Qapla'!

enotsola's permanent residency interview was this morning. The most painful thing about it turned out to be the part where we got up at 7:30 AM. The rest of it was no big deal; boring, even. And the guy asked for, like, one out of the bajillion "bring this or else" things on the checklist in the appointment letter. The dude's last name was "Bock", so both of us kept thinking either beer or Robot Chicken (ba bawk bawk bawk...), and I kept wanting to sing the bureaucrat song from "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back" because of how many times he was stamping and signing things.

So. Wee-lah. This isn't quite the end, though. Because our marriage was less than two years old at the time this status was granted, it expires two years from now unless we petition at that time (well, 6 months ahead) to have that condition removed. The biggest real upshot of this, since he already had an employment authorization, is that they now have to let him back into the US if he leaves, as long as the trip is less than one year. (In the nebulous place of "you were let in on a K-1 visa but haven't got permanency yet" they could theoretically have denied him if, say, he went back to Canada to visit, because that was a single-use visa. I think it's more a worry for fiances from places like China than from Canada, though.)

Oh, also, since next year I will be doing taxes "married filing jointly" for the first time in my life, unless he somehow manages to earn like $30,000 in the next two and a half months, I am going to be getting a stupidly huge tax refund (like $3500) because of the double-size standard deduction vs. my single income. Normally I would say "hm, withholding adjustment might be in order" but 1) when he actually gets a second income, the story will be quite different, and we'll go back around to owing tax at the end of the year; 2) it's not like I can get any more interest investing it right now than by loaning it to Uncle Sam. In fact the gubmint is better than my 403b right now because zero is better than negatives. :P

Qapla'!

enotsola's permanent residency interview was this morning. The most painful thing about it turned out to be the part where we got up at 7:30 AM. The rest of it was no big deal; boring, even. And the guy asked for, like, one out of the bajillion "bring this or else" things on the checklist in the appointment letter. The dude's last name was "Bock", so both of us kept thinking either beer or Robot Chicken (ba bawk bawk bawk...), and I kept wanting to sing the bureaucrat song from "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back" because of how many times he was stamping and signing things.

So. Wee-lah. This isn't quite the end, though. Because our marriage was less than two years old at the time this status was granted, it expires two years from now unless we petition at that time (well, 6 months ahead) to have that condition removed. The biggest real upshot of this, since he already had an employment authorization, is that they now have to let him back into the US if he leaves, as long as the trip is less than one year. (In the nebulous place of "you were let in on a K-1 visa but haven't got permanency yet" they could theoretically have denied him if, say, he went back to Canada to visit, because that was a single-use visa. I think it's more a worry for fiances from places like China than from Canada, though.)

Oh, also, since next year I will be doing taxes "married filing jointly" for the first time in my life, unless he somehow manages to earn like $30,000 in the next two and a half months, I am going to be getting a stupidly huge tax refund (like $3500) because of the double-size standard deduction vs. my single income. Normally I would say "hm, withholding adjustment might be in order" but 1) when he actually gets a second income, the story will be quite different, and we'll go back around to owing tax at the end of the year; 2) it's not like I can get any more interest investing it right now than by loaning it to Uncle Sam. In fact the gubmint is better than my 403b right now because zero is better than negatives. :P