Living in America 2015

[rootypig]

New thread. In honour of:

1. allegedly Irish bangers discovered I saw in Trader Joe's today, which made me think of you lot and especially you Want2b, you pork fanatic - I will report back; and

2. taxes bloody argh! do I have to do this? NOW??? My green card was granted in August last year and I didn't earn a bloody penny. What am I supposed to put on a tax return

How else is everyone's American odyssey going?

yours chaotically, as ever,

rooty

You know DH was complaining about the snow and I reminded him that there are tornadoes and earthquakes. I'll take the snow.

mrsfrumble please do share what the protocol call is. I would have no clue and probably do all the wrong things!

Sorry to hear Mrs, hope you're all okay. Seems like oklahoma is being hit hard again, including Moore which was so badly damaged by tornadoes last year. We were on a tornado watch earlier but it's downgraded now, due for heavy storms in the early hours of thurs tho. Cue musical beds when the DCs wake up! rooty the advice is to get to your safe place and take cover. We have it set up under our stairs, with torches, radio, shoes, bike helmets (for protection, falling debris) water, snacks and ID in case a tornado touches down. Not had to use it yet, in three years, but better safe than sorry.

You're reminding me that I need to get my arse in gear and get our earthquake kit together. STBX was supposed to do it - fat chance!

Are there safe places in workplaces too?

Yes, the advice is to get indoors and into the basement (if you have one) or the most enclosed room / closet / hallway in the house. Wear helmets or put blankets on your head, then listen to the radio until they tell you it's safe to come out again! I was tossing all the shoes out of the children's closet, ready to squeeze in (thank goodness the children are tiny!) when the sirens stopped, so I put them back and made dinner instead! Funny what you can get used to...

Are you in OK too itsveryyou? I hear that Tulsa got hit this time. And Moore seems doomed to always be in a tornado's path. It makes me wonder why they don't just all pack up and move, rather than keep rebuilding.

I'm not sure if there's any legal requirement for workplaces to have shelters. I'll have to ask Mr Frumble (who is an architect). In stores and airports it usually seems to be in the restroom!

I was shocked to learn that schools are not required to have a proper shelter (after the Plaza school in Moore got hit in 2013 and the students were sheltering in the bathrooms; tragically some were killed). I'm glad that the DC's preschool is in a very sturdy looking old church with a big basement.

Mrs we're in TX, in the north of the state. There is a weather cap over our area, which seems to protect us from the same type of tornadoes which hit OK, though this area has had then in the past. I expect it's a case of not being able to move financially, or not wanting to leave family which makes people rebuild time after time, but I agree, I don't think I could live with that worry every year! It's weird to hear the sirens being tested every week...not something I thought I'd ever hear!

Our kids do tornado drills in school and there are rooms which are labelled as shelters. Our school is newish and sturdy, but the one time we did think a tornado was on its way, most parents who could took kids out of school early, I got home just as the sky turned yellow and the birds stopped singing, and then...nothing, it all dissipated! Bonkers.

3 years ago we had one that went along the bottom of our garden. We're so lax about stuff that we don't have a tornado kit.. We did have one once but the water bottle froze then leaked, and the food went out of date and we used the torch and didn't put it back. So when we had the real deal I just went down to the basement and sat there. Phone stopped working anyway, and no power for a couple of days, but amazingly no damage to the house although large areas of our town were flattened.

The test sirens freaked me out at first. No one had warned me about them, and the first time I heard one was three days after we'd arrived in the US. I was alone with the children in a park miles from our apartment building and staring, bemused, at the clear blue sky wondering if we were going to live to enjoy our new home....

Now we use it mark our time on Saturdays; if we can get all of our errands finished by the time the "noonado" (as the locals call it) sounds then we're doing well!

Shit kickass, that's terrifying!

When the big one hit Moore in 2013 we'd been here for 6 weeks and we're living in an apartment block full of twenty-something's in downtown OKC. We had to shelter in the stairwell and it was like a party; all the other residents were passing round beers and chatting and laughing. I suppose most of them had lived in the area all their lives and seemed to have a very casual attitude.

We drove through Moore on the I-35 a week later and were stunned by the destruction.

Blimey you guys - good reminder though I seriously need to update our earthquake kit. The water is off or leaked out and the food is about a year out of date! DS has an "intruder" and Fire drill at school this week. Goddamn bloody gun laws

americas those drills, which I can't even bring myself to talk about out loud, or think about in my head, make me sick to my stomach. It was the realization that 'oh my god, we really have to consider this a possibility' which still stuns me to this day. I just can't reconcile myself with it. And TX is very close to passing an open carry law...really, honestly, truly, WTF?!

Yeah, I can't bring myself to ask about "intruder" policies and drills at the kids' preschool. I'm just "fingers in my ears, la la la" about the whole thing.
WTF indeed

I think it's the only way to cope...unless you fancy homeschooling!!

Yeah they do fire and intruder drills with DD. The security for the schools here is very good. They have one guard on the front door every morning and one at night. They know every persons name who is dropping off or picking up. The guy in the evening swaps with the guy in the morning until they feel comfortable. After class starts the doors are locked. to get in you either need to catch the security guard who knows you or show your DL. They had an issue at one of the schools 10+ years ago.

Guns don't bother me. It's the stupid owners who do. I was in a house and saw the gun cabinet. It was not locked and I asked them to lock it while we were in their home as I was worried about my kids opening it. The guy looked at me funny and then the wife gave him a dig in the ribs and he locked the cabinet. Took a huge step back from him. I grew up with guns in the house but they were always in a locked cabinet and stored with zero ammunition in them. Actually ammunition was kept in a different locked cabinet in a different part of the house.

That security sounds very good and it is nowhere like that at DS' school. It breaks my heart that I wish it was and is one of the biggest reasons that I think, ultimately, we will not stay in the US

Our schools have good security too - locked entry door which has to be opened from the office, by a member of staff who can see visitor on a camera and who asks the person's name and who they are there to see. Any concerns, they don't get access. Every visitor, parent or not, has to hand in their licence if they are going to enter the school and be logged into the computerized system. However none of these measures are foolproof and I am with you totally Americas, we will return to the UK this year (end of contract) and I will breathe a HUGE sigh of relief - though I know incidents can happen anywhere, statistically it's more likely to happen where people have more or less free access to weapons.
want2b someone was telling me about their incredibly safe, state of the art, locked gun safe...so I asked her how long it would take for her to access a weapon if there was an intruder in the house. Ah yes, she said, in that case I would grab the gun which I keep under my bed! shakes head

God DD is so little I hadn't even thought about these types of issues yet

The risks will be greater I imagine when they're in secondary, and it's students themselves who can get their hands on guns.

itsvery open carry is insane, good grief.

**even greater

Well let's lighten things up here. We have done taxes and guns. What's everyone doing for Easter?

We are going up to Canada and taking a spiral ham with us. The dog is staying behind but I don't have a spot or walker for him yet. Trying to find a cheap student but they are all so damn rich these days!

You need to befriend a Mumsnetter who lives round the corner and fancies a childfree house for a week to do your pet sitting....

We're off to New Orleans, I'm already in Kentucky having a lovely time and joining DH&DC in NOLA at the weekend for a week of swamps, jazz, rice'n'beans and beignets. CANT WAIT!

tortured want to visit NYC for the weekend? Two bed apartment with cute golden is available. This guy will sleep in your bed, probably on you!

I've seen them advertised, but what is a spiral ham?!

It's a ham joint (bone in) that is precut around the bone so when you carve it you only have to cut from the bone. If you steam it like I did once you can hold the bone up and it twirls off the bone in one big piece of meat. Hopefully it doesn't twirl off onto the floor like it did for me!

The ultimate in carving laziness.