Fiance finally over here

[piglett]

Re:
 
>>why is it that chicks do that.................?<<
 
Because they can! (And live another day, even!)

& if i pulled that sh*t there would be hell to pay

[thekfc]

My wife use the first yellow "lime" last night - the rest are either still green or small.  There is a Jamaican restaurant near me that makes amazing fish so we ordered king fish last night and she used the Kalamansi  with it.

[robert angel]

Re:
 
>>& if i pulled that sh*t there would be hell to pay<<<
 
Ha ha, Piglett, ole buddy--That's what we ALL say! And then we also say: "If we had kids, they'd never be like THOSE kids!" Want we  want and expect and how it turns out are typically two different things. We may talk like John Wayne did (on screen anyway) but walking like he did is another story!

[michaelb]

If I recall (too lazy to look it up right now) John Wayne was married (and divorced) four times. I think each of his wives a Latina "spitfire" (aka "hellcat"...one of them was downright crazy). Anyway, I do remember reading about one of his divorces (in those days you needed "grounds", not just "I'm tired of being married") his grounds were that she "wasn't performing her spousal duties". The Judge said "How can that be? You have four children with this woman?". He replied "Four kids, four times"......the divorce was granted.

[robert angel]

Yea Michael, That's why I was careful to put right after John Wayne's name: "onscreen anyway".

John Wayne, (born name "Marion Morrison") was quite a 'ladies man' and extra curriccular love affairs during his four year marriages were not infrequent--including one with Marlene Dietrich that lasted for three years.In the years prior to his death, Wayne was romantically involved with his former secretary Pat Stacy, amongst others.

Wayne was married three times and divorced twice. His wives, all of them Latin women, were Josephine Alicia Saenz, Esperanza Baur, and Pilar Pallete. (Panama, Mexico and Peru) He had four children with Josephine.

This is hardly unusual amongs American icons, including our founding fathers. Next time you see a sign that says "Washington slept here", you might well wonder "With whom?" Thomas Jefferson liked women of all different status and color, but perhaps the one who 'got around' the most was none other than Benjamin Franklin! In terms of love affairs anyway, he probably made Kennedy and Clinton look like choir boys!

[piglett]

This is hardly unusual amongs American icons, including our founding fathers. Next time you see a sign that says "Washington slept here", you might well wonder "With whom?" Thomas Jefferson liked women of all different status and color, but perhaps the one who 'got around' the most was none other than Benjamin Franklin! In terms of love affairs anyway, he probably made Kennedy and Clinton look like choir boys!

so your saying chicks back then dug a guy with wooden teath 
 
 
pig

[robert angel]

Piglett, From what I've heard and observed, most women are more "into" a guy who has 'wood' and George supposedly had plenty!

[piglett]

Piglett, From what I've heard and observed, most women are more "into" a guy who has 'wood' and George supposedly had plenty!

so much wood he carried extra in his mouth.....ha ha ha   

[jm21-2]

In response to Ray...cashflow became an issue. Moving someone across the world, getting married, and starting a life together is not cheap. I was locked into a couple bad advertising deals so wasn't able to save much money the last couple months either. Starting in July I will have an extra $1k or so of income coming in which will be nice and I'll be able to start saving again. But the costs are quite a bit...


Visa fees, medical exam, transportation and overnight stays during the visa process, plane ticket to the US will be a total of around $3k.
Buying a new bed, stocking up on all sorts of Asian foods, cell phone, buying some new kitchenware and a few pieces of new furniture will be around $1k.
Selling my current car and buying a new one (my current car is going downhill fast) maybe a net cost of $2.5k after selling my car.
Buying car for her, maybe $6k-7k.
Honeymoon, ~$3k, but won't happen until we get advance parole, so probably not until October or November.
Extra cost of supporting another person: too early to tell. May balance out to a net zero after a couple months as I'm eating out less, less beer, buying more chicken and noodles instead of steaks, etc.


So that's $16-18k over the course of about 8 months. How many guys in their 20's have that kind of cash on hand after putting a downpayment on a house the year before? (EDIT: forgot abou those three trips to Asia last year as well). So I sold the boat. Looking into some center consoles which would fit my current needs a little bit better and not have moorage costs. Plus my dad would pitch in a bit because he wants one too. Might have to wait though until I have a bit more in savings.

[thekfc]

Yep, it isn't cheap.
There are a lot of expenses associated & the real expenses comes in preparing for her coming AND after she comes to live with you.

For me preparation was key, plus I had a little luck as I had a lot of household items on hand (Bed-in-a-bag, comforters, sheet sets, pot sets, utensils, etc,) from clearance sales I got way back when Stern's and A & S shut down - so that help in that department.
As for clothing for her, I have been gradually "collecting" before she got here and had quite a bit on hand (she have almost 100 pairs of a particular item on hand).  I am also in the fashion industry so getting deals on clothing is a plus for us.
For groceries, I have 11 major supermarkets in my area & I work near Chinatown so I get quality items at a cheap prices.

 She is also on my health insurance from work so that is another place where I save.
 
Right now I am doing x-mas shopping - best time to get items on clearance & to beat the rush. 

[piglett]

hey guys if i can pull it off with my meager wages then anyone can,
IF THEY REALLY WANT TO!
 
 
pig

[Ray]

 
Well, jm, if finances get any tighter, there's always beans & rice.
 
You can get a 50lb sack of Thai Jasmine rice and a 50lb sack of pinto beans at Costco for under 50 bucks and you can eat for months on that. I have a great recipe for pinto beans if you're interested... 
 
When you start saving again, try to set up a separate account for a boat. You can call it anything except a new boat account... LOL!
 
I would consider having her look around for a job, even part time, where she could use public transportation for a while if possible. It would probably give her a big boost in morale to know she is contributing to the household expenses. I have found that overseas job references are often useless here, so 6 months to a year in any kind of job here establishes a valuable reference as to working habits, reliability, etc., that may come in real handy later.
 
Did you take her fishing yet?
 
Ray
 
 

[Heruamen]

   wow congrats jm thats inspiring that you have you lady over here now and also its seems that congrats are in order for the kfc its been awhile since I have been online here so thats really great news good luck to you both

[Ray]

 
Heruamen,
 
It's good to hear from you! How is that little baby doing? Almost one-year-old?
 
Any prospects in your love life?
 
And where is that cousin of yours? Haven't seen him post in a while.
 
Ray
 
 

[thekfc]

Hey H,
         Thanks!!!!

How is life treating you?

[jm21-2]

Another two weeks or so....


Things have settled down quite a bit and got into a routine. I ended up taking out a loan for a new car...some buyer's remorse but that's expected. The interest rate is low enough that I'll only be paying about $700 in interest over 4 years. Will sell my BMW (been having problems) and buy another car, probably on loan as well. The payments for two cars is about the same per month as the worthless phone book ad that i just paid the final payment on.


Possible hitch in the idea of moving to Australia as I just found out my student loan servicer may not allow income-based repayment if you are working overseas. Have to figure that one out a bit more....


The library has a lot of DVDs of American/UK TV shows with closed captions that she likes to use to learn English vocab.


She was using my soft bed for a bit...we bought a new bed and she wanted a hard one like she was used to at first, but after sleeping on a soft bed for a while the hard one was unbearable. Exchanged it and got a softer one.


Driving to Tacoma a lot more than I expected to go to the Asian malls. There's a new store called H-mart that's supposed to be good that I will have to check out. We have enough ingredients to make most Thai, Taiwanese, and some Japanese dishes in the house so if one of us ever wants to whip up something ingredients are always available. Pantry and fridge are stocked.


Her mom and aunt want to be here for the wedding and are applying for tourist visas. So we've had to push the date to the last weekend in July, pretty much a week before her fiance visa expires.


How do you guys with fiances or wives recently over here find time to post?

[Jeff S]

The H-Mart around here is Korean. Good fish and produce, but not much for the Chinese staples. Plenty of Japanese food though.

[jm21-2]

I'd say almost all of our groceries are Thai, Korean, Japanese, or American. She cooked a lot of Chinese food at first but less and less as time goes on. Our soy sauce and cooking wines are Chinese, but that's about it. She stir-fries a lot but that's not really exclusive to China. Lots of Thai flavors which I can't really complain about.

[thekfc]

The library has a lot of DVDs of American/UK TV shows with closed captions that she likes to use to learn English vocab.

My wife turn on the cc on the tv & then she turn down the volume. 

Her mom and aunt want to be here for the wedding and are applying for tourist visas. So we've had to push the date to the last weekend in July, pretty much a week before her fiance visa expires.

jm don't forget that Ray, myself, Dave H, Robert, Jeff S, the Captain and some of the other guys will be passing by for the wedding. 

How do you guys with fiances or wives recently over here find time to post?

I now post/read posts during my lunchtime at work & at night when we both go online - my wife uses one of the laptop & I use the desktop.
Lately I have been busy x-mas shopping (halfway done).

The H-Mart around here is Korean. Good fish and produce, but not much for the Chinese staples. Plenty of Japanese food though.

Yep, H-Mart is Korean. There are 3 of them in Flushing & one of them is open 24 hours.
http://www.hmart.com/index.asp

[jm21-2]

I ate some mcdonalds for the first time in a month or so for lunch and now feel pretty sick....so have some extra time this afternoon...can't concentrate on work.


Anyone else have trouble eating fast food after a while? We had applebees once and we could barely eat the food it was so salty. Had subway yesterday and the spicy italian was almost too salty. Never realized how much salt we put on food until a few weeks without it.


So far she liked Uwajimaya's best and they had a good selection of Macha. The one here in Seattle has some apartment buildings on top of the store which she thought would be cool. Unfortuantely the parking situation in downtown Seattle has gotten worse and worse, and looks like they may jack up the price on the ferry rides soon. Parking is up to $4/hour most places but Uwajimaya's still has some free parking for customers. We also had a guy at the ferry terminal have trouble reading our return ferry fare so instead of punching in the damn number he made us buy a new fare. So one trip to Downtown Seattle going to Uwajimaya's and Pike's place market was about $80 between parking, ferries, and fuel. Ouch.


Seafood is more expensive here and we've been trying new things to add more seafood to the budget without spending too much. The frozen shrimp and steelhead trout at costco are actually very good. Individually frozen so easy to toss into a stir fry and a bit better quality. We keep seeing the Sashimi cuts but they're so damned expensive we've been holding back. $10 for a tiny little piece of Tuna....She thinks the less expensive cuts aren't safe to eat raw.


I don't think I will ever acquire a taste for some of the drinks she likes. Grass jelly juice and a smokey umeboshi drink are the two in particular I can't imagine growing to like. She'll probably never like a good IPA though, so such is life.


She's used to an abundance of freshly squeezed all natural juices and those are hard to find in my area. So far about the only thing is orange juice and the Odwalla brand. Might just get a juicer or something. I was kind of surprised how hard it was to find fresh juice (not from concentrate).


When she first came over she was convinced she only liked red wine, but said she liked sweet wines. I couldn't think of too many sweet reds off the top of my head but my mom likes sweet wines so tried a few of the ones she likes out. The Moscato was a hit, but that's about it so far. I suspect she would like a guvertzenheimer (I must have spelled that completely wrong).


I haven't had a TV in about 10 years. I've been thinking about buying one so we can watch some stuff together but we seem to do OK. Is closed captioning pretty common nowadays? We'll spend an hour or two on our own computers later at night but I'm usually trying to catch up a show on hulu or something like that. This last weekend was the first one where we had a full day at home since she got here. Hopefully next weekend we can just relax.

[thekfc]

Anyone else have trouble eating fast food after a while? 

Yep!!!  Even the smell of some of them make me lose my appetite. 

Parking is up to $4/hour most places 

Try parking in midtown/lower Manhattan. 

She's used to an abundance of freshly squeezed all natural juices and those are hard to find in my area. So far about the only thing is orange juice and the Odwalla brand. Might just get a juicer or something. I was kind of surprised how hard it was to find fresh juice (not from concentrate). 

I would 2nd that decision on getting a juicer.

Is closed captioning pretty common nowadays?

Just about all the shows/programs are now cc.

[jm21-2]

I would 2nd that decision on getting a juicer.

Are any of the cheap juicers worth it? Or better to get a more expensive one? Need to get a new food processor too after a fatal incident involving Taro root....

[thekfc]

I have one of the "cheaper" juicer and it is very good. The only complain that I have about it is that it is not a big mouth juicer - I have to cut some of the fruits as they will not fit in whole
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Black-Decker-Fruit-and-Vegetable-Juice-Extractor/15034494

You should choose a juicer that fits both you & your future wife's needs but you do not have to spend a lot for it.

[robert angel]

We got the G.E. 800 watt juicer at Walmart and it does a fine job. It has the big mouth opening, which is nice, isn't too loud (as they go) and it breaks down quickly--not too many parts allows for easy cleaning. That last part is important. It was pretty cheap too.
We have a Cuisinart food processor that has too many parts to break down and clean, that we rarely use it just because of that. It's quicker to cut foods with a knife usually.

[Jeff S]

Seafood is more expensive here and we've been trying new things to add more seafood to the budget without spending too much. The frozen shrimp and steelhead trout at costco are actually very good. Individually frozen so easy to toss into a stir fry and a bit better quality. We keep seeing the Sashimi cuts but they're so damned expensive we've been holding back. $10 for a tiny little piece of Tuna....She thinks the less expensive cuts aren't safe to eat raw.

Time to take up fishing. It's not that difficult up where you are. In fact, if you like small fish, and most Asians are very used to them, you can get it in abundance. Hut the public piers when the squid are running and you can fill the freezer in an evening. I'm sure there are plenty of places to dig razor clams and even goeducks (mirugai) if you're really up for some fun in the mud.