Leah’s Cafe

Our house here has three bathrooms, but no bathtub. The new house we are going to live has one thousand and one bathroom, but has a bathtub in the small bathroom. The big boy took a picture of the bathtub and he thinks I am going to like it.

Who doesn’t like to soak in a bubble bath after a hard day work? However, when people get older and are not as flexible anymore, getting in and out of the traditional kind of bathtub can be dangerous.

That’s why they have this kind of walkin tub at some of the retirement communities. You can walk in and out of the tub, and some model will have a seat to sit on. You don’t have to be afraid of not able to get up or slip when trying to get out! So, getting old is not an excuse not to take a bath! :-)

I  have been getting a lot of inquiries from friends and neighbors on when am I leaving for IL, the big boy too received a fair amount of that.  We need Uncle’s Sam approval before we can be united. It’s difficult for others to understand, why it takes so long to get a spouse of an American citizen over to live with her husband.

Well, it takes more than buying the air ticket and hop on the next plane. We are dealing with one of the most inefficient bureaucratic governmental agencies in the world, indeed. The irony amidst all this is: it takes only a week or two to get a visa for a spouse of a non citizen H1B worker!

In the capitalist world, the corporates who have the financial power to  hire lobbyists to influence the lawmakers get ahead of the games. Family reunification stays at the bottom of priorities because they do not have many people who look out for their rights. I really feel sorry for many families (some with young children) being separated for years while waiting for the visa to be granted.

It has been closed to three months since we filed the papers, except for a notice of receipt, we are kept in the black hole not knowing what happened to the papers. We tried to file an expedite request based on my medical condition that needs further attention. The big boy had even involved the congressman’s office to chase them down. However, we are yet to receive any news that the expedite request is approved or rejected. An expedite request takes weeks to process, what an oxymoron! It’s good that I have plenty of things to keep me occupied while this waiting game is going on, or else can die with all this slow response and keep in suspend not knowing what kind of outcome we will receive.

I have finally received more pictures of the inside of our new home on top of the 1001 picture showing outside of the house! :-) 

It’s a big old house in the downtown area, we will be living on the second floor.

We use the side entrance and stairs leading up to the second floor.

The balcony and the view of the family room from the outside.

The dining area. I like the fact that it has plenty of natural light from the windows.

The living room.

The bedrooms before moving in the furniture.

I like what I see so far. The big boy knows I would fall for the wooden door and window frames, built in cabinet and those decorative panels that scatter around the house. :-)The rich brown colour and its beautiful grain has character, don’t you think? Though some people say they make the place look a little darker !

The big boy has already moved in the furniture and lived at this place. He would have to change the address and get some new address stamps from vistaprint.com soon.

Hey, the house is ready, why am I still here? Unfortunately, it’s going to take much longer before we can be united. Uncle Sam hasn’t started to look at the papers. It was like throwing a rock into the ocean, we have not heard anything back. I bet the papers are collecting dusts somewhere at a storage or warehouse. We sent in an expedite request last week, hopefully we would hear some good news this week !

There are a few people I would like to ask this question last week, but I didn’t ! Incidentally, they all work for the bank! Which make me wonder what kind people they hired to work in the bank nowadays?

The first incident, I walked into the bank, requested a “reduce of mortgage interest rate”, two customer officers told me there is no such thing. When I insisted there is, they asked me to write a letter.(And you thought that’s a special talent of government bureaucrats to stop people from bothering them!) I live 45 minutes away from the bank, I was not going to drive home, type out a letter and drive back there, so I requested a piece of paper and drafted a letter on the spot and asked them to fax the request to the HQ.  I got a call from the HQ the next day, offered me a 2% reduction in interest rate!!

The second incident is an old issue that had not been solved for four years. I have a margin trading account with this bank and have an online account for stocks trading. Four years ago, I forgot the username and password, my account was suspended after three unsuccessful attempts. I was told to go to the branch to restore the account and the fellow at the branch asked me to call the customer careline. The customer careline people asked me to see the fellow at the branch to get the access code, after being kicked around like a ball for a few times, I just gave up. Recently, as I am trying to take care of the banking and financial matters before leaving for IL, and I wanted to sell the remaining stocks, I went back to the branch to enquire about how to restore the password (Amazingly, the same guy I talked to four years ago still works there and deals with this kind of problem) But, looks like he has not been equipped with the right product knowledge in this four years! Guy A at the branch asked me to call the customer careline, guy B at the customer caerline asked me to see A, so I told A and B, why don’t you figure out what to do and call me! That was a week ago, I am still waiting for their calls!

The third incident happened at the same bank of the first incident, I handed in a few security documents for verification and certification to a woman officer, was told it would take 2 weeks to get back to me. As I didn’t want to go down again to pick up the documents, I requested for the documents to courier to me.  After two weeks, no news, but I was too busy accompanying my mom on a hospital tour and didn’t drop or call to check on the status of the documents. Four weeks later, I called the branch and enquired about the status of the documents, the woman who picked up the phone told me she couldn’t tell me anything wouldn’t check anything for me on the phone, I have to go to the branch personally. I got really annoyed with her, I asked for her name but she refused to give me. I then called the customer careline, made a complaint about it and asked to trace the whereabouts of the documents. The man on the customer careline was helpful, he was surprised that I was even told it would take two weeks to verify the documents, he said the branch could usually do the verification on the spot! Anyway, he verified with his superior, called the branch and managed to get them to trace the documents. He then called me back a few hours later, told me I could go to the branch to pick up the documents the next day, they would be verified.  I was not free the next day, so I went in the following business day. Guess what ? I drove 45 minutes down there, was told they need to send the documents to HQ for verification and the woman who was in charged of this matter was on leave and I have to come back the next day. My face must have changed color, I tell you. I sat there, insisted that I would not leave without the documents. The woman who served me didn’t know what to do, she went inside and came back with another woman who looked like she is the supervisor or manager. (What’s wrong with this people who never identify themselves? Isn’t that a common courtesy to let your customers know who they are dealing with? ) She apologized for the “miscommunication” and offered to courier the documents to me the next day, so I don’t have to drive one and half hours to and fro just to pick up the documents.

The ridiculous thing is: after all the hassles and five weeks of waiting for the documents, was told they are no longer needed by another institution who required it, just because they never update their website!!!

Malaysia boleh!

My parents’ house is  an hour drive to downtown. We took an early lunch and left the house after lunch to go to this Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist. There was a long line and mom waited for two hours to see the “doctor”.

This Chinese herbalist doesn’t use the traditional herbs that need to cook for long hours, the doctor actually gave her some herbal medications in pill forms! He recommended her to see the acupuncturist at the same building to expedite the recovery.

Mom thinks the acupuncture helps and she feels less pain after the half an hour session. So, we are going back tomorrow for another session.

Mom’s leg pain hasn’t improved but worsen after the tour of hospital. At first she refused to go back to see the orthopedic. I have to bluff her that taking an X-ray wouldn’t cost much though she was going for MRI that cost 1k!

The MRI showed the disc between two of the bones on the spine (L5 and S1) has extruded and pressed against the nerves. The nerves happened to be the ones that control the leg movement. That’s why mom has been having leg pain. The extrusion is actually quite bad and the only way to repair such condition is going for a surgery according to the orthopedic.

The orthopedic said there is no medication to cure this kind of problem, he can only give pain killer for pain relief. Since mom is not keen to go for surgery and it may be a while for the pharmaceutical companies to come out with the right drugs for this kind of health problem, we will bring her to try some alternative medicine in the next few weeks i.e. acupuncture, Chinese herbals and chiropractic .

My niece and nephew are going to be here at my parents’ place starting next Tuesday after their trip to one of the hill resorts. Their mother was able to accumulate enough points with one of the credit cards with hotel rewards for a free one night stay at the hill resort. She is definitely one smart woman who constantly browse the credit articles for good bargains. :-)

The children are going to stay with us for 6 days. We are looking forward to see them and enjoy the time with them. They are good children, they can play together pretty well, of course the cat and dog fights are inevitable.

They are also very independent children, they do not need much attention from the adults. In fact, they can be little helpers around the house. Their mother has trained them to wash dishes, sweep the floor and pretty much can take care of themselves, we just have to feed them regularly. :-)

A few people asked where I am right now. Yes, I am still here, not yet move to Illinois. There are so many obstacles and delays. Seven weeks ago, it was the surgery to remove ovarian cysts, then spent 2-3 weeks going through all sort of tests due to the cancer scare and at the same time dealing with the pain after the surgery. Though doctor said it should be alright to travel after 4-6 weeks, still suffer from pain in the abdomen area. It takes much longer to recuperate than the doctor said it would!!

However, that also means I am not in a hurry to move and have all the time in the world to wait upon the big procrastinator to act. Can you imagine if air ticket has been purchased and he is taking his own sweet time to find a place for us to live? The delays actually save me from stress and put more lines that cannot be erased with the best wrinkle cream. It’s a blessing in disguise, indeed.

The big boy had delayed the plan to move out from his present place a couple of times. Since the landlord’s daughter is coming back, he has to move by the end of the May. After looking at more than a dozen places, he finally mailed me some pictures of places that he had looked at.

This is a house that he likes. At first glance it looks like it’s facing the T-junction (see the traffic lights), it’s the kind of bad Feng Shui that Chinese people don’t like, isn’t it? No picture of the inside, just a picture taken outside the house, does he expect me to decide to live here base on this picture?

I can’t live with that kind of un-assuring decision making process. So I looked up the street views on Google map, from the 360 degree view, can see the house is actually not directly facing the T-junction (though bad Feng Shui or not does not really matters very much to us as Christians). The traffic lights there are for the crossing. I was also able to cruise the neighborhood and check out the houses around the neighborhood on Google map. It looks like a nice neighborhood! As a visual person, no amount of descriptions on the phone can replace the thousands words that a picture speaks! When is he going to learn this?

He also mailed a picture of the garage. That’s the most important feature we look for in a house?! Who is going to live in the garage? Not me.

Will this end the house hunting? I don’t know, he hasn’t put down a deposit for this place. As usual, taking his sweet time to take photographs of the inside so he can show me, he says tomorrow. Tomorrow, if it ever comes…. :-)