12 posts tagged “moving”

Survived another Grandparental visit.

All the contraband can now be unpacked from the garage.

Silver lining is that Grandparents make great babysitters.

As a result the wife and I had time to deal with officialdom.

We now have new state drivers licenses in hand (or back pocket as it were.)

They were hard won prizes.

Three different licensing stations we visited had lines out the door and no available parking...

The lines were just to get tickets...   to then wait to be graced with an audience with an official at the counter.

Consulted map and drove 45 minutes North to a rural licensing station in another county.

Here we found where all the fat, jolly, hick sort of DMV officials I had always hoped to have process me resided.

It's been my previous experience when dealing with officialdom to get the emaciated, cranky, geriatric that's a stickler for the rules.

But not this time.  No line.  No need for all those fangled state-required documents that just get in the way.

You look like a nice feller.  Pay your fee and sit over there for your photo.  Have a nice day now ya'hear!

And it was just that easy.

Apparently, the grand state of Tennessee also thinks I'm suspicious.

I cannot acquire a State of Tennessee driver's license.

Even though I have a valid license from another state, a Social Security Card/Number, a birth certificate, IRS federal tax records, and a marriage license to the wife, who does have two of the required docs (her being a seasoned international business traveler.)

That is all simply not enough to prove that I am legal here.

Why?

Documentation.

From the list below, I only have the birth certificate.

The only other second one I can even acquire is the Passport, which I don't yet have.

Required: Two proofs of citizenship or legal presence , *_

     Acceptable Proof of Citizenship or Lawful Permanent Resident
     Status Documents:

   *Remember: No photocopies will be accepted!*

   * Official Birth Certificate issued by a U.S. state, jurisdiction or
     territory (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana
     Islands, American Samoa, Swain's Island, Guam);

   * U.S. Government-issued Certified Birth Certificate

   * U.S. Certificate of Birth Abroad (DS-1350 or FS-545)

   * Report of Birth Abroad of a Citizen of the U.S. (FS-240)

   * Valid or expired U.S. Passport

   * Certificate of Citizenship (N560 or N561)

   * Certificate of Naturalization (N550, N570 or N578)

   * Unexpired U.S. Active Duty/Retiree/Reservist Military ID Card (DOD
     DD-2)

   * U.S. Citizen Identification Card (I-197, I-179)

   * INS I-551 Permanent Resident Alien Card

   * Foreign passport stamped by the U.S. Government indicating that
     the holder has been "Processed for I-551"

   * Permanent resident Re-entry Permit (I-327)

   * Temporary I-551 stamp on Form I-94, Arrival/Departure Record, with
     photograph of applicant.

   * U.S. Department of Receptions and Placement Program Assurance Form
     (Refugee) and I-94 stamped refugee.

   * Form I-94 Record of Arrival and Departure stamped Asylee, Parolee
     or Parole, refugee, asylum, HP (humanitarian parolee) or PIP
     (public interest parolee).

This would actually be easier, if I were from another country and moving here, rather than being a natural born citizen from out of state and moving here!

_*Two proofs of Tennessee residency ,
*_

         Acceptable Proof of Residency Documents:

   Remember: Make sure the document you bring shows your current
   address. If you bring a document that is listed, but does not
   contain your address, that document will not be accepted. For
   example: if you receive a paycheck, utility bill, etc. and your
   address is listed on the envelope but not on the bill itself, make
   sure to bring the envelope, because the bill will not be accepted.

   *PLEASE NOTE: All documents are subject to verification with the
   issuing agency or source. Documents subject to verification may
   delay the issuance of your permit, driver license, identification
   only license, or certificate for driving. No photocopies will be
   accepted! *

*To prove Tennessee residency, applicants must provide the following: *

   *
     Two Documents from List A

(Document must showing residence address used on application and your name, or name of your parent, guardian or spouse)

    OR    

   * One Document from List A
     and
     One Document from List B

         No photocopies will be accepted!

*LIST A *     *LIST B *

   * Current utility bill including telephone, electric, water, gas,
     cable, etc. (Must include postmarked envelope bill was mailed in)
     initial deposit receipt is NOT acceptable
   * Current bank statement (not checks)
   * Current rental/mortgage contract fully signed and executed, or
     receipt including deed of sale for property
   * Current employer verification including paycheck/check stub, work
     ID or badge, etc.
   * Current automobile, life or health issuance policy (not wallet cards)
   * Current driver license or ID issued by the State of Tennessee to a
     parent, legal guardian or spouse of applicant (proof of
     relationship required)
   * Current Tennessee motor vehicle registration
   * Current Tennessee voter registration
   * Current IRS tax reporting W-2 Form
   * Receipt for personal property or real estate taxes paid within the
     last year
   * In case of student enrolled in public or private school in this
     state, student may provide a photo student ID and acceptable
     documentation that student lives on campus.
   *
     Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) issued by the IRS
   *
     Form I-94 issued to the applicant by the Immigration and
     Naturalization Service (INS)
   *
     Employment authorization document (E.A.D.) issued to the applicant
     by the INS
   *
     I-551 issued to the applicant by the INS

_*and your Social Security number (SSN).*_

I cannot prove, enough for their liking, that I am a legal citizen, which is part one of two, the other being proof of residency, which we have in the bag.

I have 15 days left to change their mind, or, 'gasp', I become an illegal alien.

Problem is, the missing piece of ID that they require is a US issued Passport.

Which I can't get in 15 days.

I've been to Canada.  I've been to Mexico.  Other than that I don't travel internationally (sorry shout-out to Smiley).

I've never needed a passport.

But to move from Michigan to Tennessee, apparently I do.

On the plus side, when this business is finished, one of my last excuses for not hoping a plane to visit Smiley and his wife in their country will have been sorted.

Count me as an official fan of a national ID card system that bypasses all the individual state beauracracy.

Alrighty then.

The checklist upon arrival:

Me, male, thinning hair,
check.
The wife, already successful in new corporate office,
check.
Kids, two, female, aged 3 and 1,
check.
Dogs, two, female, boxers,
check.
Vehicles, two, one sedan, one pickup truck,
check.
A not insignificant, (read "crapload") of stuff inside various sized moving boxes, (seriously, you could fit a household of stuff in there)
check.

Only snafu was the rental agent and the cable guy not being able to connect with each other before we arrived.

First available makeup appointment was yesterday.

So we've actually been here for a full week before our TV had channels and my little rectangular metal box of a gateway to the rest of the cyber-world did anything aside from an impersonation of a 3 year old in timeout.

For now, I am now going to eat pizza, drink local beer, Yazoo "Dos Perros" Ale brewed downtown in a former motorworks factory, and smoke a victory cigar.

And yes, I got carded (out of state ID and all) by a sweet young thing while buying the beer at the local store.

Maybe the hair is not so thinning after all.

Later I will share anecdotes about the size and veracity of the local insectoid population and my legendary warrior prowess with the two-handed broad-swatter.

Liberation in the form of a 20 cubic yard driveway dumpster.

Well on its way to a full belly.

All of it less to be moved (again in some cases) and less to sort through on arrival.

Apologies to all of the various memories and ghosts that are physically linked to those items being discarded.

the Dandy Warhols "We Used To Be Friends" feels about right.

Need an audio reminder? Go here for a listen.

The drumbeat of the move is picking up pace.

The house is beginning to fill on a daily basis with various contractors for fixing up, real estate agenty-types, and stuff-moving types.

This all happens around the daily routines for the kids, the dogs, and I.

April is shaping up to be the first month where the wife is home more than she is away on business travel.

I feel like a psych ward patient, in my wheelchair, in the corner.

All metaphorically.

Except for the psych ward patient part.

I was at the gym, about to step off the elliptical machine, and looked out the windows toward the parking lot.

And was at that point seized by a panic attack.

Where was my daughter?

She had wanted to come to the gym with me, I remember putting her shoes on, and then I was at the gym on the machine.

I had no recollection of dropping her off at the child care center.

SHIT

Was she still in the car?  Or had I left her wandering the halls?

I set off at a quick pace trying to put a plan together.

Focus, man, focus.

Then clarity washed over my sweat-sheened face.

Oh yeah, she'd changed her mind as we were getting in the car, and had stayed home with my wife to watch Dora instead.

Ah, relief.

Then back at home later that night, watching a movie, I came upon a particularly boring stretch, and thought to myself, "Self, now would be a good time for a nip from those two fingers you poured yourself earlier."

Wild Turkey has gone upscale by the by.

They have a line called "Russell's Reserve" that is aged 10 years.

Fantastic.

Here's a link to a reivew:

Russell's Reserve Review

So I went about trying to find where I'd put the tumbler, in the dark.

I wasn't on the table next to the loveseat, it wasn't on the floor beside it.

Nuts, maybe I'd put in my lap under the blanket I had, or worse, in a fold on top of the blanket.

I've lost more wineglasses that way while watching movies in a darkened room.

I forget they're there and stand up, to hear a crystaline crash moments later.

I gently tug aside the blanket to look for the orphaned tumbler peeking around my legs.

No luck, so I put the blanket back down...

and notice that the tumbler, is in my left hand, now with only one finger or so left.

So, yeah, I feel as though I'm skipping grooves, several at a time, and am disoriented, more than usual.

But here are the things I did notice this week:

The wife bailed while running on a treadmill at the gym. 
Her knees now look like mine when I was 12 and first learning to skateboard.
The housing market locally has depreciated another 12%.
We'll be looking for slightly less expensive homes in Nashville than we were previously.

I'm a lame duck resident in my own house.

Theoretically, I know that we're moving, and sometime soon.

It just doesn't feel like it though, as the news isn't new anymore and here we are still.

Life for the kids and the dogs is unchanged.

My daily routine is much as it ever was as well, and yet I know the days of this place are numbered.

I'd rather just get going and be done with it.

Cranky hath I grown and mighty is my irritability.

Doesn't help that the place we're moving is in the 70's already, meanwhile, it's freezing and with fresh snow here.

And I can't commit to anything here, and I can't set up / plan for a place to live there that we don't have yet.

Restless.

And in need of something to break.

Literally and metaphorically.

Town I was born into was like an island in the desert.

Surrounded by a sea of sand.

I desperately wanted to get off the island.

So much so that I stayed 20 years.

Wrap your head around that.

See if I'd left before I was ready, I would have ended back up on the island.

I'd seen it happen.

So, I waited until the odds of success were in my favor.

I built up escape-velocity to exceed the gravity well around the Vortex.

Mind you, it was never a sure thing.

We called the place the Vortex because so many folks that left got sucked back in, eventually.

I was out one year, then two, but never really felt secure in my escape.

Always a possibility of some random event that would send me back into the gravity well.

While away at university I made very few, as in two trips, I think, back to my hometown to see my folks.

Three years out and I graduated university.

Left immediately from the graduation ceremony West to Cali and North to Seattle.

Ever since my escape, no matter where I end up, I find myself looking for the next place.

It's not so much that I'm uncomfortable where I am.

Perhaps it is that I feel that if I don't have the next thing lined up, that I'll end up in the Vortex by default if something forces me out of where I am at the time.

Then there's the irrational sentiment that if I stay anywhere too long, that it will become a new Vortex and keep me hemmed in.

I can only be sure I'm not under the influence of the Vortex by leaving a place behind.

Which brings to mind the Salem witch trials.

Dunk the suspect in deep water with hands and feet tied.  If she floats, she's a witch.  If she sinks and drowns, then she was innocent, oops our bad, but hey, she's in heaven now since she died innocent.

So in a way, the Vortex does impose its power over me, because everywhere I've left, by nature of my having left it successfully, means that it was not turning into the Vortex, but I had to in essence drown it to be sure.

So, next please.

Mentally I'm all about being there, not here.

Problem is the local housing market just went deeper in the tank due to corporate decisions out of our control.

The house here is a strong tie that will be tough to cut loose from.

So the future will be just fine, if we can just escape the past.

Uhm, well... shit.  That's just so cool.

I don't know what to do with myself.

Apparently, I will be obsolete on this move.

Just found out from new company's Human Resource director that the relocation will be all-inclusive.

They contract out to a firm that manages all their relocations to make things as smooth as possible for employees.

So, we will have a "relocation coach" assigned to us, available 24-7 throughout the process.

They will pay airfare and hotel for two separate scouting and house-hunting trips before we move.

They have their own in-house people to box up our house and place it in storage until we find a new house.

Meantime, we will live in a furnished house in the new city, paid for by them, picked out by them using a list of criteria we provide.

They will transport our two dogs from here to the temp furnished house there.

They will contract with a realtor here to sell our current house and pay all fees, titles, and closing costs, commissions, etc (except for any applicable taxes, which won't be much because we've been in the house long enough for the sale to be tax-exempt.)

They will contract with a realtor in the new city to assist our purchase of a new home there and again, pay all fees, loan-origination, and closing costs, commissions, etc

When we select and purchase a new home, they will contact the local utilities, trash hauler, phone, cable, internet and establish service.

They will then deliver our boxed up household possessions that had been stored (they don't unpack, but they do label by room and deliver to appropriate room.)

I think that we may have to stand in line at the DMV ourselves to get our pictures taken for the new state drivers licenses and to register our vehicle titles in the new state, but that seems to be about all the effort required on our part.

Uhm, again... well shit; that's just so cool.

I'm going to sip down some mojito with the wife and watch Clerks 2 now.

Snootchie-bootchies.

YeeeeeHaaawwwww!

... oh shit.

I try not to get caught up in euphoria.

I try to understand the information / data I receive in the proper context.

For this reason, when presented with good news, my mind often begins to work out the
implications and ramifications that the good news will have on other aspects of a given situation.

Particularly when the given situation has to do directly with me, the wife, the kids, the dogs, our house, our car, and where we live.

So the good news is, my wife was extended an offer for the job she interviewed for.

Upon hearing this, before I can smile, my mind is already racing.

Okay, says my mind, but are we going to accept?

How much are they offering versus current salary?

What does the benefit package include?

Is it worth disrupting our current life for?

Are they picking up the relocation tab for us?

What will we pack and take?

How should we price our current house and how long will it take to sell?

Where do we live in the meantime?

How soon do we have to relocate?

Do we rent or buy when we move?

What kind of house and where in the city or 'burbs will we look for?

For me, getting the job offer isn't the end of the process, merely the end of the first phase.

Now the implementation of theorhetical policy begins and every decision we make will just add more ripples to the pond of consequences.

Which as we've all seen from the Iraq war, is harder to accomplish smoothly than it looks like on paper ahead of time.

So, the wife absolutely crushed all the interview meetings on Friday.

We should hear something back this week, if the Chief Marketing Officer she met with isn't too intimidated that she'll take his job away if he brings her into the company.

Which means we'll likely be putting the house here on the market soon.

Which is why it was amusingly distressing to see a "For Sale" sign sprout out of the neighbors lawn over the weekend.

Nuts.

Two houses for sale side by side isn't usually a good sign and some buyers are scared away because they think something must be wrong with the neighborhood.

Or we'll be competing side by side for buyers and competing with each other on price comparisons.

However, I was encouraged by the number of visitors to their open house yesterday.

We haven't had a chance to chat with them yet, but it looked like the agent might have been showing them some offers as she left and they were coming back, and then they all drove back to her office.

I love spying on the neighbors.

So that would be sweet if their house moved on the first showings (and got it off the market to open things up for us.)