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November 30th, 2005 22:37
Well, the pets are on their way.
It was quite heartbreaking, leaving them off. We went to the Qantas cargo facility, a massive cement building filled with forklifts and large strange packages. To our great surprise, we are not the only poeple crazy enough to ship pets to australia. There were EIGHT pets in total slated to get on QF12! I guess Qantas lied to me when they told me they take a max of 5 per flight.
We spent about an hour there getting everything signed and sealed and saying goodbye. The car felt so horribly empty on the way back, I didn’t know what to do. And the pathos of Elma’s empty soft crate! The lonely leashes! The looks in their eyes as they sat in their crates! Heartbreaking.
There was another couple there (among many) that was shipping a beagle dog. They had been living in Boston for two years but were returning to their native city of Brisbane, which just happens to be where we are headed. The girl was very nice (very talkative) and recommended where we should live in the city. She told us where the traffic was worst. She also told us what the weather was like. The conversation went something like this:
Australian Girl: It’s hot in Brisbane.
Kirilisa: Oh, that’s a good thing.
Australian Girl: Really, it’s hot in Brisbane. (mimes fanning herself)
Kirilisa, firmly: Oh, that’s a good thing.
Australian Girl: (pause)
Australian Girl: I’m a native Australian and I’m telling you, it’s really hot in Brisbane.
Kirilisa: ….
I think it might be hot in Brisbane.
November 30th, 2005 18:04
Well, off to LAX to meet the USDA with the pets…
Poor pets… I have tried to explain to them what is going to happen but they just ignore me.
November 29th, 2005 10:28
-2 days…
So it’s finally all set. (I say that with my fingers crossed). Fitz’s final blood test results were faxed to the LA lady this morning and that was the last thing missing from our file. Good thing too: we’re putting the pets on their plane to Sydney tomorrow! This really is down to the wire.
More complicated things happened, such as Angell fighting with the KSU lab and KSU yelling at me!! and blizzards shutting down places and tests not getting done and faxes not getting faxed, but now, finally, everything seems to be in place.
Who would have thought we could pull this off? Well, let me not count my chickens before they’re hatched: I’ll say that again at midnight tomorrow when the pets are on their way. I’m sure things could still go wrong at the very end.
Yesterday we went to a big Bank of America and took out $5000 AUD (we didnt want to carry any more cash than that on us!). The bills are JUST like Monopoly money: so pink and blue and yellow! They have strange little clear plastic windows on them and pictures of strange, old, grumpy looking men and women.
We also filled out and faxed our shipping insurance form. I bet they will damage our stuff and refuse to give us the insurance for it. I’m sure there is some loophole that I missed, but I can’t bring myself to care very much at this point. Those Russians sure wrapped the stuff well, in any case.
And then yesterday I (gasp!) went shopping. Bought a stunning little embroidered cream-colored coat from Bebe and some other things. Me going clothes shopping is such a rare event that I feel I must mention it here.
Today we must find a cat crate and I must get a haircut and collapse in the sun a bit. It’s still so beautifully clear…
November 27th, 2005 20:04
So here we are in LA.
We almost didn’t make it here.
We left for our flight at 5AM this morning. Everything went swimmingly — there was no traffic, we arrived at the airport with 1.5 hours to spare, there weren’t even that many people waiting in line or anything… and then discovered that our illustrious vet had screwed yet another thing up… he had not filled out a proper acclimitazation certificate for the two dogs, and we were told that we would therefore not be able to travel with them unless we got one. They suggested rebooking our flight for tomorrow.
Of course, Dr. Kaye was not at Angell Memorial at 6AM on Sunday morning and we could not get the only vet on call (who had never heard of us) to fax us something saying that the dogs actually were fine in tempuratures below 45 degrees (if you take a lok at them, how could you doubt it?).
I still don’t understand how we got around it. It was due to the check in Delta lady having a change of heart and also another, higher up Delta lady who after about half an hour just decided to make things work and got us through all of it before we even realized what was happening.
By the time it was all sorted out and the dogs were trundled away and so forth, we had about 20 minutes left to actually get ourselves to our plane. We made it on, jouncing poor Elma in her soft case unforgivably. The flight over was actually very smooth and uneventful and the only other damper was that the Delta folks, even given the fact that they had just taken $250 for us for the three pets being on board, didn’t bother following the watering instructions clearly printed (twice!) on the dogs’ crates and thus when we finally got them back the poor dogs were desperately thirsty.
You would think that $250 would be worth a little effort and a few sips of water.
Oh well, we are all five here, and safe and together, in Zaubi’s father’s apartment, and we intend to make the next couple days fully relaxing and happy here in the lovely bright sun. Today was the clearest day I have ever seen in LA — I guess there was a big wind storm yesterday that blew away all the clouds and smog for a while.
There are a lot of other things to say but I cannot remember them. These last days rushed by shockingly. We had a lovely Thanksgiving and the whole family (except my father, but he doesn’t count) was there and the food was good and my older sister brought and interesting boyfriend and Zaubi and I ran about trying to do all the last minute things and sign over Subi’s title to my mother and set up her new laptop and break down the dog pen and make little repairs and such to the house since we will be missing in action… and I wished goodbye to mrtee and hyperfl0w and it was terribly sad (and rather surreal) and mrtee gave us a RIDICULOUSLY large bag of emergency anti-snake-venom supplies like pressure wrapping bandanges and then I went out to a pre 10th year high school reunion and saw people (it was very strange, everyone has become so girlie and professional looking!) and viacimo gave me some beautiful; jewelery (part of the girlify-kirilisa programme) and a lovely card or two! and we had an absolutely ridiculous time trying to fit 4 large suitcases, two backpacks, two substantial dog crates, one cat crate, one violin, one soft carrier, one cat, two dogs, and three people into Subi at 5AM this morning (we ended up just taking two cars)…
…and now we are off on our Great Adventure and who knows what time will bring.
I was just messing about with our bills and realized that, even ignoring all the USPS/Fedex charges for sending things to Aus (which we have done many times), and ignoring the fees for the FBI and other criminal check for the visa, and even ignoring initial animal vaccinations and rabies titre tests (not cheap), we are still slated to be reimbursed over $9,000 USD. (Which also means we have paid out of pocket, and mainly in the past 3 months, over $10,000 USD). I wonder how the HR lady will feel about reimbursing us that rather staggering sum, even given it is all completely open and legitamate… Probably it costs more to relocate a whole family, but HELL! Is that just a drop in the bucket to these big organizations? Does relocating families usually cost this much? When a company advertises “relocation assistance” are they thinking of such an amount? More even? I hope Zaubi will be on his very best behavior after starting work so they all know that he is well worth it…
…and my stomach hurts and it is only 7:48 PM but I want to go to bed.
November 27th, 2005 4:15
November 25th, 2005 11:12
2 days.
The movers are supposed to come any minute now. They said between 10 and 12, but I am all keyed up because I don’t have any faith that they will come at all. And if they do, I dont’ have any faith that they will stick to their quote. What if they break all our stuff? What if they hold it hostage in Brisbane and refuse to give it up till we pay more money? Ahhh!
What if they don’t come at all?
We’ve been running about, moving boxes and inventorying stuff since 7AM. It’s a beautiful day but only ~25 degrees F~.
Haven’t been sleeping well lately. I keep waking up to find myself biting myself really hard in the cheek. The inside of my mouth is a mess of half-healed bites.
Wed night we took the dogs and Elma to get their domestic health certificiates. The whole thing was a nightmare — we spent another 2 hours there trying to get them to fax all the proper documents to the lady in LA, over and over again. I dont’ understand how such incompetance exists… anyway, if all the pets get on their plane next Wednesday, it will be a miracle…
Last night all 5 of us went to see Pride and Prejudice. I was a little dispapointed — the other version I saw cast the charaters much better! While we were in the theatre, Subi decided to get a flat. Zaubi changed it after the movie (it was FREEZING out) and so now Subi is wearing his donut (yet again!!) and today I must go to Hogan Tire to get him al fixed up.
I don’t think Subi wants me to go.
November 23rd, 2005 17:00
November 23rd, 2005 12:21
Last day of work. 4 days.
The shipping people are coming Friday between 10 and 12. They are bringing a 28 foot truck with them. I will be VERY interested to see how they make it up and down our narrow, curvy, long, wooded driveway…
This morning I went into Angell Memorial in person to talk with them about this abominable mistake that was made regarding the microchip numbers.
I explained everything to the receptionist lady while I was making her print me out copies of all the forms that the vet had not sent to LA, I had her call in the vet’s technician and had a very long conversation with her about all of this, with the result that she told me we could bring in Fitz any time today and call her and she would quickly take him back and get the blood samples and then personally fedex overnight them to the lab at Kansas State University.
The technician called up Kansas State and alerted them of the problem and they swore up and down that they would do the titres and get the results back on Monday. Even so, Fitz would still not be able to come with us because he would have to take another leptospirosis test on the day that Zaubi and I leave for Aus and wait in LA for the results before he could be shipped.
I got several calls during this whole thing but since I was in conversation I ignored them. Just as I was leaving to go back to work, I got another call from hyperfl0w, who informed me that my server at work was down (agh! disaster!!!). At that point I was so stressed out about all this testing that just couldn’t make myself care.
Right after that, I saw the technician lady running madly out of the hospital and looking around. I figured she was looking for me: she ran over waving a bunch of papers with enormous enthusiasm. It turns out, the results from Fitz’s *second* leptospirosis test had come back, and they were normal! He passed! So it doesn’t matter that the first test he failed since it had the improper microchip number on it anyway!!
So I had Mike rush Fitz into Angell where they are even as I write redoing the other two blood tests. As long as Kansas State gets them back on Monday like they promised, we should be in the free and clear, and all three pets should be able to fly out a week from today as planned.
I can’t say how relieved I am. I am positively disintegrating from stress.
There are several morals of this story:
1) All things happen for a purpose. Even things that appear bad can turn out to be for the best
2) All hope is never lost
3) It’s best to be nice and calm with people even when they have been incompetant
4) If you want results, DO IT YOURSELF (and in person)
November 22nd, 2005 23:37
So there is, as of this afternoon, officially, no way Fitz will be going to Australia with Elma and Kettricken.
Our vet has screwed things up abominably. Not only did he send the dogs’ November 3rd blood tests to the WRONG PLACE (after explicit instructions to send the blood samples straight to Kansas State University, where that kind of testing is done, he still sent it to some intermediary in New York state) so that they lay around in New York for *FIVE DAYS* before being forwarded to Kansas State U where the tests were performed (thus the reason for the results taking 2 weeks to come back instead of 1), he also somehow managed to get the WRONG MICROCHIP NUMBER on the three tubes that were Fitz’s.
The long and short of it is, Fitz’s three tests (one of which being the lepto test that he failed, ironically enough) were marked with ELMA’S microchip number. Those three tests aren’t even tests done for cats. Therefore ALL of the tests done for Fitz on Nov 3 are invalidated and will have to be redone.
The crowning insult to the whole thing is, my contact in LA had sent Dr. Kaye a fax THREE TIMES in the past month asking him to send the blood results and a lot of information, and that fax included a Kansas State University bloodwork submission form, already filled out PROPERLY with pet name and microchip number. Had Dr. Kaye used the form provided (THREE TIMES), the microchip number would have been correct and the sample would have been sent to the proper place meaning that it would have come back much sooner.
Worse yet, given that the illustrious Dr. Kaye did not bother faxing all the test result etc. to my LA contact until late this afternoon (even though he got all the blood test results back LAST WEEK), the LA folks did not see that wrong microchip identifier until late this afternoon. Had he faxed the stuff back last week after it came back, even given that he fucked up the microchip number and the place of submission, there would have been enough time for us to run all three tests again and get results before leaving for LA.
I called up Angell Memorial and even though this is THEIR FAULT they are not making any efforts to make us an appointment tomorrow during the day for Fitz’s three retests in order that I be able to overnight FedEx the blood samples to Kansas State before the holiday.
Now, we are leaving for LA in 5 days, all three of Fitz’s tests have to be redone, the first leptospirosis test is invalidated in any case which means that the second lepto test will have to count as his first test and since, for dogs that fail the first test, another lepto test has to be taken at least 2 weeks after the first test and show no rise in antibody in order for them to be permitted into the country, he will have to have yet ANOTHER lepto test taken to count as his ’second’ test on the Thursday that Mike and I board our plane for Australia, that is, the day AFTER Fitz’s plane reservation has been made. And then he’ll have to wait a week for the results and hope that he passes.
So, clearly, he will not be accompnying the other animals and us to Australia next week. At earliest, and if he passes all the lepto tests, he will be able to board a plane a week after we arrive in Australia. This means — you guessed it!! — a week of boarding and us having to pay for all these expensive tests over again plus all the USDA fees and so forth over again. Easily another $1K out of the dwindling budget.
I am, really, unspeakably frustrated and pissed off. Such incompetancy is stunning. I have been so careful and precise about doing EVERYTHING right and getting all the right info. And yet… it still fails.
November 22nd, 2005 10:51
5 days.
…and still there are too many things up in the air.
I’m still at a complete loss as to what to do about a car once we get there. Buy new? used? from dealer? from person? I was thinking that maybe the Holden Cruze would be a decent choice, being a small, cheap car that yet has AWD, but after reading some reviews I have decided that it doesn’t sound good after all (as well as the fact that it doesnt’ have a good safety rating).
Ideally I’d just want another Subi (maybe the sedan instead of the wagon) but they are just so damn expensive. Still, Subi has been the best car in the whole world: very solid mechanically, extremely safe, great at offroading, not greedy of fuel.
The shipping people are supposed to come on Friday but I don’t have much faith in them. I discovered today that my vet has not sent ANY of the necessary information to the folks in LA although over the past month they have faxed the required 13 page document to him 3 times. Tomorrow we are bringin all three pets in (how does this work with work??) for their final helth check so we can get their domestic health certificates for the trip to LA and I am hoping we will have heard back about the results of Fitz’s second blood test by then.. if we don’t, then we won’t hear back about it before we have to leave, given the holiday. And if we dont’ know if Fitz passes or not, should we bother bringing him all the way to LA or not?
I found out that my Citicard will charge me 3% “conversion fee” on *every* purchase I make in Australia. I have therefore decided to close the card altogether as soon as my last payment of $65 goes through. AMEX cannot transfer over the card I currently have so I will have to apply for a new one when I get there and I would bet both butt cheeks that the APRs are much uglier…
And its pissing cold wet rain that is going to turn into slush/snow by nightfall.
Trouble… trouble…
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