During our visit to the social security office two weeks ago, we were told verbally that the USCIS has verified the data in the system and I should be getting the Social Security Numbers (SSN) and Social Security Card in the mail within two weeks. Since two weeks has passed and no news of SSN yet. We drove two hours back and forth to go down there AGAIN.
First, we waited about 45 minutes in line, woman clerk No 1 who attended to us checked the computer and said the processing was still pending. She referred to the woman clerk No 2 who accepted our application six weeks ago. Woman clerk No 2 said “Oh, I got to pull out her file!”
She then went inside to dig out the social security card application submitted six weeks ago, looked at them for a couple of minutes. Then she said she couldn’t process the application yet because USCIS hasn’t verified my married name. She was lying to cover her lazy ass! How could USCIS processed my green card and sent me one if they have not verified my name? And, she has my passport, visa, temporarily work authorization stamp, birth certificate and marriage certificate, what else does she need to verify? Furthermore, she should have sent me a mail or call me if the name cannot be verified, instead of sitting on my application for six weeks!!
I was very very furious with this woman No 2, she was obviously trying to make life difficult. However, I kept my calm and told the woman No 1 that I wanted my Social Security card processed, in whatever name she choose. So she processed my Social Security card application in my maiden name.
Then she gave a letter that says the card will arrive in two weeks. It’s a desperate measure to get the application out of that office so we don’t have to deal with this suckers anymore. (We thought of going to another social security office, but afraid they may ask us to return to the first one since the pending application is filed here.) We plan to go to another Social Security office to get the name changed once the SS card arrives, since the card is issued F.O.C.
I asked whether a SSN has been assigned that she could give me, again she lied and said there was NONE! I know for a fact that many people were assigned a SSN a week or two after they entered with an immigrant visa. Mine has been seven weeks, and even the green card which typocally comes after the SSN has been issued!!
Unfortunately, this people represent some of the everyday racism one will encounter in this country!
We will wait for two weeks, if there is still nothing comes in the mail, I am going to get the congressman office to file a complaint against them or write a “Letter To The Editor”. I know the law protects me from being discriminated, they have picked the wrong person to mess with !!
I love the Hakka dumplings my mother made. Her recipes called for glutinous rice flour and tapioca flour , which are not stretchy and rather difficult to handle. I helped whenever my mother made dumplings during special occasion i.e. winter solstice, but almost always ended up making dumplings with holes. So I never try making them myself.
I could not find glutinous rice flour and tapioca at the Korean grocery store. So, decided to make different kind of dumplings with wheat flour – Jiaozi. This kind of dumplings is very popular among the Chinese people from Mainland and Taiwan. I used to have that very often during get together with Taiwanese friends from the Chinese church before I went home to Malaysia in 2001.
Hakka dumplings typically use a lot of turnips, leeks, carrots, a little bit of dried shrimps and shredded pork for the filing. Most of the recipes I found for Jiaozi called for ground pork, shrimps, Chinese chives, napa cabbage and ginger.
The first attempt, I followed the Jiaozi recipes I found online, make them with ground pork, shrimps and Chinese chives as main ingredients. The dumplings turned out to be really twisted and ugly after throwing them into the boiling water, though the taste was alright and T cleaned up everything.
I found this video on Youtube that shows this expert mama demonstrating how to pleat the dumplings, so decided to make the second attempt.
I don’t really like the Chinese chives, so I omitted that this time. I have turnips, carrots, mushrooms, gingers, scallions, shrimps and ground pork. Basically, what I can easily find, at the Korean grocery store we shop.
I was afraid the “paste” might not be sticking with too much vegetables and less meat. But it turned out fine. This time, I decided to make pot stickers instead dumplings. They are basically the same, the difference is just cooking them in the boiling water (Jiaozi/dumplings) or pan fried (Guotie/pot stickers).
Three cups of flour churned out about fifty of dumpling. I cooked enough for our dinner, brought some over to the in laws and the uncooked leftover were assembled on a baking sheet, froze for 20-30 minutes until no longer soft, and then placed in ziploc bag to keep in the freezer. They will be handy bento lunch for T to bring to work and my lunch.
Four days after receiving the Welcome to America notice and 45 days after entering the country with a n IR1 spousal visa, the green card came in the mail today! ( I don’t know why it’s called green card when it’s not green in color! )
They did mess up my name as they did in the Welcome Notice, so we would have to send it back for correction. What fun we have with the immigration services !!
Still no news from the Social Security office. We may make another trip down there next Tuesday ( T ’s day off from work) if we do not receive anything in the mail by next Monday.
T’s father found this book at the church bazaar for 50 cents! He intended to give it to T’s aunt who collects this kind of recipes books. He left it on the coffee table and I started reading it one evening when we were hanging out at the in laws’ place.
The recipes book is fun to read, it has so many intriguing “old farmer” stories and cooking tips scattered among the recipes. One of the not so secret tips especially to those factories that make traditional biscuits/cookies/mooncakes in Malaysia, she used lard in her pie crust recipes!
Most of the recipes called for fresh produce and simple ingredients. I like that as I prefer to cook our meals from scratch with fresh ingredients instead of cooking from over processed ingredients.
I borrowed the book to try out some recipes and T’s father then decided to give it to me.
Pumpkin pie is one of the must have dishes for American Thanksgiving celebration, which falls on next Thursday.
The women at the international spouses meeting had a little adventure with pie making this morning. Merilyn who organized the cook out had us met at the kitchen of a church. She prepared the store bought pie crust and filings. Everyone had great fun making and baking the pies.
I was late and missed the fun of making pumpkin pie with them, but was in time for pie eating. They had made extra pies and we were able to bring one home each!
Teresa shared the story of the first Thanksgiving, the pilgrims and their Native American friends. I learned something new about the history of America.
We will be celebrating our thanksgiving with T’s parents at his uncle’s house. T’s aunt will cook the main dish and the turkey, but every household will bring a dish. T suggested I bring a non spicy Malaysian/Asian/Chinese dish. I haven’t decided what to bring to the lunch party. Most of the dishes I usually cook need to be eaten piping hot, and do not taste good when it’s cold, which are not so party friendly. Do you have any suggestions?
Six weeks after arriving here, the much anticipated welcome notice from US Citizenship and Immigration Services finally came in the mail today.
The notice says I should hear from them again within 30 days. Guess that means I will receive the green card in the mail within 30 days. However, they jumbled up my name AGAIN! I called to inform about that. The customer service person told me the card production has been ordered and there is nothing she could do to fix that. She suggested I send back the green card for amendment when it arrives.
We may have to make an Infopass appointment to get that fixed. It’s amazing that a government department that deals with so many immigrants assumed everyone else has the same first-middle-last names sequence.
We were at T’s parents’ place, his parents and I were watching the telecast of the election results. It became more and more evident that Barrack Obama is going to be the next president an hour after we started watching, T refused to watch further. Where we live in the Midwest is traditionally a Republican’s stronghold. However, it’s Obama’s home state and the unhappiness with Bush administration thus McCain has totally reversed the voting patterns.
It’s interesting how some of the republicans who ran for state attorneys, governors, circuit clerks sensed the trend and started to disassociate themselves from McCain and Bush in their ads. They tried to put forth their agendas without mentioning the party they represented. Whereas, all the ads of democrats have Obama and his endorsements! T’s father who is a longtime republican pointed that out to me few weeks ago and told me McCain is going to lose!!
I continue watching the election results after we went home and T went to bed. I watched until Obama gave his speech at the Chicago rally. It was a very touching and charismatic speech, indeed. Let’s hope he is sincere and will be the president of America who makes a difference to lives of ordinary Americans and the world.
Today is the presidential election day and T’s day off from work. He voted early so we could go down to the nearest social security office to inquire on the status of my Social Security Numbers (SSN) and Social Security Card. The car park at polling station was full even though it’s 6.30 a.m. Either because many people were exercising their rights before they started work or they thought it would be less people early in the morning!
The nearest local Social Security office took about two hours to and fro, we would prefer to find out the status through phone if someone would pick up the darn phone at the Social Security office.
We drove down there, waited 30 minutes in line, was told the woman who processed our application was on leave and we would not get any information other than the Immigration Services had validated my data. Though the woman who talked to us was all polite, you know she didn’t care and would not go an inch further. She could have go ahead to assign the SSN or corrected the mistake in my name, but she choose to do nothing. The Social Security office at this location sucks, the people work there are worst than Malaysian government servants.
We were invited to join T’s parents, his uncle and aunt for dinner. They said it’s traditional pizza and popcorn dinner, but I am not sure it’s their family tradition, midwest tradition or American tradition.
T’s uncle and aunt live about 25 minutes away from where we live. They run a farm corporation with thousand acres of corn, wheat and soy field. Their home is on the farm. T’s uncle is in his 70s and he still works in the field! It’s harvesting season right now and they have been really busy. When they told us their workers have been working 120+ hours per week, I poked at T who worked about 45 hours a week and complained about over working.:-)
We had two large pizzas with meatball and mushroom toppings. They were very delicious, but pretty greasy and high calories. T somemore brought home the leftover to eat for lunch!
We chit-chatted and played the dice game Farkle after dinner. It ’s a very fun dice game with simple rules. The cover of the container said it’s a game of guts and luck. Really, through the game, it’s so obvious who would take chances and who were the conservatives.
T’s mom was having such good luck with the game, she kept getting three pairs, two triplets and straight. We had a good laugh and the game ended with her reaching 10, 000 points, way ahead of all of us!
