Latent hypochondria

One of the great things about paying for healthcare here is that you get a bucket load of flattery for every $100 you part with. I went to the optician yesterday after work and once I'd had all my financial information (health insurance and vision plan details, as well as my social security number) extracted from me, the ladies at the desk welcomed me like a long-lost relative and I was ushered into the examination room ahead of schedule. The eye doctor (who must have been given a heads up because I can't believe she sussed my accent at 'hello') gushed about England, the English and accents in general. Noting this failed to warm me up, she moved on to complimenting my eyelashes and my eye colour. I really just wanted to get my prescription, order new contact lenses and get out the door: I wasn't really prepared for a chat about either the aesthetics of England or my eyes.

So she tried a different tack: appealing to my latent hypochondria. Did I realise one of my pupils is bigger than the other? Had I ever been told what an impressive astigmatism I have in my right eye? Did I know that said astigmatised right eye has a remarkable imprint of a contact lens on it? (This one was a bit terrifying, admittedly, since I ran out of contact lenses about two weeks ago). Was I aware my eye pressure is at the high end of normal? Would I like to come back and have a very special person's glaucoma test? (I got roped into this on the basis that my medical insurance should pay for it. I hope they do. It sounds expensive.)

I'd like to think that I'm immune to this bizarre kind of buttering up. But after living in New York City for three years, where everyone has the most special type of illness possible, I'm beginning to feel a bit neglected. It's hard to listen to colleagues and acquaintances telling you about their uniquely irritable bowel disorder, or their truly individual allergies to afghani food etc etc, without wondering what glamorous medical treatment and attention you might be missing out on yourself....I'm coming down with a terrible NYC illness - I WANT TO BE SPECIAL TOO! Or at least until I get the bill.

Weddings, visas and the inevitable green card question

I'm slowly getting my head around to the idea of applying for a green card and after doing some initial online research last week, I'm utterly confused. I'd like to think it would be relatively straight forward - English girl, legally employed in the U.S., meets U.S. boy, they move in together, have joint bank accounts and eventually get married... and one day she'd like the peace of mind of having residency status that's not tied to her employment. I'd be really really grateful for any advice from all you out there who've been through, or are going through, this process.

-- Is it possible to fill in the forms correctly, without too much stress, without paying for a lawyer? If you've gone through this process without using a lawyer, how was it?

-- Since I plan to change my name, do I need to change my name in my UK passport (which obviously holds my current U.S. visa) before I apply for the green card? If so, how do I get the name changed on the visa? (This seems like a lot of work, but not sure how to apply for a green card under my married name while my passport shows my maiden name... Still, plenty of people must be in this situation so I'm sure there's some answer).

--If you used a lawyer, could you recommend one in New York? (You can email me via the link on the right-hand side of the page). I've been struggling to even get estimates for prices since the lawyers seem to want us to pay for a 'consultation' before they'll even give us a quote...

Any advice gratefully received...

I showed you my ID

So, after our successful stint of cat sitting, we've moved (arguably) onwards and upwards and we're now both dog sitting and house sitting for some friends in the West Village/Meatpacking district... It's another world for us, where people pay for access to special dog runs via complex electronic keys and keypads. I get to take out the dog early before work and late at night, when there are few people apart from the genuine (who'd have thought) meatpackers around. Bill, who's been working from home, has been making friends (of sorts) with the locals at the dog run during the day. Until I got this email this afternoon:

-----Original Message-----
From: REDACTED [mailto:redacted@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 1:31 PM
To: Britainer, Little (NY)
Subject: I showed you my ID

Had an interesting exchange with a bonafide crazy Lady at the dog run.
I'm wondering if she's not the same person you met this morning. Blue
dress, brown hair, sunglasses, late-twenties to thirties, definitely a
Sex in the City wannabe. Two dogs, one a german shepherd the other a
kind of mottled black, gray, brown mutt-type dog.

She lurked around by the gate for a while and then finally called me
over to explain that she'd just become a member and didn't have a key.
Also, she'd forgotten her code. And anyway could I please just let her
in? Oh, she also showed an ID to demonstrate that she *lived in the
neighborhood.* (She knew the secret neighborhood handshake?)

I said sorry lady I'm just a dog sitter and they told me not to let
anyone in.

At this point some natural instinctive con artist instinct must have
kicked in, because she ran through an elaborate routine, a mix of veiled
threats and attempts at ingratiation. But she ran through the routine
too quickly.

"That's the same dog from last night. What's her name?" (Ok, I'm not
telling you the dogs name so you can pretend you've met before.) Hi
whatsyourname. I live in the neighborhood. I showed you my ID. Any
impulse I might have had toward charity was overridden by the sense that
she was obviously lying.

She must have quickly decided the good-cop routine wouldn't work,
because she rapidly switched gears, going so far as to flash a small
police badge in a little leather section of her wallet and to announce,
in the sternest possible tones, "Look, dude. I'm a cop's sister." Then:
crazy, crazy, crazy. "What's your address. I'll have you evicted."

It was unclear to me what I was going to be evicted from (my house?
the dog run? the Village? My entire Meatpacking District privileges
revoked?) but I knew I didn't want to mess with this well connected
cop-sister anymore. I also knew there was no way in hell I was letting
her into the dog run, or even venturing outside myself as long as she
was standing there, so I went back in, and when there were two gates
between me and her I felt a little safer and I resumed having a catch
with Lexie.

Five or ten minutes elapse peacefully. .

At some point I noticed, rather ominously in retrospect, that Lexi was
spending a lot of time looking off at the entrance and that the Lady and
her two pets must have not given up. She crossed the street at one point
and I thought: maybe we're safe. She was on her cell phone maybe?
Calling in political favors?

Finally the door opens up. I can here it but I dare not turn around and
look. I stand there in the middle of the run throwing the ball at the
wall while Lexi, who has totally given up at this point, stares behind
me, and I wait half expecting to get stabbed in the back with a steak
knife.

Finally a figure emerges in my peripheral vision. She's standing off to
the left of me, about twenty feet away, just barely within range of my
peripheral vision.

Taking a picture of me with her iPhone.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to have you evicted. I know you and I know that dog. You
don't even live here."

"What are you going to have me evicted from?"

"What's your address? I showed you my ID. You're just a dog walker,
right. You don't even live here. That's not even your dog. You're just a
fat guy. Look at your cankles. You should go for a run down by the
river. You're just a fat DOG WALKER."

This remark about my calves stung a bit. Also, I was a little annoyed
that she had managed to best me in my attempts to keep her out of the
dog run. But I think I kept my composure.

"Look, I'm just dog sitting," I said. "All I know is they told me not to
let anybody in here."

"I'm going to have you evicted. My sister started this organization
twelve years ago. And it's only for people in the neighborhood, and
you're not from the neighborhood. What's your address?" I showed you my
ID.

"You're kind of crazy, aren't you?" I said.

"You're right I'm crazy. What's your address? I'm going to have you
evicted."

Meanwhile, I'm trying to mobilize and stage a tactical retreat. But Lexi
is not cooperating. An excruciating, awkward interval ensues where Lexi
kind of half pees (I think mostly out of stress or
sympathy) in the middle of the run and I have to walk over and haul the
hose out and hose it down. Finally I manage to corall Lexi toward the
air-lock.

"You shouldn't call people fat," I said. "You'll give someone an eating
disorder."

"Good," she said. "You need one."

As I'm putting Lexi's collar on, she says and this is the line I've
found most haunting. "Pay it forward buddy."

Was she being ironic? Is this something people actually say or just
people people in Recovery with alcohol and drug issues? Did she know I
was going to be writing this email? Was she really citing that terrible
movie with Haley Joel Osmet? Was that ironic too? Too, too complex.

"Pay what forward?," I said. "My eating disorder?"

And then I left.

Anyway. I hope I did the right thing and behaved as a Gentleman at all
times. I have a natural sympathy for crazy people as you well know, and
I'm as interested in helping the less fortunate as the next person. But
it's not like she was sitting by the roadside with a wooden bowl her
only earthly possession and bleeding eyes. She wanted to use the dog
run.

It was helpful that her appeals to my Robin Hood instincts were always
tempered by an ingrained, reflexive elitism and status obsession. So I
think I'm safe on the moral front. But I might have bigger problems.

There's a very well connected Lady out there somewhere with a fake
police badge, a brother who's a cop, and a sister who's a seminal figure
in the East Village dog run scene, and she wants to have me evicted.

More wedding faff

One of the interesting hugging-related questions that my mum asked when she came over, 2 weeks before the wedding, was: were we going to have a reception line?

I actually think my funeral count still just about outweighs my UK wedding count, but I remember a cousin's wedding where we were all welcomed to the reception and shook hands with each member of the bride's family (plus my cousin, the groom, and possibly his family - I forget). I've now been to a handful of weddings here and I don't remember that happening once.

Instead, because I was worried about all these different people coming together at the last minute, and because I wanted them to meet each other and have fun on the Saturday (aka Wedding) night, I somehow managed to persuade my most awesome (did I mention how amazing my in-laws are?) parents-in-law to have a bbq at their house the night before the wedding...

They kept referring to this as the 'Rehearsal Dinner'. I'm pretty sure this is a concept that doesn't exist in the UK - but the idea is, that the bride and groom's close family get together the night before the wedding, rehearse walking down the aisle etc etc and then have a fancy dinner. Given that we weren't having any bridesmaids or (as the Americans go in for, GROOMSMEN), it seemed logical to invite all of the out-of-town guests (pretty much everyone, apart from my in-laws' family) (again, did I mention that my husband's family are some of the best people in the world?)

So this was how the 'Rehearsal Dinner' (or, British equivalent of a reception line) started:



(My dad, surprisingly, is the paler, shorter one...)

And this was one of the day-after results, poor Bill:

Brit weddings vs American weddings....

So, we managed to get married.... We have yet to get the completed marriage license back (that's another story in itself) but it is all legal, we've been promised.



There was a strictly limited mention of God, I didn't have to sign away our first born in service to Liberty or some such, nor pledge my allegiance to anything more than Bill. In fact, the service was really rather lovely, I thought, although I couldn't quite figure out whether to cry or laugh my way through it so not sure if I was in the best state to judge.

I intend to drag out my observations on English vs American weddings, just to ease myself back into blogging. But one thing I will say for now is that I was extremely glad this happened more than three years after I arrived here. Because, oh my god, the HUGGING.... After three years, I've built up just enough stamina to cope with all the hugging while only wincing on the inside. (Even the florist (male) wanted to hug me. Twice.) Seriously. There was such a terrible amount of hugging going on that even the Brit family seemed to catch on after a while. It got dangerous out there, especially if you were wearing a white dress*....


(This is my new sister(-in-law). Quite possibly the second-best thing about getting married was getting a sister).


*I actually didn't manage to spill anything on the dress which, if you knew me you'd realise is some sort of a miracle in itself. It did wind up with a lot of grass stains, which made me sad for a little while, but after some drinking and more dancing it didn't really seem to matter so much.