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Saturday, December 15, 2007

Catching up, Christmas pictures, Case status

Current Mood:
CC is listening to: an episode of Mythbusters on my Slingbox (WOO HOO it works beautifully!)

Okay first of all it's so cool that I'm able to use my Christmas gift on this trip. It's 2am in Manila on a Sunday, and I'm watching a commercial about NetZero, an American internet service provider.

Now it just went back to Mythbusters. They're doing airplane myths today. So far they've shown that a civilian CAN land a plane if a flight controller talked them through it, and now they're testing if the scene in Point Break (where Patrick Swayze jumps out of a plane with the only parachute and Keanu Reeves, who jumps out 15 seconds later, is able to catch up by assuming a streamlined bullet position) can happen. It can :-).

Awww, Mythbusters is over....YAY Dirty Jobs!

Sorry, I'm just loving the whole experience :-).

Where was I? Oh yeah. I'll be in Manila for a few more days--I fly back Wednesday. Today I was able to meet up with Pebbles and her husband Carlo at SM Sucat (Pebbles and I are both from Paranaque and SM Sucat is a convenient meeting place for both of us), and I was also able to meet their lovely daughters again (they're SO adorable).

Our schedules overlapped only enough for us to have coffee and chat for about 45 minutes, but it was great fun :-). It's only now that I realize I should have taken pictures :-).

What I DO have pictures for are the decorations we have in Memphis. I took them before I left, but didn't really have the time to post until now :-). Our theme this year is purple, gold and silver :-).

The tree. The colors are a lot brighter in real life, it's just that our lights are yellow and it kind of mutes the effect :-).

The tree at night

Closeup of the purple, gold and silver decorations. It's too bad that you can't really see the purple lights that run down the center line of the tree and the white lights that are more towards the outer edges. It's a nice effect :-).

The mantle (sorry, forgot to take the doggie water dish out of the way :-))

Closeup of the mantle. I know, the samurai sword doesn't really add to the Christmas feel, but we haven't found a replacement centerpiece yet :-). We'll probably use Christmas cards :-).

Our bear

The coffee table

Coffee table from the other view

Another view. Probably should have lit the candles for a better effect :-).

Purple and gold poinsettias and silver twigs. The two horses are some of our Christmas-themed Painted Ponies.

My friend Kitch gave us this awesome recipe for Chocolate Crinkles that she got from her friend. Steve LOVES them. We figure they'll make neat Christmas gifts, especially since none of Steve's family have ever had Chocolate Crinkles :-).

You can see where Steve and I had already eaten some of the cookies right out of the tray :-). Steve said, "You better take pictures now--there won't be much left of them later :-)."

Last update for now: I got an email from USCIS, about my removal-of-conditional-green-card-status application:

The last processing action taken on your case:
Receipt Number: WACXXXXXXXXXX
Application Type: CRI89 , PETITION TO REMOVE CONDITIONS OF PERMANENT RESIDENT STATUS RECEIVED
Current Status: Card production ordered.

On December 15, 2007, we ordered production of your new card. Please allow 30 days for your card to be mailed to you. If we need something from you we will contact you. If you move before you receive the card, call customer service. You can also receive automatic e-mail updates as we process your case. Just follow the link below to register.

If you have questions or concerns about your application or the case status results listed above, or if you have not received a decision from USCIS within the current processing time listed*, please contact USCIS Customer Service at (800) 375-5283.

*Current processing times can be found on the USCIS website at www.uscis.gov under Case Status and Processing Dates.

Sincerely,
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

I'm SO majorly crossing my fingers that what they mean to say is, "Hey, we looked through your papers and you're good to go. Here's your new green card that's good for 10 years."

That's not likely, though--chances are what they REALLY mean is, "You know, this thing takes so long that we're giving you another card that extends your conditional resident status for another year while we sort all this out." After all, the processing time on the website *did* say 6 months.

Guess we'll find out when I get the card :-).

Labels: Home, Immigration, Retail, Travel

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