Microsoft, lock up your cricket players!

Andy has the green light to move to Seattle! His visa was approved.

Because I'm lazy and it's 11:11pm (woah, all 1s), I'll copy/paste our gchat conversation below.

Friday, March 27, 2015 7:17 AM

Andy Williamson

hi lunk

Margaret Kay

YES

hi

should I call

Andy Williamson

I'm in s-bucks and et's pretty besy

so i cannae really talk

Margaret Kay

OH OK RAM

GOOD JOB

How was it?!?/1/!

Andy Williamson

so easy

total time in the embassy (including queuing) 2 hours

total time spent talking to embassy staff - 3 minutes

Margaret Kay

What!? Crazy! And they told you it was "approved"?

Andy Williamson

interview 1 was where i handed in all the forms, then I sat back down

then I got called through to the interview woman who asked very, very cursory questions

and then just said, yep, that's good enough for me

---

After all the hassle of getting the visa documents together (long story, but it involves some tax forms being dropped off and left for dead at a jewellery shop by an idiot postman), I was SHOCKED that he was approved in just a few minutes.

We were prepared for the worst, and expected the worst. But we ended up with the best case scenario, all things considered.

I told him we all wear American flags behind our ears (shhhhh! don't tell - it's a hilarious prank)

There is one thing. After the interview, Andy spent a lovely day in London with some mates before hopping on the Tube for London City Airport to make his 9:20pm flight back to Edinburgh. Only problem is that he was booked on the 7:45pm flight. All that visa success went to his head and he forgot he booked the earlier flight! Luckily, he was able to make it to the train station in time to blag his way into a first class ticket on the Caledonian Sleeper for the price of coach. In fact, he's snoozing to the sound of "Chugga Chugga Choo Choo" as I type this. 

Now, if you'll please join me in raising your glass to our newest United States resident, Andy Williamson! 

Hip hip? Hooray! 

Hip hip? Hooray! 

Hip hip? Hooray! 

Hmmm...should those "hip hips" have ended in a question mark? I'm second guessing myself. 

Egads. Two stream-of-consciousness blog posts in a row. 

Cheerio, Margaret 

P.S. The title of this post was a spin on "Mothers, lock up your daughters!" Just FYI. 

P.P.S. Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about how my friend Tori and her sister thought the Kool & the Gang song lyrics were "Celebrate the Taj Mahal"? Well, today my nieces and I were having a dance party to celebrate finishing an alphabet jigsaw puzzle and a certain bro-in-law of mine starting singing, "Celebrations now, come on!" I mean, hilarious. Kool, you and your gang clearly need to annunciate better.

But I was just doing what Sheryl Sandberg told me to!

Andy and I sent off his US visa forms this week. We each needed a 2x2 inch photo to pair with our 'Biographic Information' page. There's a kiosk in the Post Office by our house that does all types of official ID photos, so we pooled our change (£7 each!!) and took turns behind the curtain.

Example photo booth. Not the actual kiosk we used.
Image by Paste Talk via Wikimedia Commons

Andy went first, while I bought scissors, envelopes, paperclips and pretty much every other office material required to send a letter. That happens every time. I swear, each Post Office visit costs me at least £20.

His photo turned out great. He even managed to get a smize in there. That handsome devil.

Then, it was my turn. Andy had lowered the stool so he could squeeze himself into the tight quarters, but I couldn't figure out how to raise it back up again. Instead, I just did this hover-squat thing and focused on lining my noggin up perfectly with the oval outline on the screen.

4  3  2  1...CHEESE!

Happy with my first take, I pressed the print button and listened to the machine's miniature mechanical brushstrokes paint my face with ink.

After about a minute, the pics dropped into the tray and OH MY GOD MY HEAD. It was huge. It made Andy's look like a grape with shoulders. He looked at it and said, "Hmm...why did you lean in?"

I seriously don't think they'll accept it, but it's not like I had another seven £1 pound coins stuffed in my wallet. So off it went—recorded delivery.

Hopefully they're so bewildered by the bowl cut that they just stamp 'accepted' and send us the visa posthaste.

Nighty night,
Smadge