Woke up early to go on a run! Yesterday we went around 9:30am and it was just too damn hot. Yes, NC in the summer is WAY HOTTER and more humid than CR. I had to walk most of the way. Today we actually set an alarm and went out at 7:30am. Still humid as a muther, but not nearly as hot. Now my SO is doing a second loop so I have about 40 minutes to bloggerate before he gets back and we go cool off by skinny dipping in the pool out back. (it's now almost noon, I've written this over the entire morning in sessions)

The night before we left we had over all of my SO's family for a goodbye. It was really nice. I knew there would be some sadness and such, but when my SO's sister said goodbye she was straight up weeping. It was really awkward because I was standing right next to them while his sister is sobbing into his chest. It made me feel like shit, like I was stealing her brother. I know it's a culture thing, but like we're not even going that damn far! North Carolina to San Jose is a six hour travel period, including layover. And tickets are never more than $600. Anyways.

Getting into the USA was not a big problem. We flew through Miami and everything was good. Got in to NC and we were planning on going out, but my SO and I were so damn tired we just stayed in my mom's house, had a few beers, and went to sleep.

This past week or so has been basically running around trying to get stuff in order. I was silly to think that coming into the USA would be the end of the visa shit. I'm now trying to fight to get my SO a social security number, because guess what- you can't do SHIT without it. I mean no bank account, no health insurance, no car insurance (and thus no driver's license), nothing. I thought you could do all that stuff with the A# they give you, but guess freaking not! They told us we have to wait for the green card to apply for an SSN, but the green card could take SIX MONTHS to come. What the hell are we supposed to do in the meantime? Hope we don't have to go to the doctor? So we're heading to the social security office today to apply for one. Hope it doesn't take the eight weeks to process that they quoted us. (ETA- just got back from SSA and card should arrive in 5 to 7 days! Huzzah! The only problem is they listed my SO as having two first names instead of a first and middle name. I figure we can fix that later, we just need the damn number for now!)

Living with my mom and her husband has been pretty great. We get along really well. The only thing that's a little bothersome is the elderly mom. She's not annoying or anything, but it'll be nice when she leaves. Like we have to share a bathroom with her and she never flushes the toilet. When we buy groceries we have to hide them so she won't take them. And she's always kind of wandering around aimlessly. I try to talk to her and be nice and I know she appreciates it, but it's like talking to a four year old. My mom's husband has to feed her every day and take her to all her daily activities. Supposedly a room at a nearby old people home is opening up in the next few weeks and they hope to get her moved out. It'll be better for everyone if she lives there, some days she sits all day in the house by herself and does nothing.

Job stuff has been going okay. My mom is having me teach swim lessons where she works starting next week. I'll also start subbing at a nearby school when school starts in August. My SO applied to two jobs, one where my brother works but it's an aerospace company so I don't think his chances are very good. (That and just found out they have a very strict nepotism rule so his application might not even get looked at!) The other seems like a good opportunity- they need an engineer that speaks a second language. He sent in his resume, but the HR lady won't be back in the office until next week so we might not hear back for a while still. There's also TONS of other jobs in this area he could apply for. PA job has gone on the shelf for now. We really love our city in NC and we both would like to stay here. We decided to wait a few months to try to find my SO a great job that pays well that he'll love. I mean we have the luxury of living rent-free with my mom right now. We don't have any expenses (except beer ) and I'll start working soon. So we should be relaxing and finding something decent, not whatever rolls around.

Yesterday I went to hang out with my friend who I married back in May. We talked about their religious wedding in India in December. I'm so damn excited! They sound like they want us to come for almost two weeks, we'll have to see if we can swing that. Obviously the biggest expense is the ticket there, the stay won't really cost us that much. She's also really concerned about us and is going to organize a bunch of stuff for us. She said she'll get us an English speaking driver to take us everywhere. They also warned us about not speaking Hindi and how we'll get ripped off, I told her "We lived in Central America, we know exactly what it's like!" There's always a "foreigner" price and a "speak the native language" price. I'm cool with that.

Tonight there's evidently a salsa night at a nearby Cuban restaurant. My friends from yesterday told us about it and they'll be going with some other friends. It'll be a lot of fun! They have a free lesson from 9-9:30pm and then salsa music until 2am. It'll be a great little party and my SO and I can show off our moves. We were joking about showing up to the lesson and being like "oh gosh I don't know if I can get this, you mean like this?" POW BAM SPIN BOOM! (making those noises of course) We're looking forward to that.

Our days have been pretty busy and social. It's been nice. My SO was a little bummed and feeling apart the first few days, as expected. But now he's feeling better. We've been speaking almost solely in English to help him out, and I really miss speaking in Spanish. But I figure we'll be able to switch back in a few weeks when he's more comfortable. Oh! And funny moment- we went to our local minor league baseball game and my SO met another tico! What a world! They exchanged numbers and hopefully they'll hang out in the future. This other tico has been in NC for 13 years!

I'm so happy to see my puppy! She's so well behaved now it boggles my mind. Suppose that $500 trainer was worth it. The trainer says she's really smart but doesn't like being controlled. I was telling my mom and her husband about this doggie IQ test I found online and how Perlita passed all the tests. So we decided to do it with Perlita again and my mom's two stupid labradoodles (to confirm our suspicions of stupidity). You show the dog a treat, then put it on the ground and cover it with an opaque cup. Perlita went right over and picked up the cup with her mouth, put it to the side, and ate the treat. My mom's dogs just sat there like "duuuuhhhhhhh where'd the treat go??!! MAGIC!!" So that was fun. (there were lots of other tests for doggie IQ as well, but that's the one I remember)

Those of you with dogs- do that and report back on how they perform.

Alright going to eat some lunch cereal now and then probably a nap. I love not working! (for now)

Have a great day!