It's ma birfday, happy birfday

Swap that Jack with the 5 of Hearts, and you got 28!
You'd understand if you played Cribbage.

It was this time last year that I'd began working at Cloudland as a Glassy.  I was feeble and green, making mistakes with whether a table was done with a bottle, or if a customer had abandoned their drink.  It was a new learning experience and I needed it after such a long time in my last job.

Only a couple of months beforehand Jenny and I had put in for my deportat- sorry, Immigration to the USA so that after four long and hard years, we could finally be together.  We were consulted by wonderful friends of ours who had been through similar ordeals, and also a wonderful Lawyer who alleviated the majority of our concerns and prepared us for the trials that lay ahead.  Mostly.

But we persevered...  Up until around about Jennys Birthday.  We were going stark, raving mad.  So I concocted a plan!  I would visit for Xmas!  And we would be able to calm ourselves down by being together while we wait for the VISA to process.

So since the internet at home had capped, slowing it down to a snails pace, I went up to my sisters place and organised a new ticket.  $2k it cost mum's visa card for a return trip, and that was about what I was expecting for a return trip around Xmas time.

But about a month later, that plan came to a grinding halt.  We were basically told that while I was going through the VISA process, if I tried to enter the country I would be given a complete service and sent back to Aus.  THEN, the process would get cancelled and we would have wasted our money and time.

Didn't I feel like a right fuck knuckle.

So I got credit back on my plane tickets and kept the receipt for when I do actually go over there.  At least I wouldn't have to buy another ticket, right?

Time was making things... difficult.  We just wanted to be together and there was much despair from both of us and we were just absolutely sick to death of waiting.  We felt like the most patient people in the world finally reaching breaking point.

Come November, we got word.  Homeland Security said "Guess what, your only crime in America is being Australian."  And I assume that's fine because they haven't stamped a "Return To Sender" mark on my forehead and put me in the post since I got here.

My instructions were straightforward.  Get your stuff together.  Get a Medical Check done.  Get a Police Certificate.  Send it down to Sydney.  Then come down for your interview.  Fair cop.

Police Certificate was easy.  Go in, give details, and bam, it'll be in the mail.

On the same day, I went for my Medical.  Now, there's a shortlist of doctors that you can attend that qualify for their standards, and luckily it was just near the train station.  It began with a urine sample.  Sadly, they didn't have their own toilets.  So I had to go upstairs to the hotel and use their publicly available bathrooms.  That was awkward, just because... well why go somewhere and use their facilities without buying something?

* - May not have ACTUALLY
been Dick Van Dyke.
** - True Story

So I went back down and handed it in with a form I had to fill out, and waited.  That was when Dick Van Dyke* came out and invited me in to the doctors office.

He was a lovely fella, telling me interesting things about his family and how he has more grandkids coming, between asking me about my medical history.

Then he had to do the physical stuff.  He asked me to strip down to my undies and then stand against the wall for my height.  Then he told me to take a seat, and he tested my respiration and prodded me here and there to test my reactions.

Then he laid me down and asked me to pull down my underwear.  He then proceeded to fondle my testicles.  I'm sure that's a test of testicular cancer, or any deformities that I may not have known about, but I still lay there, staring at the ceiling, thinking "Dick Van Dyke is fondling my plums.  Don't get an erection.  Don't get an erection.  Don't get an erection.**"  We concluded and I walked home, starstruck, and continuing the mantra until I got home and spoke to my soon-to-be wife and said I loved her and kept her spirits high until I told her what had happened.

Which only raised her spirits so high that she fell off the bed laughing.

Time went and we waited longer and longer, our patience as thin as possible as it could have gone without doing a loud snap that would wake up every sleeping person in and against the Pacific Ocean.  We had gotten a taste of victory and needed more like a crack addict in a... crack house.

*ahem*  I'll just let that run away on me.

But we had waited a little too long waiting for my Police Certificate, so I sent in a request for an extension, a one time effect, and surprisingly we found that they approved it!  Relieved as we were, we had to find out where the Police Certificate was.

So I made call after call, asking straight forward questions to no avail.  It wasn't until I looked through the White Pages that I called a number to the Police HQ and found that the Certificate had already been sent down to the Embassy.

I chucked quite the spack attack as I hulked out after I hung up the phone.  I didn't know it was going straight there!  And it had apparently been there for weeks!  So all I had to do was send down the rest of my stuff and organise the fuggin interview.

All quickly organised, I got my date: 18th February.  Flights were organised as was accommodation with my fantastic cousin, Trent, and his wonderful wife, Michelle (Who cooks a cracker of a dinner), and directions were also gathered to actually get me to the MLC Centre.

I faffed about on the train, carrying my little bag, enjoying the scenery and thinking about all the interesting stuff that Jenny would splooge over, namely the buildings that are all a bit different to what she's used to.  Jennys a big fan of architecture, so much that she even dreams about it.

So I take note of some interesting sights that Jenny would enjoy on the train from Flemington Station, and meander my way down to the MLC Centre for my interview, waiting in a rather arbitrary waiting room with a television tuned to an American channel, noting the stars and stripes adorning the nearest wall, and wondering what the security will do with my stuff down on level 10 now that I was on level 47.

But sooner than later, the lovely lady who was to interview me called me over and asked a few questions about our history.  "Where did you two meet", "How long have you been together", "How often have you two visited each other", "Can you pull that pen out of your nose".

Nerves, you know?

But I was left with one bit of advice.  By midnight that night, I had to sign up to an Embassy Website so that I was able to get my stuff back.  Which included my Passport.  Which I had to leave there with them.

I wasn't going to leave the country any time soon.

But in the mean time I had the city of Sydney to faff about in.  I wandered about, taking a couple of photos for Jenny before my phone died, such as the park right near the train station, and wandering down to near the river to stop at a pub for a couple of lonely pints of cider until my flight home was due.

Funny enough, the wedding ring is on the left.
... I went big early.

The last leg laid ahead of us.  All we had to do wait for the final word to say "You have our good graces, please enjoy the trip."

A little while later, we had word.  And I began figuring out what I was going to take, and how I was going to take it.  I packed up all the essentials, Clothes, my Xbox, a few books, my PSP, my IKRPG core rulebook, then minimize what Warmachine models I wanted to leave with and fill the rest of that bag with the goodies I had to take for Jenny.  There were so many Tim Tams, I tell ya.

Then there was work. I attended every shift available and had a five day stretch right up until my flight on March 10, a Monday morning.  It was a good plan. I would naturally be super exhausted as soon as I step onto that 14 hour flight to LAX, on an aisle seat too so I would just nod off as soon as I stake my seat.

And that's pretty much what happened.  And I suffered for that, because for a better part of the month after I arrived, I was quite dehydrated.  I would be drinking water half a dozen bottles at a time, mostly because the tap water looks far too suspicious when it is full of sedentary and it slowly, and I mean slowly, floats up to the top.

But I was there... Or here, as the case may be.  My partner of four fucking years was finally standing in front of me.  And there would be no time limit to being together.

Well, so long as we got married, of course.

We were well prepared, some clothes were needed for me, but otherwise everything was prepared. The only problem?  It was still very evidently Winter.

St Paddys day.  On the beach at South Haven.  Where the wind was so lazy that it didn't bother going around you, it just went straight through you and chilled you to the bone.

But that didn't stop us.  We declared our love and made a stand by throwing a rock each into the sea. Mine got stuck in the ice.  But Crikey we were happy to finally get into Jenny's parents car with the heat blasting.  I've never been so happy to get into heat.

The next plan was to get me a job, but that was after adding a few amenities, such as adding me to Jenny's bank account, to which we discovered that I need a social security number.  We were under the assumption that I would walk right off the plane into a job.  We were wrong.

Since then, it's been more waiting for the Government to send me the approval so I can finally get some income.

In the mean time, I have a small dog that I have to take care of, and a wife to feed, and an apartment to maintain.  Things could be much worse.  I could still be in Australia and not finally living with my partner of 4 and a half years.