Dual citizenship is only 3 years off. Shouldn’t be too difficult. I would like to get citizenship in the UK, as well, but I think we might actually have to live in the UK to do that. 😀
The Week in Review
So, the airline understood our frustration with their service, and decided to give us vouchers for our next air travel. They were generous, and we appreciated it.
Ian did some amazing cooking this week, as always, and helped me with the red wine demi glace I made for our bison/mozarella burgers this week. The chicken and wild mushroom pie was the best, and even better the second day.
My parents have sold their house, and they’re off to Italy on April 15th (tax day), which may be better than April 1. 🙂 (“We decided to fly you to Brazil instead, ok?”)
I only had to work 3 days this week. I have to say I prefer the abbreviated weeks, but Friday I went “over the edge” just enough to make up for 2 lost days. Sometimes I think I just need another line of work. I wonder if I can make a lot of money making cupcakes or muffins. 🙂
This weekend: Big fund-raising thing for my company. I have a minor role: setting up the computer equipment. It will all be fine. Right? We’re eating breakfast with the DBA and one of the company secretaries at the hotel restaurant. I’ve been inducted. It was nice to be invited.
We bought a tv from a pawn shop yesterday. I think it’s brilliant buying a tv from a pawn shop. You get something reasonably nice for cheap. It was $55 with a new remote tossed in. They had loads of flat screens there, as well. It’s not too late if you want to snap one up.
It’s fun to see what’s in the pawn shop. There were loads of drums (like bongos), stereos, jewelry, etc. I think Ian is most amazed by the guns and rifles, since they don’t sell these things (legally) in the UK.
TLK’s off with her dad this weekend, so Ian and I have some time to do what we want, even if it means sitting around watching our new TV all weekend. 🙂 Actually, though, we’ll probably be out at least collecting items for whatever Julia Child recipe we pick from one of her cookbooks.
We thought it would be an interesting challenge. The recipe on my list (for someday) is Pâté de Canard en Croûte. It just looks so pretty when it’s done and looks like an amazing challege.
What I like about the Julia Child cookbooks is the personalization she puts into the instructions, like a certain recipe (crab, I believe, of some sort) where she said (paraphrasing), “It’s done when you snap off a small leg and it tastes done. If it does, then declare all the small legs for the cook.”
We were smitten with “Julie and Julia“… what can I say? 🙂
Detroit and Airline Delays
So, Thursday, we arrived bright and early at the Omaha airport, only to find out that our flight was delayed. We assumed it was due to the weather. The airline agent tried to get us on a later connecting flight from Detroit to Virginia, since we’d miss our originally scheduled connecting flight, but to no avail. Our choice was to fly to Detroit and have the airline put us up in a hotel for the night (at their expense) or leave the next day. We figured the weather delay could happen the next day, as well, so may as well fly to Detroit (what the heck… we’re on vacation anyway).
So we wait in the airport for 2 hours and then fly to Detroit. The pilot announces that the reason for the delay is a mechanical malfunction (hence the reason the airline has agreed to pay our hotel for the night.. We find out later that they don’t do this with weather delays. They only offer you a 10% off coupon).
Detroit has a really large airport. There are many shops and many people waiting in the “please issue my tickets and/or check my luggage” line. The airport staff directs everyone to stick close to the ropes in the line. The line is so long that the zig zag, roped-off line has exceeded its capacity and is now trailing into the lobby.
We get to the counter and the ticket agent is new. She doesn’t see the note about the hotel. She goes to get a supervisor. The supervisor doesn’t see it, until we insist it’s there somewhere and Ian goes to pull the Omaha agent’s name, etc., from his iPod.
So we go down two levels and finally find the place where hotels pick up people in vans or buses. Ours is a 9-seater van. We are mostly away from the airport, when the driver circles around to pick up one more person. The van is full of people and luggage. People are exhausted and not happy with the reason they’ve got to go to the hotel overnight. Most of them seem to be delayed by the airline for one reason or another.
The hotel is nice, but it’s not where I want to be. I want to be relaxing in Virginia, not worrying about getting up at 4am the next day and what to do when we get to the airport. I’m not looking forward to lugging the luggage around, making sure everything’s packed and going through security at the airport again.
But at least we have a decent room, hot water, a hot dinner and a decent beer.
The next day, I’m up at 4am. Ian and Brit are up at 4:30. We get out to the lobby around 4:50, along with many other people waiting to be shuttled to the airport.. People who are unsure whether or not they’ll be leaving Detroit today or not. We just hope that we are.
Long story short.. Security is a crazy place. People want your ID. People are hustling for boxes to put their shoes and stuff in. We’re travelling with 2 laptops and each requires a separate bin of its own. Together, we must have 7 bins. People are hurried to get through the scanner and collect their stuff at the other end.
Suddenly, I cannot find my ID. I’m vocally trying to recount where the ID could or could not be. Ian thinks I am freaking out. I am, a bit. 🙂
We eat breakfast. Burger King is out of cinnaminis. Bastards. I calmly tell Brit we will get her sugar donation from another vendor, and we do.
The departure gate is swapped mid-waiting for the plane to be boarded. The plane does not board till 1/2 hour after it’s due to. Nobody assures us that the plane will board soon until it’s already 10 minutes late for boarding…
to be continued..
Fun in the Snow
You’ll have to look @ Hubby’s blog to see the long-awaited snow sledding. It was hilarious (and cold!)
Flying Away
Weather permitting, we’ll be boarding a plane and heading to Virginia Beach this week. The weather between the two of us is snowy, so I’m hoping it holds up so we can at least fly there and get back as planned. I’m sure it will be fine.
This will be the first time Ian and I have flown together. We’ve done a bit of flying to see the other, but never have been on the same plane together.
He was surprised that we can’t fly directly to Virginia Beach. We have a stop-over in Detroit. 🙂
My Parents
are wandering off to Italy for 3 years for a new job assignment. It will be an exciting place to visit, in addition to England. I have still not seen London. We’ve always been so busy seeing people, that we’ve found it less important to see the scenery. Funny, eh?
Making Good Progress
In Immigration News, we’re seeing some good progress on Ian’s “I want to stay in America with my wife” paperwork.
His card which authorises him to work for an American employer went to production, his paper which allows him to come back into the US if he has to leave temporarily (for holiday or emergency or what-not) is approved and on the way.
The request to remain (green card approval) has skipped over the interview phase and gone straight to California for approval, which is good.
This is what immigration used to look like.
Oh Happy Day
Yesterday was not so much of a happy day. Why? Because I let people get to me when, in the overall scheme of things, they’re either being stupid or I’m being intolerant that day.
Maybe it’s a combination of both.
I’m trying positive comments in my head. They’re comments about how lucky I am to have the people I love in my life. It’s working well.
An email forward about myocardial infarction
I received this via email and thought it might be useful information. It describes one woman’s experience with the onset of heart attack. And here is a Wikipedia article if you want to do more reading.
A NURSE’S HEART ATTACK EXPERIENCE:
I am an ER nurse and this is the best description of this event that I have ever heard. Please read, pay attention, and send it on!
FEMALE HEART ATTACKS
I was aware that female heart attacks are different, but this is the best description I’ve ever read.
Women and heart attacks (Myocardial infarction). Did you know that women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have when experiencing heart attack?
You know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest and dropping to the floor that we see in the movies?
Here is the story of one woman’s experience with a heart attack.
“I had a heart attack at about 10:30 PM with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on. I was sitting all snugly and warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, ‘A-A-h, this is the life’, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up.
A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation—the only trouble was that I hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 PM.
After it seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasms), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR)…
This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening — we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven’t we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, ‘Dear God, I think I’m having a heart attack’!
I lowered the foot rest dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else … But, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in a moment.
I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics …. I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn’t feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to un-bolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in.
I unlocked the door and then laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don’t remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the radiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like ‘Have you taken any medications?’) but I couldn’t make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and his partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed two side by side stints to hold open my right coronary artery.
I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St. Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was all ready to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stints.
1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body not the usual men’s symptoms but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act).. It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn’t know they were having one and commonly mistake it as indigestion, take some Mallox or other anti-heartburn preparation and go to bed, hoping they’ll feel better in the morning when they wake up … which doesn’t happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the Paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you’ve not felt before. It is better to have a ‘false alarm’ visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be!
2. Note that I said ‘Call the Paramedics.’ And if you can take an aspirin. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER – you are a hazard to others on the road. Do NOT have your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what’s happening with you instead of the road. Do NOT call your doctor — he doesn’t know where you live and if it’s at night you won’t reach him anyway, and if it’s daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics. He doesn’t carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! The Paramedics do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr. will be notified later.
3. Don’t assume it couldn’t be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it’s unbelievably high and/or accompanied by high blood pressure). MIs are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let’s be careful and be aware. The more we know the better chance we could survive.
Beware of Chase Bank
Beware of Chase Bank who decides a year later, that they’ve made a bad decision about the amount of credit they have extended to you. They will check your credit report and ARBITRARILY (although they say they have a reason), at least in my case, half your credit card limit. Plus, you get this lovely notice:
Please note that if you have made purchases or written checks that result in your balance being greater than thisnew credit line, you will have 45 days from the date of this letter to make payments to bring your balance below your credit line. If your account is overlimit, after this 45-day period, your account may be assessed an overlimit fee and the overlimit status could result in your receiving notice of an APR change on your account.
Which is complete crap.
I was under the new limit, but still, a bank can just half your credit limit, regardless of what your balance is, and tell you you’ve got to pay off the excess within 45 days or be charged an overlimit fee?
I sent them a note letting them know how bogus I think that is. And, even though, essentially, I’m glad to not have that much credit, the point is that they reduced it for no reason, didn’t inform me in advance, still send out those little checks saying “please use these convenience checks”, showing my former credit limit to entice me, and they’d expect me to repay money in 45 days if I just happened to be over the limit.
A nice way to cost people who are over the limit lots of fees, if you ask me.
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姨母的诱惑 