This is a blog for our friends and family. Rayne and I are endeavouring to make a move to Connecticut from Vancouver, BC without losing too much hair, weight, sleep or sanity.......it may be too late for that last one.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
24Jul05 - Getting an identity (Social Security and Utilities)
The next morning we woke up at around 9:00am. The sleep was a little rough for me since the night before had been the 3rd of July and there were fireworks going pop all over the place (Rayne slept right through it!). Lucky for us the stores were all open on July 4th and we picked up some groceries, a couple of Adirondack chairs and some computer speakers for the laptop so we could at least watch a couple of movies.
Brodie and Kyla were still pretty out of sorts. We met our neighbors on the Monday. To our right are Hector & Naida, a very nice Puerto Rican couple with grandkids that visit every week to play in their pool. To our left is Karen, a single mom with two older teenagers and is a hairdresser. They all seem awesome and love the dogs (Karen has a shepard cross named "Precious" that Brodie and Kyla like to play with)
The house is a 2 bedroom rancher with an underground basement. It has air conditioning in the living room, gas heat, hot water, stove and has a dishwasher. There is also a built in microwave over the stove (thank goodness for that since we had no gas it was the only place to cook any food for the first 4-5 days).We have a big oak tree in the front and a bigger one in the back. There is a 2 car garage in the back and we have one side of it to keep our car and bicycles. There other side is still used by the people who own the house (Joe and Linda) who are also very nice.
On Tuesday the 5th Rayne had her first day of work. I drove her to work in the morning (we had been there 1 time before to get a box of things Rayne had kept there from her last trip ketchup, paper plates etc.) and managed to find my way home. I went home and spent the morning with the dogs. At lunch I went to pick up Rayne and we headed to the Social Security office. Like Canada the US governement requires that you have a SSN to get paid and taxed.
The line at the Social Security office wasn't too bad and Rayne filled out the appropriate paperwork. Unfortunately the INS had not completed the paperwork for Rayne's Visa and so Rayne could not get a SSN right away. They told her to call back at the end of the week to see if everything was in order. Not a big deal we thought since payday was 2 weeks away.
Now I must say that we were lucky. You see I had worked for an American Company in 2000 and had acquired my own Social Security number. Back then they simply gave me my number the same day that I applied for it. I suspect that since 911 security may be alot more stringent and so this policy has been changed. As we found out later the lack of a SSN nowadays would make many of the things we had to complete to get settled impossible.
The problem with not having a SSN is that you are not recognized as having an identity in the US. Because I had mine already, we were able to get cable, telephone and internet access. I was able to obtain a Connecticut Driver's license, without which we could not buy and register a car. That would have meant an additional expense of 350/week for a rental car. In the absence of a paycheque I would have to advise others to be sure they have enough intestinal fortitude and money to survive the 1st month moving to the US without income.
Update: 26July05 - Rayne now has her SSN but missed this pay period and will have to wait until 15Aug05 to get paid. That makes it about 6 weeks without income....a serious hurdle to consider if moving to the US for work.
Onward and upward. We now have a new vehicle, a 1999 Subaru Forester. Big enough for the dogs and 4 adults and it has AWD (all wheel drive) for the snow. The fellow we bought it from works for ESPN (sports network) and kept it in really fine condition. We paid 8000US for it. The same car at home would be 14 - 15000CDN so it was a great deal!
That's it for now, pictures will be posted when I figure it out!
Sorry for the dealy in the posts. I will try posting everyday for the next few to get caught up.
We started our journey from Victoria. We bid adieu to Rayne's parents, checked the dogs into baggage in their crates (after giving them a dose of puppy Gravol (actually Kyla got 1 1/2) and boarded the plane at 7:00pm. Rayne decided we'd take the red eye flight to minimize the impact on the dogs. The flight was fine and the view spectacular.
We spent 3 hours in Vancouver before our 11:00pm flight reading books and making a couple of last minute phone calls to see how our new tenants George and Lori were doing. The flight to Toronto started off just great. Rayne had asked for gluten free meals so we got our meals almost as soon as the plane was in the air. Unfortunately the meal coming quick was about all I can say about the meal, some kind of curried fava bean concotion. Oh well, at least it smelled good.
After dinner they turned down the lights and started the movie. Now those of you that have watched a film with me know that I have a terrible memory for films in the first place and this film was no different. In retrospect I wish the film had been positively mesmerizing....You see shortly after we hit Calgary we hit some turbulence. Rayne and I have flown a fair bit and are used to the occasional bumpy ride (in fact once on a flight to Cuba we had a flight spiced with about 15 minutes of rough stuff that actually had people muffling screams and one stewardess using a "courtesy bag") so we just looked at each other with a resigned sigh and tried to watch the movie. The captain made an announcement that everyone should return to their seats. I could tell by the look in Rayne's eyes that she was concerned about the puppies in baggage.
After about 45 minutes of being jostled and trying to focus on the movie the pilot came on again....(whew, I thought he's going to say that things will be easing ahead) "we have radio'd ahead and unfortunately everyone in the air this evening is experiencing the same conditions at all altitudes, we apologize blah, blah"....to make a long and terrifying story short (and more palatable), we had a 4+ hour flight with well over 2 hours of turbulence (from Calgary past Thunder Bay). I must admit it was fascinating to see thunderstorms from above the clouds and the sunrise (for which we really never saw the sunset) was awe inspiring. Needless to say we were grateful to get back to terra firma.
Once we got to Toronto we rushed to pick up our bags and headed straight to US Customs. We only had an hour between flights and we still needed to get Rayne's TN VIsa and check the dogs through customs. Rayne wasn't looking forward to checking the dogs again after the last flight (and I'm sure if they could speak they would have concurred).
We made it to customs just before they were supposed to start boarding our flight to Hartford at 8:00am. Rayne handed them all the paper work and the asked us to have a seat. There we sat for the next 40 minutes as a US customs officer reviewed the paper work. By the time they let us go we missed our flight, the good news was the dogs were right there and appeared to be none the worse for the flight. The bad news was that the next flight at 2:30pm was booked and there was only one seat on the 5:30 flight, the next flight after that was 8:00pm. Neither of us was particularly happy about the prospect of waiting 12 hours for a 2 hour flight...Rayne went to get the flight rebooked and I went to see the dogs. Brodie (the older one) was fine but Kyla was pretty unhappy, wailing away until I went to stand beside her...poor thing.
While Rayne was talking to the agent another seat opened up on the 5:30 flight so the agent booked us on the flight. We phoned relatives of Rayne's in Toronto to see if they were home, unfortunately for us it was the long weekend and everyone was busy or at the cottage. While Rayne was on the phone I took the dogs outside to be "watered", I must say that watching your dog try and walk while feeling the effects of "puppy tranquilizers" is both hilarious and disturbing. Poor Kyla looked like a drunken sailor on the way home after an all nighter!
We decided to rent a car and drive into Toronto with the dogs to fax a copy of Rayne's visa to the truck driver so he could get our belongings moving. We stopped at a hotel Rayne had stayed at and she faxed off the paperwork then made our way down to a park on the lake. Luckily we had packed a Mexican blanket into Kyla's kennel for the journey so we all sprawled on some grass under a tree and had a rest. After a couple of hours we decided to go find an airbed so we had somewhere to sleep that night (we had no idea if stores would be open when we reached Hartford).
On the way back we stopped at a great park just south of the airport and the dogs got another good walk before we had to leave. We deicided to get to the airport for 3:30 (not wanting to miss our 5:30 flight) and it was a good thing. The ticketing agent took 45 minutes to figure out how to ticket the dogs kennels! Finally a supervisor came by and told her how to do it and we were off.
The flight from Toronto to Hartford was about 2 hours and no turbulence! Whooohoooooooo! We arrived in Hartford at about 7:30 and made our way to the rental car agency. Rayne had rented a Neon for the first 2 weeks of our stay but they upgraded us to a PT cruiser with a soft top. Finally something went right! We packed the dogs and our luggage into the cruiser and headed for Wethersfield. Rayne made a call earlier to the realtor that listed the rental property and we were to meet him between 8:00 and 8:30pm (not the 11:00am we were hoping for but at least we all made it)
The realtor gave us a key to the house and we lugged our things in and immediately headed out to find some place to buy pillows, toilet paper, an electric kettle (since we were without gas and therefore hot water until the 8th...mmmmm, spogebaths...) etc. Luckily there is a Walmart, Target and Lowes (think Home Depot with better colours) just down the turnpike from us.
We were both dieing for a cold wet drink (with alcohol) after our long journey but alas Rayne informed me of the first Connecticut quirk.....no liquor sales after 9:00pm. Oh well probably better that way anyhow. We deployed the self inflating airbed boiled some water (for a washdown) and settled into bed at about 11:00pm.
Well it's been a while since the last post. I'll try to do a succinct "catch up" post.
Everything got packed and moved on the 27th of June. We kept the airbed and pillows along with our necessities and the dogs kennels. Unfortunately Rayne was unsuccessful at the INS office getting the TN Visa early so our stuff was in storage until the 3rd of July (in Vancouver). We spent the next 2 days trying to make the place as clean as possible for George and Lori (our fabulous tenants) while sleeping in an empty apartment on our airbed.
Our last supper was with our good friend Bryan and we headed to the island the next day. Thank goodness we took the Tsawwassen ferry (let's see that on the National spelling bee!) and not the Horseshoe Bay (where a ferry lost power and crashed into the dock causing massive delays).
The next couple of days (or maybe just one, it's all a blur) were spent preparing for the wedding at Rayne's parents place. Apparently I would make a horrific wedding planner, everytime Rayne went to pick out food I would grab more because we were feeding 20 people. By the time we were finished there was enough food for 50! Oh well, we don't like anyone to go hungry.
The day of the ceremony was great. Unfortunately our good friends Russ, Jay and little Jake couldn't make it from Claresholm, Alberta (nasty flooding, poor folks) but other than that we had a great group. We had everyone walk down to the beach and the wedding commisioner was fun (sort of a pixyish woman who told us about a witch wedding she had just done....weird but cool), the ceremony was quick and fun and I didn't say awfully wedded wife....
We went back to Ron and Dene's ( Rayne folks) for a barbecque and some beverages. Ron managed to setup enough space in the dining for everyone to have a sit down dinner. There were a couple of toasts and some good stories. Rayne got inducted into the Whittaker inlaws club (my brother inlaw Jim is president and Rayne is now head of foreign affairs.) Rayne and I had a great time and received some great gifts, thanks to everyone for attending and I hope you had as good a time as we did.
The next day we did some packing inpreparation for our flights(s). We had a nice brunch with some of my family and Rayne parents and went home for a little rest before we began the journey to Wethersfield. We picked a red eye on purpose to disrupt the dogs routines as little as possible. We headed for the airport for 6:30 to catch an 8:00pm flight.
Next time....a bumpy ride, an unexpected car rental and how to survive without hot water.
