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!

Kevin and Rayne