know if I'll hear from him again, but I gave it a good shot, having called him last week in CA (from Germany) to follow up on his initial inquiry. At the very least, it was good practice.
Then this afternoon, I got a surprise e-mail from a university student who asked me to quote her a price for editing her thesis. I replied, and am waiting to hear back from her, too.
So, maybe something will come of these three good leads. They would all be good projects, affording a tidy sum in my pocket. I've got my fingers crossed...
On Tuesday and Wednesday I got two nibbles... but they were from two women who wanted me to employ them. I wrote back and expressed my sorrow that I could not take them on, but that I'd like to keep their resumes on hand "just in case."
So, as I waited for my computer to boot up (it took three tries to get online, the tired, farty old thing), I sipped my coffee and pondered the irony of receiving those two inquiries. Could I possibly list them as co-editors, to further entice potential clients to trust my expertise? And as I came to the conclusion that, no, that would not be very ethical, I logged in to my e-mail and saw in the subject line of one: Proofreading and Editing Services.
My heart skipped a beat. Would this be a potential client, or an employment hopeful?
Well, be still my heart, it was a request for my resume, editing examples and rates list. And it wasn't a one-time deal like everything else has been. It would be a permanent freelance position for a big non-profit org. Holy moly. It wouldn't be enough to pay the rent, by any means, but it would be regular work and enough to pad our income just a little tiny bit more. I immediately set to and gathered all my stuff together and e-mailed it away, attached to a nicely professional letter.
Now, I'm not silly enough to think I was singled out for this opportunity. No way. It came from the New York craigslist, so I went there, searched "proofreading", and checked out the competition. I was happy to see that I am in good standing, have extremely reasonable rates (cheaper than just about everyone else), and that I could have copyedited some of those ads and websites myself... though I wouldn't expect any potential client to know that, or else they wouldn't need a proofreader!
After I sent off my resume and examples, I wrote another potential client who has neglected to send me the disclosure agreement he wanted me to sign, as he promised he would do sometime this week. I don't know if I'll hear from him again, but I gave it a good shot, having called him last week in CA (from Germany) to follow up on his initial inquiry. At the very least, it was good practice.
Then this afternoon, I got a surprise e-mail from a university student who asked me to quote her a price for editing her thesis. I replied, and am waiting to hear back from her, too.
So, maybe something will come of these three good leads. They would all be good projects, affording a tidy sum in my pocket. I've got my fingers crossed...
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Where do your friends rank???
A recent post by Strat got me thinking about my high school days. When I was a freshman girl involved in theatre, all my friends were senior Thespian boys (go figure), so I got into all the trouble-making earlier than I might have. I was fourteen when I started drinking, and though I never smoked cigarettes I did smoke pot on occasion. We got drunk in a local forest preserve, then piled into a couple of cars (I remember one time when seven of us in crammed into a tiny, two-door, early 80s Ford Escort) to make for Jakes Pizza or someone’s house for a Wall Party. My boyfriend and his fellow band friends took great delight in sign stealing, and left their mark on streets and public buildings (missing letters, missing signs) throughout the area for years after.
Our school was somewhat more strict than Strat’s, it seems. Absolutely no cola on campus (except for the coke machine in the teacher’s lounge, which we routinely broke into during weekend play rehearsals), no cigarettes (except those smuggled into the bathrooms between classes), no off-campus lunches even for seniors. I remember a few hair-raising off-campus lunches with my friends, too, as well as quite a bit of hell-raising on the weekends. I wonder how much my parents knew or suspected? Even at nearly 36, I don’t plan to enlighten them about those teenage escapades.
We’d remained friends and in semi-regular contact long past our respective graduation dates, through college and most of the 90s. But in the last few years, we seem to have gone our own ways: One of them turned criminal--he was one of the sign stealers and now steals money via fraudulent means, and you can find him in local paper archives. One female friend, who floated on the periphery of our core group, became an exotic dancer where she met her husband, then later got her degree in English at 31.
Another found God in a big way, but still we remain in contact and respect one another’s path.
Two were born again and I haven't heard from them in years, I being the group heathen and therefore damned to eternal hell and below their recognition. I like to think they think of me now and again and pray for my soul. I’d rather have that than emptiness and misplaced pity in their hearts when they remember their female group mascot over whom they were once so protective.
Last week, I uncovered a blog belonging to one of them (reborn about 18 months ago). He’s a talented guitarist whose poetic writing style reminds me strikingly of Strat’s. In that blog, there was almost none of his former poesy. He spoke of mundane matters in a mundane style, except for every other sentence referring to God and needing to devote all aspects of one’s life to Him.
In one of his later posts, he had spoken of feeling uninspired, that the room he had dedicated to his creative and musical pursuits has done little more for him than collect dust. His posts became sporadic. And it occurred to me that instead of using his talents as a celebration of Divinity, he may have chased down the path that causes Divinity to choke the creative from him. Reading his posts made me sad, and it struck me that he sounded less accepting of his chosen path than trying to convince himself of its perceived rightness.
Another, a stout atheist in HS and beyond, attained his PhD in Theology and converted to Judaism while still at university.
And still another remains very much the same as he’s always been: a forty-year-old Catholic, somewhat more bitter than before, still as depressive and self-absorbed as ever, and doesn’t understand why he can’t keep a girlfriend and why he goes so long between. Don’t mistake me. He’s a gentle soul, musical, articulate and creative, and a good friend to have. My description isn't mean, just honest.
I find it interesting how religion has emerged to play such a vital role in many of their lives and has effectively managed to separate us. A part of me resents that I’ve lost to religion two of the people I’ve held dear for many years. Something about that doesn’t seem right. According to people “like them”, someone like me—with no set rules of Divinity to follow, with a propensity toward a kind of nature worship and affection for goddess tradition—is now unworthy of their friendship. I, who have never said an unkind word to them or about them, who have always regarded them with a friend’s love, am now below their regard simply because our priorities differ in this particular thing.
Shouldn’t Divinity should be inclusive, not exclusive? I respect the various paths my friends chose and I don’t begrudge them their methods of filling the empty places in their hearts. I have my own ways, but certainly don’t place them above anyone else’s. The Divine, after all, takes an infinite variety of forms. But it’s a real shame when we feel the need to sacrifice one form of love to embrace another.
This year, we’ll have all been friends for 22 years. Why would anyone want to forsake that? Why would the Divine, in any form, expect one to repudiate friendship? Isn't love supposed to be the whole point?
Our school was somewhat more strict than Strat’s, it seems. Absolutely no cola on campus (except for the coke machine in the teacher’s lounge, which we routinely broke into during weekend play rehearsals), no cigarettes (except those smuggled into the bathrooms between classes), no off-campus lunches even for seniors. I remember a few hair-raising off-campus lunches with my friends, too, as well as quite a bit of hell-raising on the weekends. I wonder how much my parents knew or suspected? Even at nearly 36, I don’t plan to enlighten them about those teenage escapades.
We’d remained friends and in semi-regular contact long past our respective graduation dates, through college and most of the 90s. But in the last few years, we seem to have gone our own ways: One of them turned criminal--he was one of the sign stealers and now steals money via fraudulent means, and you can find him in local paper archives. One female friend, who floated on the periphery of our core group, became an exotic dancer where she met her husband, then later got her degree in English at 31.
Another found God in a big way, but still we remain in contact and respect one another’s path.
Two were born again and I haven't heard from them in years, I being the group heathen and therefore damned to eternal hell and below their recognition. I like to think they think of me now and again and pray for my soul. I’d rather have that than emptiness and misplaced pity in their hearts when they remember their female group mascot over whom they were once so protective.
Last week, I uncovered a blog belonging to one of them (reborn about 18 months ago). He’s a talented guitarist whose poetic writing style reminds me strikingly of Strat’s. In that blog, there was almost none of his former poesy. He spoke of mundane matters in a mundane style, except for every other sentence referring to God and needing to devote all aspects of one’s life to Him.
In one of his later posts, he had spoken of feeling uninspired, that the room he had dedicated to his creative and musical pursuits has done little more for him than collect dust. His posts became sporadic. And it occurred to me that instead of using his talents as a celebration of Divinity, he may have chased down the path that causes Divinity to choke the creative from him. Reading his posts made me sad, and it struck me that he sounded less accepting of his chosen path than trying to convince himself of its perceived rightness.
Another, a stout atheist in HS and beyond, attained his PhD in Theology and converted to Judaism while still at university.
And still another remains very much the same as he’s always been: a forty-year-old Catholic, somewhat more bitter than before, still as depressive and self-absorbed as ever, and doesn’t understand why he can’t keep a girlfriend and why he goes so long between. Don’t mistake me. He’s a gentle soul, musical, articulate and creative, and a good friend to have. My description isn't mean, just honest.
I find it interesting how religion has emerged to play such a vital role in many of their lives and has effectively managed to separate us. A part of me resents that I’ve lost to religion two of the people I’ve held dear for many years. Something about that doesn’t seem right. According to people “like them”, someone like me—with no set rules of Divinity to follow, with a propensity toward a kind of nature worship and affection for goddess tradition—is now unworthy of their friendship. I, who have never said an unkind word to them or about them, who have always regarded them with a friend’s love, am now below their regard simply because our priorities differ in this particular thing.
Shouldn’t Divinity should be inclusive, not exclusive? I respect the various paths my friends chose and I don’t begrudge them their methods of filling the empty places in their hearts. I have my own ways, but certainly don’t place them above anyone else’s. The Divine, after all, takes an infinite variety of forms. But it’s a real shame when we feel the need to sacrifice one form of love to embrace another.
This year, we’ll have all been friends for 22 years. Why would anyone want to forsake that? Why would the Divine, in any form, expect one to repudiate friendship? Isn't love supposed to be the whole point?
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Lessons in Waiting
Last Tuesday marked the beginning of significant change for our little family. After months of filling out forms, standing in endless lines, and subterranean emotional preparation, my husband and I found ourselves finally at the American Consulate in Frankfurt to take the final steps toward his U.S. residence visa.What that means for us is, after having lived these past seven years in Germany, my husband’s homeland, we may very well be returning to the Chicago area once and for all before summer’s end. I’m very excited about this, and I think my husband is, too. And our son will be delighted.
The day at the Consulate passed very smoothly. The mission was to attend an interview conducted by one of the Consulate officials and then proceed to his physical, as outlined in the appointment letter. Just like in the movies, there was a line of people waiting to get into the Consulate itself. As we waited, I noticed a sign on the wall that indicated no electronics are allowed in the building. Opening the bag I held, I looked inside and found we had forgotten to leave my husband’s cell phone in the car. He took the phone and ran down the block to put it away.
In the meantime, a young woman, 23 years old, turned around and started talking to me. She revealed that she had lived near my hometown, and even had attended church meetings in the little schoolhouse-turned-community center in our farming community. (Actually, it’s no longer a farming community, but a burgeoning village—a recent victim of urban sprawl.) I was really amazed to run into someone else from my tiny little corner of the Midwest.
Last year on the subway, I ran into a young woman, a Seventh-Day Adventist missionary no less, who is from the next town over from ours. It really is a small world.As we laughed together, the woman behind us joined our conversation .“I admit it,” she’d said, “I was eavesdropping.”
The first young woman and I both made the same dismissive hand gesture and at the same time said, “That’s okay!”
“This far from home,” I said, “we’re all family.”
Just as my husband returned, and while the three of us were deep in conversation, one of the line attendants inquired after each person’s business.
Now here’s the interesting part. To the girl in front of me, and the girl in back of me, he spoke English. To me, he spoke German. I don’t know what it was that made him assume I might be German, except maybe my reddish dark-blond hair and blue eyes. But other than that, I’m about as American as they come. My clothes certainly have held to my American roots—t-shirt, oversized PolarTec pullover, hiking boots. And my hair basically has kept its style over the last seven years: long with bangs. I’m horribly unfashionable in this part of the world, and embarrassingly out of date in my own country.
So why would he presume to speak German to me—especially after interrupting our little Kaffee Klatsch? Didn’t he hear us all chatting away in English?He ushered the three of us (my husband trotting behind to catch up) to the front of the line where we simply checked in and were given a number ahead of several others who no doubt wondered what gave us privilege over them.
Then, we had to stand in another line to enter an antechamber, where we had to pass through a metal detector and x-ray our bag and coats, just like at the airport or a courthouse. Only four people at a time could enter the antechamber, and that’s where I was separated from my new friends. I didn’t see them again, even after entering the Consulate, but that was not surprising.
My husband and I were directed to the immigrant visa section of the large waiting hall, separate from the American portion of the area where passports, birth-abroad certificates, and the like are handled.It was about 8:20 a.m. when we entered the Consulate, and were immediately directed to Window 22, where we paid our application fee. (Someone had told us last year, before we even started the application process, to expect to pay around $500 in fees before it was all over. He was not kidding!)
We were given our receipt and told to sit in the waiting area until our number was called again. W511. We looked around, and decided the wait wouldn’t be as long as we thought it would be (the papers sent to us indicated a 3- to 6-hour process). There simply weren’t many people around, and our number was pretty low.
It certainly didn’t take long before our number was called to Window 23, where we turned in my husband’s application—as if he already hadn’t filled out a zillion other forms last summer, putting this whole thing in motion. We finished up there nice and quick, with no fuss, and were told to sit and wait until our number was called again.
This wait took a little longer. After fidgeting in our chairs for a while, I said to my husband, “I’m going to read a little bit. Once I really get into it, they’ll call our number.” And sure enough, maybe ten minutes later, we were called up to Window 11. There, we turned in all of our documents: police report, military records, birth certificate, marriage license, affidavits of support—a whole pile of papers. In a bored monotone and without pause for breath, the woman gave us instructions of what to do when we first arrive in the States.
After spending a few minutes getting those instructions straight, we were told to sit down—again—and wait for our number to be called—again—for the formal interview.This wait took still longer, and not even my old reading trick helped speed things up. I think it was because we were both a little nervous and I couldn’t concentrate. We waited long enough that we both began to wonder if maybe they might call our number on the American side. It sounds silly, but we’d waited just long enough for our numbed minds to start hypothesizing and playing tricks on us.
Eventually, we were called to Window 17, our final destination at the Consulate. The interview seemed more like a chat over coffee than an actual interview, except for the obvious questions the interviewer asked us: Where will we be living, has my husband been there before, how long have we been married (all of this information was already on the umpteen thousand forms we’d filled out), why do we want to relocate? At one point, I took my husband’s hand, and the man smiled at me and said, “Don’t worry. You’re doing fine.”
It was 11:10 when we finished up with the formal interview, and, taking the advice of our interviewer, we took one of the taxis lurking outside the consulate to the doctor’s office to make it there before it closed at 11:30.
As we rushed through the door of the doctor’s office, the Turkish receptionist, adorned in her very attractive head scarf and ankle-length black skirt, directed us to a waiting room upstairs.
When we entered, we recognized several other people from the Consulate waiting hall. We all smiled at each other in greeting, everyone clearly excited by the prospect of gaining their U.S. immigrant visas. At another desk, a woman crossed my husband’s name off a list. Beside his name was the scheduled time of our interview, 8:30. The list was long, and there were people with later interview times at the Consulate who had yet to arrive, their names still to be crossed off.
Like everyone else, we had to pay the doctor €125 in cash—German insurance would not cover this exam, imagine that—and after seeing that list of Consular patients for the day, I said to my husband, “This doctor must make a whole lotta money.”
Back in the waiting room, my husband and I talked about the man who’d interviewed us. “I think he liked us,” I said to him. “He was really nice, very friendly.”
“Too friendly,” my husband said. “Did you notice how quick he was with his questions?”
I thought about it and realized my husband was right. The man had been very friendly. Very chatty. But in the midst of the chattiness, he shot out pointed questions, so that those taken off-guard by his friendliness might stumble over one if they had secretive or dishonest reasons for wanting to gain permanent admittance to the U.S.
I said, “You’re right,” and felt a little let down. I like to think I’m not naïve, but sometimes I really can be. I like to believe the best in people. We had been a nice, humble couple during the interview. I’d smiled genuinely at the interviewer, thrilled that we had finally attained this final step, the future opening up before us, both of us happy and optimistic. And the man had seemed like a really nice guy. I understood his position, of course, being one of the final people to decide yay or nay to hopeful (and sometimes devious) immigrants from Germany. But I really wanted to believe he was a nice person, that he’d liked us, that the sparkle in his eyes had been as genuine as my smile. So, in a conscious decision to not play devil’s advocate for once, I let myself believe what I wanted to believe.
The physical went smoothly, too, though there was one hitch in my husband’s immunization records. Once we get that straightened up early next week, the physical results get sent to the Consulate. Within two weeks after that, we’ll know whether my husband has received his visa.We have still another long wait ahead of us, but I’m fairly confident the outcome will be favorable.
The day at the Consulate passed very smoothly. The mission was to attend an interview conducted by one of the Consulate officials and then proceed to his physical, as outlined in the appointment letter. Just like in the movies, there was a line of people waiting to get into the Consulate itself. As we waited, I noticed a sign on the wall that indicated no electronics are allowed in the building. Opening the bag I held, I looked inside and found we had forgotten to leave my husband’s cell phone in the car. He took the phone and ran down the block to put it away.
In the meantime, a young woman, 23 years old, turned around and started talking to me. She revealed that she had lived near my hometown, and even had attended church meetings in the little schoolhouse-turned-community center in our farming community. (Actually, it’s no longer a farming community, but a burgeoning village—a recent victim of urban sprawl.) I was really amazed to run into someone else from my tiny little corner of the Midwest.
Last year on the subway, I ran into a young woman, a Seventh-Day Adventist missionary no less, who is from the next town over from ours. It really is a small world.As we laughed together, the woman behind us joined our conversation .“I admit it,” she’d said, “I was eavesdropping.”
The first young woman and I both made the same dismissive hand gesture and at the same time said, “That’s okay!”
“This far from home,” I said, “we’re all family.”
Just as my husband returned, and while the three of us were deep in conversation, one of the line attendants inquired after each person’s business.
Now here’s the interesting part. To the girl in front of me, and the girl in back of me, he spoke English. To me, he spoke German. I don’t know what it was that made him assume I might be German, except maybe my reddish dark-blond hair and blue eyes. But other than that, I’m about as American as they come. My clothes certainly have held to my American roots—t-shirt, oversized PolarTec pullover, hiking boots. And my hair basically has kept its style over the last seven years: long with bangs. I’m horribly unfashionable in this part of the world, and embarrassingly out of date in my own country.
So why would he presume to speak German to me—especially after interrupting our little Kaffee Klatsch? Didn’t he hear us all chatting away in English?He ushered the three of us (my husband trotting behind to catch up) to the front of the line where we simply checked in and were given a number ahead of several others who no doubt wondered what gave us privilege over them.
Then, we had to stand in another line to enter an antechamber, where we had to pass through a metal detector and x-ray our bag and coats, just like at the airport or a courthouse. Only four people at a time could enter the antechamber, and that’s where I was separated from my new friends. I didn’t see them again, even after entering the Consulate, but that was not surprising.
My husband and I were directed to the immigrant visa section of the large waiting hall, separate from the American portion of the area where passports, birth-abroad certificates, and the like are handled.It was about 8:20 a.m. when we entered the Consulate, and were immediately directed to Window 22, where we paid our application fee. (Someone had told us last year, before we even started the application process, to expect to pay around $500 in fees before it was all over. He was not kidding!)
We were given our receipt and told to sit in the waiting area until our number was called again. W511. We looked around, and decided the wait wouldn’t be as long as we thought it would be (the papers sent to us indicated a 3- to 6-hour process). There simply weren’t many people around, and our number was pretty low.
It certainly didn’t take long before our number was called to Window 23, where we turned in my husband’s application—as if he already hadn’t filled out a zillion other forms last summer, putting this whole thing in motion. We finished up there nice and quick, with no fuss, and were told to sit and wait until our number was called again.
This wait took a little longer. After fidgeting in our chairs for a while, I said to my husband, “I’m going to read a little bit. Once I really get into it, they’ll call our number.” And sure enough, maybe ten minutes later, we were called up to Window 11. There, we turned in all of our documents: police report, military records, birth certificate, marriage license, affidavits of support—a whole pile of papers. In a bored monotone and without pause for breath, the woman gave us instructions of what to do when we first arrive in the States.
After spending a few minutes getting those instructions straight, we were told to sit down—again—and wait for our number to be called—again—for the formal interview.This wait took still longer, and not even my old reading trick helped speed things up. I think it was because we were both a little nervous and I couldn’t concentrate. We waited long enough that we both began to wonder if maybe they might call our number on the American side. It sounds silly, but we’d waited just long enough for our numbed minds to start hypothesizing and playing tricks on us.
Eventually, we were called to Window 17, our final destination at the Consulate. The interview seemed more like a chat over coffee than an actual interview, except for the obvious questions the interviewer asked us: Where will we be living, has my husband been there before, how long have we been married (all of this information was already on the umpteen thousand forms we’d filled out), why do we want to relocate? At one point, I took my husband’s hand, and the man smiled at me and said, “Don’t worry. You’re doing fine.”
It was 11:10 when we finished up with the formal interview, and, taking the advice of our interviewer, we took one of the taxis lurking outside the consulate to the doctor’s office to make it there before it closed at 11:30.
As we rushed through the door of the doctor’s office, the Turkish receptionist, adorned in her very attractive head scarf and ankle-length black skirt, directed us to a waiting room upstairs.
When we entered, we recognized several other people from the Consulate waiting hall. We all smiled at each other in greeting, everyone clearly excited by the prospect of gaining their U.S. immigrant visas. At another desk, a woman crossed my husband’s name off a list. Beside his name was the scheduled time of our interview, 8:30. The list was long, and there were people with later interview times at the Consulate who had yet to arrive, their names still to be crossed off.
Like everyone else, we had to pay the doctor €125 in cash—German insurance would not cover this exam, imagine that—and after seeing that list of Consular patients for the day, I said to my husband, “This doctor must make a whole lotta money.”
Back in the waiting room, my husband and I talked about the man who’d interviewed us. “I think he liked us,” I said to him. “He was really nice, very friendly.”
“Too friendly,” my husband said. “Did you notice how quick he was with his questions?”
I thought about it and realized my husband was right. The man had been very friendly. Very chatty. But in the midst of the chattiness, he shot out pointed questions, so that those taken off-guard by his friendliness might stumble over one if they had secretive or dishonest reasons for wanting to gain permanent admittance to the U.S.
I said, “You’re right,” and felt a little let down. I like to think I’m not naïve, but sometimes I really can be. I like to believe the best in people. We had been a nice, humble couple during the interview. I’d smiled genuinely at the interviewer, thrilled that we had finally attained this final step, the future opening up before us, both of us happy and optimistic. And the man had seemed like a really nice guy. I understood his position, of course, being one of the final people to decide yay or nay to hopeful (and sometimes devious) immigrants from Germany. But I really wanted to believe he was a nice person, that he’d liked us, that the sparkle in his eyes had been as genuine as my smile. So, in a conscious decision to not play devil’s advocate for once, I let myself believe what I wanted to believe.
The physical went smoothly, too, though there was one hitch in my husband’s immunization records. Once we get that straightened up early next week, the physical results get sent to the Consulate. Within two weeks after that, we’ll know whether my husband has received his visa.We have still another long wait ahead of us, but I’m fairly confident the outcome will be favorable.
Monday, April 10, 2006
The Unexpected Visitor
We had an unexpected visitor last week. His name is Rudy, and, as my son and I walked home from his Kindergarten, Rudy slunk around the corner of a house and took an immediate shine to my youngster, following him all the way home. He even expected to be let into the house!
Rudy is a young black-and-white cat, no more than a year old, and friendly as all get-out. I’m terribly allergic to cats, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t let the little guy in. So, my son stayed outside to keep the feline critter company while I made lunch. It wasn’t long before he ran up to the kitchen yelling, “Mommy! You have to come outside and see the kitty. You have to!”
Some of you might understand that when a young child utters such words with such urgency, you don’t want to see what all the ruckus is about. But I put down my spatula, turned down the heat in the fry pan, and followed my excited child downstairs and out the door.
What I saw wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, but it was equivalent to a cat getting stuck in a tree. Li’l Rudy, as we later came to know him, was stuck behind the Plexiglas backing between the roof of the garage and the roof of the overhang that protects a portion of the driveway from rain and snow—no doubt installed there for the very purpose of keeping small furry creatures from hiding out in that prime area of shelter. But Rudy managed to find a gap between the Plexiglas and the garage wall and squeezed on up there… And couldn’t get back out.
Last year, when we first moved here, we encouraged two young stray tabbies to hang around our house by placing bowls of cat food and water by the patio door leading into the kitchen. We didn’t do it for long, however, because we soon learned that un-neutered male cats are rather unpleasant (Smelly!) companions when they think your home is theirs, and then mark it as their territory. Remembering that I still had a box of that cat food, I ran upstairs and poured our little friend a bowl, then crawled across the flat roof of the garage and placed the bowl below the gap where the cat had crawled through, then carefully climbed back down to wait.
Rudy was very interested in getting to that food. After trying to squeeze through the gap, he finally decided to twist his nimble body around the corner where the Plexiglas ended flush with the edge of the garage roof. He essentially bent himself in half, sideways, to reach the roof on the other side of the plastic shield. Cheering Rudy on, my son and I then returned to the house for our own meal, leaving Rudy to finish his and go back home.
But Rudy didn’t go home. He trotted along the side of the house to greet us at the back door while we ate. My son was outside in a flash and spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the little cat.
After a couple of hours, my son moved on to other things… he finally needed some downtime, so I let him watch TV. And while I busied myself in the house, the cat fell asleep in the sun outside the back door. It was quite late by then, close to 6:00 p.m., I think, and I started worrying about the cat.
Up until then, I figured he’d go on his way, meander back home. From his friendliness and the collar around his neck, it seemed clear to me that he had an owner, somewhere. And having lived with three outdoor cats (all of them spayed or neutered, by the way, a much nicer way of owning cats) for a goodly portion of my life, I was familiar with their wandering ways, and the fact that cats always come back home. But Rudy was looking mighty comfortable in that patch of sun in front of our kitchen door. And I worried about darkness falling, and him being left on his own in the cold April night, in the territory of two very wily stray cats who roam our gardens in this section of our neighborhood. Pitched against those two, Rudy would not fare well.
Watching him through our glass door (I’m severely allergic, remember), it seemed that what had appeared to be a design of the collar was actually printing. So, rolling up my sleeves, I went outside and took Rudy gently in my arms and held him in my lap while I worked his collar off. Sure enough, written on both sides of the collar were Rudy’s name and life story, such as it was. It seems that the little cat had lost his mother when he was a kitten, and had imprinted on people, explaining his amazing friendliness. Also written on the collar, to my immense relief, was a phone number. I put down the cat, grabbed up the phone and dialed the number. The owner, an older woman in her late 50s or early 60s, had clearly missed her darling feline (and darling he was!), and was quite happy to hear from me. A few minutes later, I met her in our driveway, and Rudy ran to her, happy to see his Mama.
I don’t think Rudy’s friendliness isn’t entirely due to having lost his mother shortly after birth. After watching him with his human Mama, who loved him enthusiastically and rocked him in her arms like a baby while he batted at her chin with his soft paws, claws safely tucked away, I think Rudy’s Mama has had a profound influence on his trust and affection for people.
My son and I were sad to see Rudy go, but are glad he’s back home with his loving Mama. She invited my son to come visit, and maybe we will. Or it may happen that we’ll find Rudy sunning himself on our back stoop again, and we’ll have to call his Mama to come pick him up. Either way, our lives were enriched by Rudy’s surprise visit.
Rudy is a young black-and-white cat, no more than a year old, and friendly as all get-out. I’m terribly allergic to cats, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t let the little guy in. So, my son stayed outside to keep the feline critter company while I made lunch. It wasn’t long before he ran up to the kitchen yelling, “Mommy! You have to come outside and see the kitty. You have to!”
Some of you might understand that when a young child utters such words with such urgency, you don’t want to see what all the ruckus is about. But I put down my spatula, turned down the heat in the fry pan, and followed my excited child downstairs and out the door.
What I saw wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, but it was equivalent to a cat getting stuck in a tree. Li’l Rudy, as we later came to know him, was stuck behind the Plexiglas backing between the roof of the garage and the roof of the overhang that protects a portion of the driveway from rain and snow—no doubt installed there for the very purpose of keeping small furry creatures from hiding out in that prime area of shelter. But Rudy managed to find a gap between the Plexiglas and the garage wall and squeezed on up there… And couldn’t get back out.
Last year, when we first moved here, we encouraged two young stray tabbies to hang around our house by placing bowls of cat food and water by the patio door leading into the kitchen. We didn’t do it for long, however, because we soon learned that un-neutered male cats are rather unpleasant (Smelly!) companions when they think your home is theirs, and then mark it as their territory. Remembering that I still had a box of that cat food, I ran upstairs and poured our little friend a bowl, then crawled across the flat roof of the garage and placed the bowl below the gap where the cat had crawled through, then carefully climbed back down to wait.
Rudy was very interested in getting to that food. After trying to squeeze through the gap, he finally decided to twist his nimble body around the corner where the Plexiglas ended flush with the edge of the garage roof. He essentially bent himself in half, sideways, to reach the roof on the other side of the plastic shield. Cheering Rudy on, my son and I then returned to the house for our own meal, leaving Rudy to finish his and go back home.
But Rudy didn’t go home. He trotted along the side of the house to greet us at the back door while we ate. My son was outside in a flash and spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the little cat.
After a couple of hours, my son moved on to other things… he finally needed some downtime, so I let him watch TV. And while I busied myself in the house, the cat fell asleep in the sun outside the back door. It was quite late by then, close to 6:00 p.m., I think, and I started worrying about the cat.
Up until then, I figured he’d go on his way, meander back home. From his friendliness and the collar around his neck, it seemed clear to me that he had an owner, somewhere. And having lived with three outdoor cats (all of them spayed or neutered, by the way, a much nicer way of owning cats) for a goodly portion of my life, I was familiar with their wandering ways, and the fact that cats always come back home. But Rudy was looking mighty comfortable in that patch of sun in front of our kitchen door. And I worried about darkness falling, and him being left on his own in the cold April night, in the territory of two very wily stray cats who roam our gardens in this section of our neighborhood. Pitched against those two, Rudy would not fare well.
Watching him through our glass door (I’m severely allergic, remember), it seemed that what had appeared to be a design of the collar was actually printing. So, rolling up my sleeves, I went outside and took Rudy gently in my arms and held him in my lap while I worked his collar off. Sure enough, written on both sides of the collar were Rudy’s name and life story, such as it was. It seems that the little cat had lost his mother when he was a kitten, and had imprinted on people, explaining his amazing friendliness. Also written on the collar, to my immense relief, was a phone number. I put down the cat, grabbed up the phone and dialed the number. The owner, an older woman in her late 50s or early 60s, had clearly missed her darling feline (and darling he was!), and was quite happy to hear from me. A few minutes later, I met her in our driveway, and Rudy ran to her, happy to see his Mama.
I don’t think Rudy’s friendliness isn’t entirely due to having lost his mother shortly after birth. After watching him with his human Mama, who loved him enthusiastically and rocked him in her arms like a baby while he batted at her chin with his soft paws, claws safely tucked away, I think Rudy’s Mama has had a profound influence on his trust and affection for people.
My son and I were sad to see Rudy go, but are glad he’s back home with his loving Mama. She invited my son to come visit, and maybe we will. Or it may happen that we’ll find Rudy sunning himself on our back stoop again, and we’ll have to call his Mama to come pick him up. Either way, our lives were enriched by Rudy’s surprise visit.
Rudy takes a cat nap on our back stoop.
I couldn't stay away
Well, Hell. I'm Back. I just couldn't stay away.
I'm back, for better or worse. I missed everyone terribly, even if to you my absence registered little more than a faint blip on the Blogit radar. I missed... well, I just missed writing on Blogit. I know, I sound corny 'n' all, but that's just the way it is.
In the time I've been gone, I managed to get my website up and running, and have gotten a few jobs so far, so that's good. I also managed to glean a little knowledge in HTML code, by way of reverse engineering a couple of Blogger templates I was using to restructure them to my own specifications, so I'm feeling pretty good about that, too.
My mother-in-law and her mother vacated our home two weeks after her arrival with the usual shouting match between her and my husband. She stayed with my brother-in-law for one week before a shouting match with him and his girlfriend (how can you call a 40-year-old woman a girlfriend? Don't we move beyond that title at some predefined point?) prompted her early return to Greece. Good riddance. Of course, all of her stuff from her recently vacated Stuttgart apartment is now occupying our master bedroom and laundry room, and I have no idea when or IF she plans to get it our of our house.
And on that note, we have finally moved through the final phase in the application for my husband's US residence visa. Yes, last week was his interview. Today, he cleared up a misunderstanding about his immunization records, and so we should know within the next two weeks whether he will be eligible for permanent residency in the US. Once that is determined, there's a good chance we will be living in the US by summer's end. Yee-ha!
Of course, that means completely starting over. But things aren't that great as they stand now, so it'll be like wiping the slate clean and doing something different. I'd like to get my teacher's certificate, for instance. I'd like to convince my husband to do the same, because, watching him teach our son math, I think he'd make a good teacher.
Well, that's enough for now. It's midnight where I am, and I'd like to get some reading done before crashing for the night. Take care, everyone. I missed you all!
I'm back, for better or worse. I missed everyone terribly, even if to you my absence registered little more than a faint blip on the Blogit radar. I missed... well, I just missed writing on Blogit. I know, I sound corny 'n' all, but that's just the way it is.
In the time I've been gone, I managed to get my website up and running, and have gotten a few jobs so far, so that's good. I also managed to glean a little knowledge in HTML code, by way of reverse engineering a couple of Blogger templates I was using to restructure them to my own specifications, so I'm feeling pretty good about that, too.
My mother-in-law and her mother vacated our home two weeks after her arrival with the usual shouting match between her and my husband. She stayed with my brother-in-law for one week before a shouting match with him and his girlfriend (how can you call a 40-year-old woman a girlfriend? Don't we move beyond that title at some predefined point?) prompted her early return to Greece. Good riddance. Of course, all of her stuff from her recently vacated Stuttgart apartment is now occupying our master bedroom and laundry room, and I have no idea when or IF she plans to get it our of our house.
And on that note, we have finally moved through the final phase in the application for my husband's US residence visa. Yes, last week was his interview. Today, he cleared up a misunderstanding about his immunization records, and so we should know within the next two weeks whether he will be eligible for permanent residency in the US. Once that is determined, there's a good chance we will be living in the US by summer's end. Yee-ha!
Of course, that means completely starting over. But things aren't that great as they stand now, so it'll be like wiping the slate clean and doing something different. I'd like to get my teacher's certificate, for instance. I'd like to convince my husband to do the same, because, watching him teach our son math, I think he'd make a good teacher.
Well, that's enough for now. It's midnight where I am, and I'd like to get some reading done before crashing for the night. Take care, everyone. I missed you all!
Thursday, April 6, 2006
Lessons in Waiting
Tuesday marked the beginning of significant change for our little family. After months of filling out forms, standing in endless lines, and subterranean emotional preparation, my husband and I found ourselves finally at the American Consulate in Frankfurt to take the final steps toward his U.S. residence visa.
What that means for us is, after having lived these past seven years in Germany, my husband’s homeland, we may very well be returning to the Chicago area once and for all before summer’s end. I’m very excited about this, and I think my husband is, too. And our son will be delighted.
The day at the Consulate passed very smoothly. The mission was to attend an interview conducted by one of the Consulate officials and then proceed to his physical, as outlined in the appointment letter. Just like in the movies, there was a line of people waiting to get into the Consulate itself. As we waited, I noticed a sign on the wall that indicated no electronics are allowed in the building. Opening the bag I held, I looked inside and found we had forgotten to leave my husband’s cell phone in the car. He took the phone and ran down the block to put it away.
In the meantime, a young woman, 23 years old, turned around and started talking to me. She revealed that she had lived near my hometown, and even had attended church meetings in the little schoolhouse-turned-community center in our farming community. (Actually, it’s no longer a farming community, but a burgeoning village—a recent victim of urban sprawl.) I was really amazed to run into someone else from my tiny little corner of the Midwest. Last year on the subway, I ran into a young woman, a Seventh-Day Adventist missionary no less, who is from the next town over from ours. It really is a small world.
As we laughed together, the woman behind us joined our conversation .
“I admit it,” she’d said, “I was eavesdropping.”
The first young woman and I both made the same dismissive hand gesture and at the same time said, “That’s okay!”
“This far from home,” I said, “we’re all family.”
Just as my husband returned, and while the three of us were deep in conversation, one of the line attendants inquired after each person’s business. Now here’s the interesting part. To the girl in front of me, and the girl in back of me, he spoke English. To me, he spoke German. I don’t know what it was that made him assume I might be German, except maybe my reddish dark-blond hair and blue eyes. But other than that, I’m about as American as they come. My clothes certainly have held to my American roots—t-shirt, oversized PolarTec pullover, hiking boots. And my hair basically has kept its style over the last seven years: long with bangs. I’m horribly unfashionable in this part of the world, and embarrassingly out of date in my own country. So why would he presume to speak German to me—especially after interrupting our little Kaffee Klatsch? Didn’t he hear us all chatting away in English?
He ushered the three of us (my husband trotting behind to catch up) to the front of the line where we simply checked in and were given a number ahead of several others who no doubt wondered what gave us privilege over them. Then, we had to stand in another line to enter an antechamber, where we had to pass through a metal detector and x-ray our bag and coats, just like at the airport or a courthouse. Only four people at a time could enter the antechamber, and that’s where I was separated from my new friends. I didn’t see them again, even after entering the Consulate, but that was not surprising. My husband and I were directed to the immigrant visa section of the large waiting hall, separate from the American portion of the area where passports, birth-abroad certificates, and the like are handled.
It was about 8:20 a.m. when we entered the Consulate, and were immediately directed to Window 22, where we paid our application fee. (Someone had told us last year, before we even started the application process, to expect to pay around $500 in fees before it was all over. He was not kidding!) We were given our receipt and told to sit in the waiting area until our number was called again. W511. We looked around, and decided the wait wouldn’t be as long as we thought it would be (the papers sent to us indicated a 3- to 6-hour process). There simply weren’t many people around, and our number was pretty low. It certainly didn’t take long before our number was called to Window 23, where we turned in my husband’s application—as if he already hadn’t filled out a zillion other forms last summer, putting this whole thing in motion. We finished up there nice and quick, with no fuss, and were told to sit and wait until our number was called again.
This wait took a little longer. After fidgeting in our chairs for a while, I said to my husband, “I’m going to read a little bit. Once I really get into it, they’ll call our number.” And sure enough, maybe ten minutes later, we were called up to Window 11. There, we turned in all of our documents: police report, military records, birth certificate, marriage license, affidavits of support—a whole pile of papers. In a bored monotone and without pause for breath, the woman gave us instructions of what to do when we first arrive in the States. After spending a few minutes getting those instructions straight, we were told to sit down—again—and wait for our number to be called—again—for the formal interview.
This wait took still longer, and not even my old reading trick helped speed things up. I think it was because we were both a little nervous and I couldn’t concentrate. We waited long enough that we both began to wonder if maybe they might call our number on the American side. It sounds silly, but we’d waited just long enough for our numbed minds to start hypothesizing and playing tricks on us.
Eventually, we were called to Window 17, our final destination at the Consulate. The interview seemed more like a chat over coffee than an actual interview, except for the obvious questions the interviewer asked us: Where will we be living, has my husband been there before, how long have we been married (all of this information was already on the umpteen thousand forms we’d filled out), why do we want to relocate? At one point, I took my husband’s hand, and the man smiled at me and said, “Don’t worry. You’re doing fine.”
It was 11:10 when we finished up with the formal interview, and, taking the advice of our interviewer, we took one of the taxis lurking outside the consulate to the doctor’s office to make it there before it closed at 11:30.
As we rushed through the door of the doctor’s office, the Turkish receptionist, adorned in her very attractive head scarf and ankle-length black skirt, directed us to a waiting room upstairs. When we entered, we recognized several other people from the Consulate waiting hall. We all smiled at each other in greeting, everyone clearly excited by the prospect of gaining their U.S. immigrant visas. At another desk, a woman crossed my husband’s name off a list. Beside his name was the scheduled time of our interview, 8:30. The list was long, and there were people with later interview times at the Consulate who had yet to arrive, their names still to be crossed off. Like everyone else, we had to pay the doctor €125 in cash—German insurance would not cover this exam, imagine that—and after seeing that list of Consular patients for the day, I said to my husband, “This doctor must make a whole lotta money.”
Back in the waiting room, my husband and I talked about the man who’d interviewed us. “I think he liked us,” I said to him. “He was really nice, very friendly.”
“Too friendly,” my husband said. “Did you notice how quick he was with his questions?”
I thought about it and realized my husband was right. The man had been very friendly. Very chatty. But in the midst of the chattiness, he shot out pointed questions, so that those taken off-guard by his friendliness might stumble over one if they had secretive or dishonest reasons for wanting to gain permanent admittance to the U.S.
I said, “You’re right,” and felt a little let down. I like to think I’m not naïve, but sometimes I really can be. I like to believe the best in people. We had been a nice, humble couple during the interview. I’d smiled genuinely at the interviewer, thrilled that we had finally attained this final step, the future opening up before us, both of us happy and optimistic. And the man had seemed like a really nice guy. I understood his position, of course, being one of the final people to decide yay or nay to hopeful (and sometimes devious) immigrants from Germany. But I really wanted to believe he was a nice person, that he’d liked us, that the sparkle in his eyes had been as genuine as my smile. So, in a conscious decision to not play devil’s advocate for once, I let myself believe what I wanted to believe.
The physical went smoothly, too, though there was one hitch in my husband’s immunization records. Once we get that straightened up early next week, the physical results get sent to the Consulate. Within two weeks after that, we’ll know whether my husband has received his visa.
We have still another long wait ahead of us, but I’m fairly confident the outcome will be favorable.
What that means for us is, after having lived these past seven years in Germany, my husband’s homeland, we may very well be returning to the Chicago area once and for all before summer’s end. I’m very excited about this, and I think my husband is, too. And our son will be delighted.
The day at the Consulate passed very smoothly. The mission was to attend an interview conducted by one of the Consulate officials and then proceed to his physical, as outlined in the appointment letter. Just like in the movies, there was a line of people waiting to get into the Consulate itself. As we waited, I noticed a sign on the wall that indicated no electronics are allowed in the building. Opening the bag I held, I looked inside and found we had forgotten to leave my husband’s cell phone in the car. He took the phone and ran down the block to put it away.
In the meantime, a young woman, 23 years old, turned around and started talking to me. She revealed that she had lived near my hometown, and even had attended church meetings in the little schoolhouse-turned-community center in our farming community. (Actually, it’s no longer a farming community, but a burgeoning village—a recent victim of urban sprawl.) I was really amazed to run into someone else from my tiny little corner of the Midwest. Last year on the subway, I ran into a young woman, a Seventh-Day Adventist missionary no less, who is from the next town over from ours. It really is a small world.
As we laughed together, the woman behind us joined our conversation .
“I admit it,” she’d said, “I was eavesdropping.”
The first young woman and I both made the same dismissive hand gesture and at the same time said, “That’s okay!”
“This far from home,” I said, “we’re all family.”
Just as my husband returned, and while the three of us were deep in conversation, one of the line attendants inquired after each person’s business. Now here’s the interesting part. To the girl in front of me, and the girl in back of me, he spoke English. To me, he spoke German. I don’t know what it was that made him assume I might be German, except maybe my reddish dark-blond hair and blue eyes. But other than that, I’m about as American as they come. My clothes certainly have held to my American roots—t-shirt, oversized PolarTec pullover, hiking boots. And my hair basically has kept its style over the last seven years: long with bangs. I’m horribly unfashionable in this part of the world, and embarrassingly out of date in my own country. So why would he presume to speak German to me—especially after interrupting our little Kaffee Klatsch? Didn’t he hear us all chatting away in English?
He ushered the three of us (my husband trotting behind to catch up) to the front of the line where we simply checked in and were given a number ahead of several others who no doubt wondered what gave us privilege over them. Then, we had to stand in another line to enter an antechamber, where we had to pass through a metal detector and x-ray our bag and coats, just like at the airport or a courthouse. Only four people at a time could enter the antechamber, and that’s where I was separated from my new friends. I didn’t see them again, even after entering the Consulate, but that was not surprising. My husband and I were directed to the immigrant visa section of the large waiting hall, separate from the American portion of the area where passports, birth-abroad certificates, and the like are handled.
It was about 8:20 a.m. when we entered the Consulate, and were immediately directed to Window 22, where we paid our application fee. (Someone had told us last year, before we even started the application process, to expect to pay around $500 in fees before it was all over. He was not kidding!) We were given our receipt and told to sit in the waiting area until our number was called again. W511. We looked around, and decided the wait wouldn’t be as long as we thought it would be (the papers sent to us indicated a 3- to 6-hour process). There simply weren’t many people around, and our number was pretty low. It certainly didn’t take long before our number was called to Window 23, where we turned in my husband’s application—as if he already hadn’t filled out a zillion other forms last summer, putting this whole thing in motion. We finished up there nice and quick, with no fuss, and were told to sit and wait until our number was called again.
This wait took a little longer. After fidgeting in our chairs for a while, I said to my husband, “I’m going to read a little bit. Once I really get into it, they’ll call our number.” And sure enough, maybe ten minutes later, we were called up to Window 11. There, we turned in all of our documents: police report, military records, birth certificate, marriage license, affidavits of support—a whole pile of papers. In a bored monotone and without pause for breath, the woman gave us instructions of what to do when we first arrive in the States. After spending a few minutes getting those instructions straight, we were told to sit down—again—and wait for our number to be called—again—for the formal interview.
This wait took still longer, and not even my old reading trick helped speed things up. I think it was because we were both a little nervous and I couldn’t concentrate. We waited long enough that we both began to wonder if maybe they might call our number on the American side. It sounds silly, but we’d waited just long enough for our numbed minds to start hypothesizing and playing tricks on us.
Eventually, we were called to Window 17, our final destination at the Consulate. The interview seemed more like a chat over coffee than an actual interview, except for the obvious questions the interviewer asked us: Where will we be living, has my husband been there before, how long have we been married (all of this information was already on the umpteen thousand forms we’d filled out), why do we want to relocate? At one point, I took my husband’s hand, and the man smiled at me and said, “Don’t worry. You’re doing fine.”
It was 11:10 when we finished up with the formal interview, and, taking the advice of our interviewer, we took one of the taxis lurking outside the consulate to the doctor’s office to make it there before it closed at 11:30.
As we rushed through the door of the doctor’s office, the Turkish receptionist, adorned in her very attractive head scarf and ankle-length black skirt, directed us to a waiting room upstairs. When we entered, we recognized several other people from the Consulate waiting hall. We all smiled at each other in greeting, everyone clearly excited by the prospect of gaining their U.S. immigrant visas. At another desk, a woman crossed my husband’s name off a list. Beside his name was the scheduled time of our interview, 8:30. The list was long, and there were people with later interview times at the Consulate who had yet to arrive, their names still to be crossed off. Like everyone else, we had to pay the doctor €125 in cash—German insurance would not cover this exam, imagine that—and after seeing that list of Consular patients for the day, I said to my husband, “This doctor must make a whole lotta money.”
Back in the waiting room, my husband and I talked about the man who’d interviewed us. “I think he liked us,” I said to him. “He was really nice, very friendly.”
“Too friendly,” my husband said. “Did you notice how quick he was with his questions?”
I thought about it and realized my husband was right. The man had been very friendly. Very chatty. But in the midst of the chattiness, he shot out pointed questions, so that those taken off-guard by his friendliness might stumble over one if they had secretive or dishonest reasons for wanting to gain permanent admittance to the U.S.
I said, “You’re right,” and felt a little let down. I like to think I’m not naïve, but sometimes I really can be. I like to believe the best in people. We had been a nice, humble couple during the interview. I’d smiled genuinely at the interviewer, thrilled that we had finally attained this final step, the future opening up before us, both of us happy and optimistic. And the man had seemed like a really nice guy. I understood his position, of course, being one of the final people to decide yay or nay to hopeful (and sometimes devious) immigrants from Germany. But I really wanted to believe he was a nice person, that he’d liked us, that the sparkle in his eyes had been as genuine as my smile. So, in a conscious decision to not play devil’s advocate for once, I let myself believe what I wanted to believe.
The physical went smoothly, too, though there was one hitch in my husband’s immunization records. Once we get that straightened up early next week, the physical results get sent to the Consulate. Within two weeks after that, we’ll know whether my husband has received his visa.
We have still another long wait ahead of us, but I’m fairly confident the outcome will be favorable.
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