Revised Immediate Future Plans
Dec. 23rd, 2004 01:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naruki_oniAs usual, our plans have mutated unchecked since I was laid off last month. Due to some ferocious begging, I will now share the current plans. Not that you deserve them, filthy beggar.
We were totally unable to find someone who would pick up our stuff for donation before the end of the year, though a couple places will be able to towards the end of January. We did the math, and donating to charity would have been worthwhile this year had we done everything (including one of our cars). Sadly, doing it next year means there is absolutely no tax benefit. (You'd think Bush would have fixed that by now - guess he doesn't want non-Christian charity).
Thus, we are forced to try to sell whatever we can manage to sell in the next month so we can use the money. And boy, can we ever use the money right now. I should go ahead and schedule an appointment with the charity place to pick up our stuff in January before I wait too long and they won't be here before February. I probably will screw up again, though. *sigh* The apartment complex will, of course, charge us to remove anything we leave behind. Bastards.
We will stay in the apartment thru the end of January. When we finally got off our asses to tell the apartment manager (think very dishonest looking Ben Affleck) we were leaving, he kindly pointed out the contractual small print that we'd never bothered to consider reading. First being that we must give 30 days notice - thus staying on another month. Second, we automatically lose our security deposit, plus we pay a further penalty for breaking the lease of 1 additional month's rent. All told, they are screwing us out of just less than two months rent (since I'm sure part of the security deposit would have been sucked up for repairs anyway, we never would have gotten the whole thing).
Real Soon Now we need to get our kitties microchipped in preparation for the move to Japan. We've never considered it before because they never leave the house (they're house slaves). There is a weird 180 day "quarantine" process that must take place after the microchips are inserted. The cats get a rabies vaccine, wait a bit, get tested, wait a bit, get another vaccine, wait, and test again. Somehow that eats up 180 days. The trick is, you can just take your cats to Japan and they'll be stuck in quarantine for the whole time, or you can do all that here in the US and fly them over as soon as they're okayed. If you do that, they only spend about 12 hours in Japanese quarantine.
What none of the literature can tell me is if the cats have to stay in official quarantine here in the US, or if we can keep them at the house during that time. Obviously, that would be by far the best option if so. If anyone knows how to find the official rules regarding that specific aspect of the process, please let me know. Thanks.
After we clean out the apartment at the end of January, we'll go live with my dad in Massachusetts, where I will seek some kind of short term employment. The SO will be heading to Japan soon thereafter. She will get a job and begin the paperwork to sponsor me.
We just went to the INS this morning to renew her status (currently it's "Still On Hold" for the 6th year running) just in case there might be a problem with her leaving the US. We have to renew once a year until the conditional status gets removed, and the fuckwads at the INS have been sitting on the paperwork for far too long. A couple we know did things the exact same way as we did, in the same jurisdiction, but they started a year later than us. They got their permanent status within the first two years.
We noticed the INS guy had a little US flag sticker taped to his window with the "God bless the USA" caption beneath it. Neither of us said anything since he did us a favor by not turning us away. Apparently a few months ago they changed the rules to force everyone to make online appointments before coming in - walk-ins are no longer welcome. We played nice and he obliged. Yay.
The odd thing that both of us noticed was how he ended our business with "Happy Holidays". Again, we said nothing and tried not to smile like Bush does. I figured in for a penny, in for a pound, but he seems to be a bit less consistent. Heh.
Once the paperwork for me is done, which may take a few months, I will head to Japan and seek more permanent employment of some sort. Assuming the cats can quarantine at home, my step-mom will keep them for us until around July and ship them over. Yay!
Tomorrow, we take the kitties to the vet to board for a few days and fly off to sunny San Diego for some warm family woolgathering. My step-sister is pretty cool, despite being a lawyer-in-training. (That oughta get Niwikki ticked at me.) She's gonna show us around town. Also joining us will be my dad and her mom, so it'll be fun for 6 (sis has a big dog).
And I think that about covers it.
We were totally unable to find someone who would pick up our stuff for donation before the end of the year, though a couple places will be able to towards the end of January. We did the math, and donating to charity would have been worthwhile this year had we done everything (including one of our cars). Sadly, doing it next year means there is absolutely no tax benefit. (You'd think Bush would have fixed that by now - guess he doesn't want non-Christian charity).
Thus, we are forced to try to sell whatever we can manage to sell in the next month so we can use the money. And boy, can we ever use the money right now. I should go ahead and schedule an appointment with the charity place to pick up our stuff in January before I wait too long and they won't be here before February. I probably will screw up again, though. *sigh* The apartment complex will, of course, charge us to remove anything we leave behind. Bastards.
We will stay in the apartment thru the end of January. When we finally got off our asses to tell the apartment manager (think very dishonest looking Ben Affleck) we were leaving, he kindly pointed out the contractual small print that we'd never bothered to consider reading. First being that we must give 30 days notice - thus staying on another month. Second, we automatically lose our security deposit, plus we pay a further penalty for breaking the lease of 1 additional month's rent. All told, they are screwing us out of just less than two months rent (since I'm sure part of the security deposit would have been sucked up for repairs anyway, we never would have gotten the whole thing).
Real Soon Now we need to get our kitties microchipped in preparation for the move to Japan. We've never considered it before because they never leave the house (they're house slaves). There is a weird 180 day "quarantine" process that must take place after the microchips are inserted. The cats get a rabies vaccine, wait a bit, get tested, wait a bit, get another vaccine, wait, and test again. Somehow that eats up 180 days. The trick is, you can just take your cats to Japan and they'll be stuck in quarantine for the whole time, or you can do all that here in the US and fly them over as soon as they're okayed. If you do that, they only spend about 12 hours in Japanese quarantine.
What none of the literature can tell me is if the cats have to stay in official quarantine here in the US, or if we can keep them at the house during that time. Obviously, that would be by far the best option if so. If anyone knows how to find the official rules regarding that specific aspect of the process, please let me know. Thanks.
After we clean out the apartment at the end of January, we'll go live with my dad in Massachusetts, where I will seek some kind of short term employment. The SO will be heading to Japan soon thereafter. She will get a job and begin the paperwork to sponsor me.
We just went to the INS this morning to renew her status (currently it's "Still On Hold" for the 6th year running) just in case there might be a problem with her leaving the US. We have to renew once a year until the conditional status gets removed, and the fuckwads at the INS have been sitting on the paperwork for far too long. A couple we know did things the exact same way as we did, in the same jurisdiction, but they started a year later than us. They got their permanent status within the first two years.
We noticed the INS guy had a little US flag sticker taped to his window with the "God bless the USA" caption beneath it. Neither of us said anything since he did us a favor by not turning us away. Apparently a few months ago they changed the rules to force everyone to make online appointments before coming in - walk-ins are no longer welcome. We played nice and he obliged. Yay.
The odd thing that both of us noticed was how he ended our business with "Happy Holidays". Again, we said nothing and tried not to smile like Bush does. I figured in for a penny, in for a pound, but he seems to be a bit less consistent. Heh.
Once the paperwork for me is done, which may take a few months, I will head to Japan and seek more permanent employment of some sort. Assuming the cats can quarantine at home, my step-mom will keep them for us until around July and ship them over. Yay!
Tomorrow, we take the kitties to the vet to board for a few days and fly off to sunny San Diego for some warm family woolgathering. My step-sister is pretty cool, despite being a lawyer-in-training. (That oughta get Niwikki ticked at me.) She's gonna show us around town. Also joining us will be my dad and her mom, so it'll be fun for 6 (sis has a big dog).
And I think that about covers it.
