this week in Wisconsin...
Saw the last Harry Potter film with Dad, probably almost simultaneously in real-time with my sci fi crew back in Londinium who were going to a late screening tonight.
Proceeded to have a half-hour debate with the boycreature over the ethics of keeping or getting rid of the Deathly Hallows. Yup. Über-nerds.
Did manage not to drive off the highways into the ditch and made it to a rendezvous with grammar school bestie, who is now married with a growing clan of nieces and nephews, and siblings who were crawling tots the last time I saw them and now taller than both of us hobbit-girls, and eerily similar tastes in fandom to me considering we went through adolescence in very different places. Was a good afternoon, and then I got to run the Jeep back down the backroads and watch the purty 'Merican countryside roll by. I almost wanted to pull over and take pictures, just to show the folks back in the capital of the Empire that yes, farmlands with big red barns and grazing herds of cows really DO exist out here.
Have been complimented at least once per day on my body art, even once by a lady who admitted she "doesn't really like tattoos" c:
Found out Mom has a splotchy case of lyme disease :\ Not fun, but at least we finally know what's causing her non-itchy rashes, and it's not lupus (it's never lupus **rimshot**). Glad she's got a treatable diagnosis and a tub full o' antibiotics to make her all better and un-brindled.
Also finally heard back about my refund-of-taxed-refund-of-pension-payments (yeah it's a headache) from Japan - the way it works is if you're a non-Japanese national and you work there, your employers divert a significant portion of income to the national pension system. Fair enough, if you decide NOT to grow old and retire in the J-pan, you can claim it back. Of course the government still TAXES your refund, even though you no longer live there and have already declared your intention not to live and retire there by claiming a refund 8| Kinda a bastardly move on their part, because a lot of people just assume that there's nothing they can do about the tax, so the government still makes free money off foreign workers.
Of course there IS something you can do, which is claim the tax back for a second refund. For me that's gonna amount to a pretty nice chunk o' change which my former supervisor says will get to my bank account sometime in October. That can go towards paying a bit of back-rent owed to my lovely & forbearing housemate/landlady, and my visa application fees when I eventually move to change my status from student to post-study.
And tomorrow we're getting summore bid'ness with my Stateside bank settled, then headin' down the interstate to the meat locker from whence Dad gets all his best grillin' meats, not to mention fantastic cheese :3 Aunt Airline-Wizard & her boyfriend are comin' over for eats & games on Sunday, so we oughta be well stocked with foodstuffs & boozahols by then, and I can return to the UK a properly fatted-out Amurrican.
Proceeded to have a half-hour debate with the boycreature over the ethics of keeping or getting rid of the Deathly Hallows. Yup. Über-nerds.
Did manage not to drive off the highways into the ditch and made it to a rendezvous with grammar school bestie, who is now married with a growing clan of nieces and nephews, and siblings who were crawling tots the last time I saw them and now taller than both of us hobbit-girls, and eerily similar tastes in fandom to me considering we went through adolescence in very different places. Was a good afternoon, and then I got to run the Jeep back down the backroads and watch the purty 'Merican countryside roll by. I almost wanted to pull over and take pictures, just to show the folks back in the capital of the Empire that yes, farmlands with big red barns and grazing herds of cows really DO exist out here.
Have been complimented at least once per day on my body art, even once by a lady who admitted she "doesn't really like tattoos" c:
Found out Mom has a splotchy case of lyme disease :\ Not fun, but at least we finally know what's causing her non-itchy rashes, and it's not lupus (it's never lupus **rimshot**). Glad she's got a treatable diagnosis and a tub full o' antibiotics to make her all better and un-brindled.
Also finally heard back about my refund-of-taxed-refund-of-pension-payments (yeah it's a headache) from Japan - the way it works is if you're a non-Japanese national and you work there, your employers divert a significant portion of income to the national pension system. Fair enough, if you decide NOT to grow old and retire in the J-pan, you can claim it back. Of course the government still TAXES your refund, even though you no longer live there and have already declared your intention not to live and retire there by claiming a refund 8| Kinda a bastardly move on their part, because a lot of people just assume that there's nothing they can do about the tax, so the government still makes free money off foreign workers.
Of course there IS something you can do, which is claim the tax back for a second refund. For me that's gonna amount to a pretty nice chunk o' change which my former supervisor says will get to my bank account sometime in October. That can go towards paying a bit of back-rent owed to my lovely & forbearing housemate/landlady, and my visa application fees when I eventually move to change my status from student to post-study.
And tomorrow we're getting summore bid'ness with my Stateside bank settled, then headin' down the interstate to the meat locker from whence Dad gets all his best grillin' meats, not to mention fantastic cheese :3 Aunt Airline-Wizard & her boyfriend are comin' over for eats & games on Sunday, so we oughta be well stocked with foodstuffs & boozahols by then, and I can return to the UK a properly fatted-out Amurrican.