The Blog Pound

Wednesday, August 23, 2006 , evening

Good news and bad news

I am extremely tired, and I had a three hour nap this afternoon. I don’t know how you regular people keep a schedule, because the whole idea seems torturous.

The quick version of my day was, I was given a temporary work card. It will allow me to seek employment for the next year while I wait to receive a Green card, and if necessary, it can be renewed. While I’m happy to have cleared one hurdle, today was supposed to be my, “I’ll finally get legal permanent residence status” day, and that didn’t happen. The first problem was that Homeland Security hasn’t completed my background check (the one they started the day I had my biometrics done in early July), and I can’t be issued a visa until that’s done. I’m told that some checks are taking as long as a year to complete, and checks on people from places like Pakistan are taking as long as two years, so I don’t know when I’ll see the light at the end of that tunnel. It seems to be a very unorganized process, with no central computer database. The second problem I encountered was that the “visa priority date” for my immigration category was rolled back last month, so suddenly, a visa is unavailable for me.

The whole “visa priority date” concept is a bit confusing. Most immigration categories have quota limits on them, for example, my category of “unmarried sons and daughters of US citizens” has an annual limit of 23,400 (the number of visas which can be issued in a fiscal year). As there are always far more applicants than there are visa numbers available, a person can end up waiting many years for their application to finally hit the top of the pile. The “visa priority date” is the method the government uses to indicate which applications are being processed in a given month. In my case, my application was submitted in March 2001, so that’s my priority date. I needed the government to process every application prior to March 2001 so they could reach mine.

My priority date hit the top of the application pile in the fall of 2005, but then I had to wait to be scheduled for things like biometrics and interviews before an actual visa/Green card would be handed to me. Today was supposed to be the day I finally got my visa, but sometime last month, the government ran out of visa numbers—they hit that ceiling of 23,400 visas per year. Not only did they run out of visas for this year, they suddenly seem to feel they’ve run out of three years worth of visas, because they’ve rolled their current priority date back to January 1998! That can be roughly interpreted as them telling me that I’ll need to wait three more years, again, until my application hits the top of “the pile”. How did this happen? I don’t know. My lawyer didn’t seem to know. He thought they were probably overestimating the problem, and hopes that the dates will roll forward again in October, the start of a new government fiscal year (and the release of the next crop of 23,400 visas). I could face the same problem again if my priority date becomes current after October and my biometrics still aren’t completed—I could watch another fiscal year fly by me while I sit and wait. If I get to July 2007 without a Green card, I’ll need to have those biometrics and the medical exam done all over again, as they’re only good for a year. Then the biometrics will have to be checked again, and I’ll enter government purgatory.

I’m happy that I’m done with the interview process—I was promised I won’t have any more interviews. That’s a consolation, I suppose. Don’t get me wrong—the work authorization is wonderful. However, it still doesn’t allow me to travel outside the country (ah, the irony; I want to be a permanent resident so I’ll be able to leave). I also can’t apply for citizenship until five years after my Green card is issued, so everytime that’s delayed, it delays my citizenship application as well.

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Now that the details are out of the way, I can talk about other bits and pieces of our day. In bullet points:

Getting up so early was nasty, and as always, the pets were noisy and bothersome all night to ensure we didn’t sleep very well.
I’d never met my lawyer before (he’s from California), but I immediately liked him when we picked him up at his hotel to drive to the interview, and he was very personable and chatty.
I didn’t feel nervous like I thought I would—I think I was too tired to feel nervous.
The building where the interview was done is emblazoned with a huge “Department of Homeland Security” logo on the front, and I wish we could have taken a photo, but we were afraid we’d be arrested. We had to pass through a metal detector to go inside.
The woman who interviewed me had an accent, possibly something from the Caribbean. I thought it was interesting that the two people from the government who I’ve dealt with closely (the biometrics guy and the interviewer) have both been immigrants themselves.
My lawyer did a whole “body language” thing in the interview where he seemed to be trying to intimidate the interviewer. I guess it worked, because she messed up one thing (which would have been to my advantage if my biometrics had been in order). I think it’s a game they play, as he also threw in some comments about how he was suing the government on behalf of a couple other clients, and it seemed like very calculated “casual chatter”.
After we dropped the lawyer at the airport, we went to Bellagio for the breakfast buffet. Despite our fatigue, it was wonderful. So many choices of breakfast items (just about everything you could think of, from cereal to pancakes to smoked salmon to, yes, curried cauliflower), plus a fabulous array of fresh fruit. Flippy and I each ate a bowl of mixed berries—blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries, plus Flippy had a bowl of sliced strawberries.

When we got home, we fed the birds and then slept the afternoon away, then we relaxed in the pool for a while. Tomorrow real life has to start up again, but it was sure nice to spend a good chunk of the day just goofing off.

My apologies if any of this entry doesn’t make sense—my brain is feeling pretty convoluted and it doesn’t want to make sentences. I didn’t think I was overly stressed about today’s events, but I’m so exhausted after them, it must prove there was a lot of tension bubbling under the surface.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/23 at 08:34 PM
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Like a bad dream

It’s 4:30 am, and I’m up and showered and dressed. It’s like a nightmare—this is the hour that decent people are just falling into bed!

My Green card “adjustment of status” interview is at 7:15 am, so we need to leave the house in an hour to get there on time. I’ll post details about this adventure when I return (and/or, when I wake up from the nap I’ll need later today).

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/23 at 03:33 AM
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Friday, August 18, 2006 , late at night

National Homeless Animal Day

Today, Saturday August 19th, is National Homeless Animal Day. It’s a day which officially involves candles and vigils, but in our house, candles are a fire hazard. No one wants kitten flambe! So, I thought I’d compromise by listing the names of our current crop of “previously homeless” animals:

Cricket (rejected by a pet store because she was a mixed breed)
Phoenix (adopted from the shelter after being found wandering the streets)
Chelsea and Jackson (facing the death penalty when their owner died)
Derek (another free spirit who was adopted from a shelter)
Frank (wandered up to our front door)
Missy Mae (a semi-feral cat who still needs to find a forever home)
Tie, Scampi, and Bing (found abandoned in the back of a truck at a car dealership)
Julius (a former pet shop bird who was purchased by a well-meaning person who wanted to set him free)
Petey (a parrot who lost his home because he was noisy)
Chile (a parrot who lost his home because he was noisy)(see the pattern?)

There are the formerly homeless animals who had our house as a waystation on their journey to new families:

Stewie (the first) and Andre (kittens)
Liam, Olivia, Charlie, and Anya (kittens)

There are also a few formerly homeless animals who’ve passed on, but who we’ll never forget:

Ethel, partner of Julius
Bubbe (parrotlet returned to a pet store because she was “messy”)
Stewie the second (euthanized by the local shelter or died from illness while in the shelter)
Hobbes and Lou, my shelter cats from Canada

Last but not least, there are all the animals who are still homeless, who we hope to find one day, including the little white cat from Jerry’s Nugget casino (I call her “Yentl”). I definitely hope we get to her before her next batch of kittens.

For this occasion, Phoenix is going to be our honourary spokespet, because today she had a trip in the car for her post-surgical checkup. She’s doing very well, her eyes are healing nicely, and I hope this will mean her eyes are more comfortable. She looks sort of odd in the first photo because her surgery removed some of the pigment around her eye, but we think that will return eventually. I give you, Phoenix, sans entropion and chalazion:

As a special bonus, here’s Phoenix modeling her pink Doggles:

(Excuse the horrible photo quality from our cell phone). We adopted Phoenix about six years ago from the county animal shelter, which no longer exists. It’s best that it no longer exists, because it was a dark, miserable place full of death and unhappiness. The former building has now been taken over by our no-kill SPCA, and they do a super job. If you need a great cat, dog, rabbit, or other creature, and you’re in the Las Vegas area, be sure to check out all the cuties up for adoption at the NVSPCA. Flippy and I have been eyeing the dog, “Delilah”, but we just don’t have enough room. She sure is a cutie, though!

Thanks to Susan at Wildrun for letting me know about NHAD.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/18 at 11:09 PM
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Thursday, August 17, 2006 , early afternoon

Why excessive leisure time can be a bad thing

I won’t claim that the video below is good, but it’s strangely compelling. I was eventually forced to open my Rhapsody program to listen to Toad the Wet Sprocket, just to get the “Kitty Dance” tune (and voice) out of my head.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/17 at 02:56 PM
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Tuesday, August 15, 2006 , the wee hours

Here’s to a Lon Life

I bought a postal scale over a year ago, and the kittens/cats recently chewed through the electrical cord for it. The little bastards! I thought I was going to have to have to search high and low for a replacement adaptor, but when I turned the scale over I discovered a slot for a battery. I removed the battery cover, and inside was a pristine, virgin battery, still in a protective plastic coating. It was made in China. I present an image of the battery for your inspection:

The battery brand name was obviously chosen by the Chinese manufacturer to represent what all Americans want from life: Lon. A day without Lon is a day without sunshine, or so they say.

Unfortunately, after a year of sitting dormant, the battery had a lot in common with two other famous Lons, Lon Chaney Sr. and Jr. Like the Lon Chaneys, my Lon Life battery was quite dead. I was still amused by the name, though. Long live the Lon!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/15 at 12:11 AM
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Sunday, August 13, 2006 , evening

Like Christmas in August

When I was a little kid, the best day of the year was the day that the Sears Christmas toy catalogue arrived (probably in October or so). It was a day even better than Christmas itself, because the toy catalogue was full of possibilities. So many new toys, so much to dream about, so much to anticipate! As an adult, I no longer think about toy catalogues (and I don’t know if Sears even still publishes one), but I have the same excited reaction when the local college’s “Non-Credit Class Schedule” catalogue arrives. Fall 2006 arrived today! Woo hoo!

To be completely honest, I haven’t taken any college classes, non-credit or otherwise, since we moved to Nevada. So, my excitement is really just about the potential for new experiences. I see classes I’d love to take every time we receive a catalogue, but we live on the far end of Las Vegas with no nearby campus. That will be rectified within the next couple of years (a new CCSN satellite campus will be built about a mile from our house), so for now, I mostly read the catalogue and dream.

This year, the following classes have caught my eye: Beginning Fencing (no, really!), Beginning Furniture Making, Sushi 101, Introduction to Professional Stocktrading, Introduction to Mortgage Lending, How to Become a Part-time Substitute Teacher, Introduction to Medical Transcription, Import Export Now, and Forklift Safety. Just kidding on the last one… just seeing if you were paying attention ;-)

I’m obviously always looking for new skills to be able to work from home, so if I was going to take a class, I think it would be an “introduction to a new career” kind of thing. Of course, perhaps the sushi class would finally help us solve the mystery of where we can buy sushi-grade fish!

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Edited to add:I’m still diligently slogging away at the Veterinary Assistant correspondence course I signed up for last December. It’s taken me far longer to complete than I anticipated, mostly because life and kittens keep getting in the way. It’s not the path to a great career, but it’s been useful for me as a pet owner. I was amused because when I got to the “Emergency Care” section of the course, I was able to answer all the questions without reading the text at all. All those hours of watching “Emergency Vets” really did make a difference!

On a related note, I’ll be taking the Pet Food Fundamentals course offered by VSPN.org later this month. I’ve got the recommended texts already, and have registered, so I hope I’ll learn something I can share!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/13 at 08:50 PM
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On being a “victim”

Earlier this year, I received an email from the US Department of Justice Victim Notification System. I was surprised—I thought it was spam—but after checking the headers and reading the body of the email I realized it was authentic. The email said I was victim of a federal crime, and that the email notification system would be used to keep me notified of legal proceedings in the case—I was also given a “Victim Identification Number” and password so I could login to the DOJ website to keep track of the trial. This was all very fascinating, yet I had absolutely no idea what any of it was about! The defendent was “Brian Ginsberg”, who I’d never heard of. They had my full name and my email address, though, so obviously something was up. A bit of sleuthing through the DOJ website revealed that Ginberg was charged with 13 counts of “mail fraud”, but that was all it said. I was told I could email the “Victim Witness Coordinator” for more information, but I felt guilty about using up the time of a professional who probably had real victims to worry about. I didn’t feel like I was much of a victim, considering that I didn’t even know how I’d been defrauded.

Months have passed since my first email from the USDOJ, and the trial has proceeded. The defendent plead guilty to one count of fraud, and 12 other counts are still listed as pending. I imagine there might have been a plea bargain and that those 12 counts will never be prosecuted. I was invited to offer a “victim impact statement” back in June (which I didn’t do, as I the only impact I’ve felt from this is confusion), and sentencing will happen in October.

I’m now vaguely happy to report that I know what this is all about. After searching around the Internet for information, I found this tidbit of info on a sports memorabilia site, “The FBI has busted another forgery operation which included the boxer Chuck Wepner in addition to several other individuals. The individuals included Brian Ginsberg, Michael DeSola and John Olson. These people forged a large number of Muhammad Ali photographs and flooded the market with them.” Aha! Fake autographs! Now that, I understand. In the past, I have purchased a number of autographed photos on eBay, but I have no idea which ones I might have purchased from Brian Ginsberg. I’ve never purchased sports memorabilia of any sort, or autographs from athletes, so I don’t think I’ll ever know which of my pictures are fakes. I take some comfort in the fact that I never paid very much for anything I bought, but I’ll definitely have to make sure I never try to resell them.

I consider myself a very, very careful eBay-er. I read feedback, read all the fine print, etc. and I never buy anything like an autograph from someone who doesn’t have a good reputation. I guess the lesson here is that if you manage to fool 100+ people, you can build a good reputation anyway!

Man pleads innocent in sports memorabilia fraud case

FBI charges another in Operation Bullpen

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/13 at 01:03 AM
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You’re more human

I’ve had a piece of paper torn from a newspaper article sitting on my desk for almost two years. I was cleaning up a few days ago, and figured I should just post the snippet of the article which caused me to want to save it. The snippet says, You’re not less human because you love your animals unconditionally. You’re more human. The measure of your humanity is the extent to which you raise the standard of taking responsibility for those who can’t help themselves. The speaker was veterinary behaviorist Karen Overall. You can find the entire article at USA Weekend.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/13 at 12:25 AM
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Saturday, August 12, 2006 , late evening

Amusing feline odds and ends

Some things which have passed through my email inbox this week:

From Helly, Kittens of Darkness. The site seems to have bandwidth issues, so try again later if they’re unavailable.

From my brother, Record Store Cats (click on each to see the animation).

And finally, remember when this little girl was just a wee smidge of a thing?!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/12 at 10:54 PM
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Green tripe (slaughterhouse in a box)

I think Flippy’s birthday caused some sort of time warp, as the week has flown by more quickly than it usually does. We got a lot accomplished, including finally getting the oil changed on our poor, neglected vehicle, but I’ve done nothing on the computer except read. Time to get my lazy butt back to blogging. I sure wish there was a “thought-to-speech” program so I could just “think” my blog entries and then have them appear on the screen.

I’ve written before about how I’ve been trying to add some raw meat to Eli and Dante’s diets. Unfortunately, the only (inexpensive) raw meat I’ve been able to find is turkey necks, and Carina has suggested that turkey neck bones might be too hard. So, I decided I’d place an order with GreenTripe.com to get some raw meat specifically intended to be eaten by dogs. I didn’t want to buy the actual green tripe, because I was just looking for snack items and not full diets, so I decided to buy some “yummy” gullets, raw tracheas, raw hooves, and green tripe-stuffed hooves. The prices seemed quite reasonable. I was slightly annoyed that there was no online ordering feature (not even PayPal), so I typed up my order and faxed it.

I’ll put my complaints/criticisms first, to get them out of the way. I faxed my order in on Friday, July 14th, yet it didn’t get filled and shipped to me until Monday, August 7th. The order was delayed because some items were out of stock, and because I’d ordered too much to fit into one box. However, no one bothered to tell me these things until I emailed to ask about my order—I just kept waiting for something to arrive, because their website indicates that orders placed by Friday will ship the following Monday. It would have been nice if someone had called me immediately (or emailed me) to tell me about my options. I was eventually told my order would ship on July 31st, but when nothing arrived I again emailed them, and was told it wouldn’t ship until the 7th as some items were still out of stock. It’s not the end of the world to take a long time to process an order, but I don’t think I’d want to rely on this company to provide my dog food on a regular basis.

Now, to the good parts. When the order did finally arrive, everything was still cold and/or frozen, despite the Vegas heat. It was all packaged in a styrofoam container with a cold pack. The individual items were packed in plastic bags and then repackaged in plastic grocery store bags to keep mess and leakage to a minimum. This was an excellent packing decision because the shipment looked like a slaughterhouse in a box. Some of the items made me apprehensive, and that’s saying something. The hooves were fine, but the tracheas were massive hunks of blood, bone, and flesh, weighing about a pound each. I was envisioning a raw version of those small dried tracheas you find at Petco, but the fresh ones could probably be cut down to make three or four of the dried ones. Most shocking of all were the raw gullets, which were MASSIVE—picture a bloody sphere about 6 inches in diameter. Looking at the GreenTripe.com website you really get no perspective on the size of these body parts, and this order was a very eye-opening experience.

I initially offered both Eli and Dante the two smallest gullets to eat, which was a mistake. Dante only ate part of his and left the rest in the dirt in the yard. Eli ate all of hers, and then promptly threw it all back up. I’m going to have to sharpen my cleaver and chop the gullets at least in half before I offer them to the dogs in the future, as one gullet is far too much food for one dog. Both dogs really enjoyed them, though. Tomorrow I may offer a raw hoof (unstuffed) to see what they think. This one order will last us a very long time, especially if I can figure out how to cut everything into smaller pieces… perhaps that’s what I should use my miter saw for!

I don’t know if I’d order this stuff in the future, because the order process was a bit annoying, and because shipping is pricey ($30 for one box from California to Las Vegas, UPS ground). I also think the items I ordered are too large for my dogs, and I’d rather buy sometime with built-in portion control. This was an interesting experiment, though. My next raw food snack order will probably be raw chicken necks from OnlyNaturalPet.com.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/12 at 10:04 PM
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