Harbinger of Doom?

[dbt1949]

If my wife dies off this winter I could be available. I've had 5 years of taking care of an 180lb baby.
All I require is a room and bed, the internet, and all I can eat.
(your baby doesn't drive an armored wheel chair does it?)

[El Guapo]

So I said, why not bring over my wife's irresponsible partying friend from out of the country to watch my kids?

[Jeff V]

Yesterday, MiL got her passport; one step closer to being here. I tried to set the appointment with the embassy, but she needs to pay the fee first (~$160) and the receipt number needs to be included with the online forms before I can actually get to the scheduling page. It did tell me that as of yesterday, the next available appointment is August 11. So there's a good chance she will be here by the time the kids birthdays hit (first week September).

My wife is hoping to transition into a day shift job and possibly go to school for her RN while her mom is here. The boy started all-day preschool 3x per week and that is not going to change; we've not been sending the baby to a sitter so rather than immediate cost reduction, the MiL will serve to make things easier on my wife, who struggles to get enough quality sleep every day. I'll also have more free time myself, but I wish she'd have come in May instead -- most of her stay will be over the winter, when I'm more inclined to stay home anyway. Maybe I'll devolve into a troglodyte and spend days at a time in the basement.

[Jeff V]

And now this happened. Kananga, btw, is the town I got married in and where my in-laws live. While the article states there's not much damage, the road to Ormoc, where my mother-in-law was supposed to go yesterday to pay the fee for the visa, was destroyed and closed. There was also no power in Kananga.

[em2nought]

And now this happened. Kananga, btw, is the town I got married in and where my in-laws live. While the article states there's not much damage, the road to Ormoc, where my mother-in-law was supposed to go yesterday to pay the fee for the visa, was destroyed and closed. There was also no power in Kananga.

Hope your MiL is ok, if my theoretical Filipina MiL was planning on coming to live with me I'd be all "oh, I just read this story viewtopic.php?f=5&t=94435&hilit=slave and I'm so looking forward to having you."

I finally asked the Filipina cashier at Walmart if she's single after three years of wondering. She isn't, but she isn't a lapsed Catholic school girl either so it's ok with me. She told me Jesus is coming soon.

[Jeff V]

I've been meaning to find time to read that article after Grif brought it to my attention more than a month ago. Time is an elusive commodity these days. I should have a lot more time after the MiL comes and takes over all of the housework and kid duties.

Perception can be a strange thing. She is coming to help us out -- not to work elsewhere (she can't) and since she doesn't drive nor speak a significant amount of English, she'll be entirely dependent on us for social activity unless she manages to develop some good relationships with some of my wife's friends or their relatives. There is not so much a convenience store within walking distance, driving everywhere is mandatory and aside from walking around the 'hood she'll have no real opportunity to get out of the house by herself. As a peasant farmer's wife and mother of many, we are not asking her to do anything that she isn't already doing under far more challenging circumstances. I can see where a more educated person would find this arrangement oppressive in a rather short period of time; but none of us think this will be an issue in her case. My wife is expecting to file for an extension to keep her here for a year; and as long as she returns to the Philippines within her legal time limit she can return with little effort. My wife will certainly try to keep her happy since she wants her to be here to help, and she's prepared to commit to going for her RN if her mom frees up time for her to do so.

[em2nought]

My Thai buddy's Thai wife is coming over to be with him in a year or so. I'm not sure the minions will be able to stand on their own two feet without her having to ask him for a little extra almost every month. As a small example, who knew that someone's uncle becoming a monk costs money. I thought monks were supposed to live a life of austerity? Once she's here, I'm pretty sure we'll all have to delete the "Line" app. bahahaha Might have to abandon Facebook as well.

[Jeff V]

So now we have a July 24 date for her interview with the embassy. The fees have been paid. Wife is working on her travel arrangements to Manila.

Seems likely she'll be here for the kid's birthdays in September.

[Jeff V]

MiL's visa was approved. Plane ticket bought, arrival on 8/19.

I booked it on Expedia, but put the wrong middle initial. Asked my wife to call and get it changed. They couldn't change, so they canceled and couldn't find the route I booked in the first place. So they helpfully booked her on a more expensive flight on Qatar Air...going via Qatar. I remind my wife that Trump hates Qatar and likely will have problems. I canceled that one and booked the original itinerary with the correct name, $100 cheaper, 4 hours quicker, leaves in the afternoon instead of midnight (with a 4 am layover!) and infinitely less hassle than via Qatar. WTF Expedia! Why couldn't your phone monkey do in an hour what I did in 5 minutes?

Having said that, there will most certainly be a massive typhoon blocking the entire eastern route the day of her flight.

Boss thinks its a bad idea to bring her here. Meanwhile, at work we had an all-hands emergency that began 2:30 am yesterday in China and was brought to our attention in a meeting at 8:30. I'm still on the conference all (9:20 pm) even though nothing new affecting my region popped up in the past hour or so. At 4:00 pm, boss said nobody goes home until the whole thing is resolved (it won't be resolved tonight). At 4:30, I tell my boss I'll have to pick it up from home...I needed to relieve my wife, who worked 13 hours last night, watched the kids all day and has to work 9 hours tonight. He didn't argue...if he did, I'd point out that if my MiL was here, I could have stayed all night.

[hepcat]

Jeff, buddy, it's papa. Take care of my missus while she's there, okay? And if a new gold medallion were to just happen to fall into her handbag before she leaves? Well...I would certainly appreciate it.

[Jeff V]

I'll get him one filled with chocolate inside. He'll like it just as well I'm sure.

[dbt1949]

You would think he could afford a dentist. Are there no dentists in the Philippines?

[Jeff V]

You would think he could afford a dentist. Are there no dentists in the Philippines?

There are. Clearly nobody advised him to put his money where his mouth is.

[McNutt]

Is that a mini middle tooth or did he have a diamond inserted there?

[Zarathud]

I await the day Jeff V's life story is turned into the next Netflix comedy series.

[Isgrimnur]

I await the day Jeff V's life story is turned into the next Netflix comedy series.

The Ranch Home.

[Jeff V]

I await the day Jeff V's life story is turned into the next Netflix comedy series.

It would be an ironic one since we don't get Netflix in spite of me being an early adopter -- I remember paying $6 per rental for DVDs that would arrive in heavily padded envelopes.

My wife is going to have to breakdown though and allow me to subscribe to TFC again. I wanted to do it in advance of Saturday's party, when lots of Filipinos (like 40-50) are expected but she said no. I guess she wants the TV to be used exclusively for karaoke.

[Isgrimnur]

I think you should show up dressed like MacArthur.

[Jeff V]

For several years, my wife had an apartment down the street from the memorial park where he landed, I used to go jogging past it.

[hepcat]

My wife is going to have to breakdown though and allow me to subscribe to TFC again.

You forgot to put quotation marks around allow.

[Jeff V]

My wife is going to have to breakdown though and allow me to subscribe to TFC again.

You forgot to put quotation marks around allow.

Not really, I'd be paying for something mostly used by her and her mom...aside from occasionally watching one of their sometimes-impressive variety shows, I don't pay much attention to it and when it's on I can usually spend a little time gaming.

[em2nought]

I think you should show up dressed like MacArthur.

Like they don't already cosplay MacArthur and the wayward Filipina Catholic schoolgirl. It's how he's got two kids already.

[hepcat]

My wife is going to have to breakdown though and allow me to subscribe to TFC again.

You forgot to put quotation marks around allow.

Not really, I'd be paying for something mostly used by her and her mom...aside from occasionally watching one of their sometimes-impressive variety shows, I don't pay much attention to it and when it's on I can usually spend a little time gaming.

That was my point. You made it sound like it was something you wanted.

[Jeff V]

That was my point. You made it sound like it was something you wanted.

Well, that and we bought this big-ass TV (and that was her choice!) but then she refuses to pay to watch anything on it so all it does is stream kids songs on Youtube all day long. Since we no longer have TFC, it's pretty useless to her, and she's not inclined to approve any expenses that only add to my enjoyment, especially when she thinks about it and concludes there are better things I should be doing with that time rather than watch TV. However, when she has her own shows back, she won't have hand to deny me anymore.

With football season approaching, I'm thinking to press for Youtube TV.

[Isgrimnur]

If she runs into any more difficulties, perhaps this guy can help out.

A man posing as a seventeen-star general of the United Nations Soldier International, along with four others, were arrested at a check point in Marawi City on Thursday.

According to a report by Raffy Tima in 24 Oras, the so-called seventeen-star general claimed to be a Commanding General in Philippines Asia Pacific.

Four others were arrested with him.

He said his group were under orders from the United States Special Forces, which allegedly functions as an advisor for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) during its operations against the Islamic State- linked Maute group.

[Jeff V]

So Mother-in-law arrived this past Friday. So far, pretty much as expected. Attempts to communicate have been minimal at best between us. I bought her a phone mostly to use as a remote for TFC -- I try to explain to her that when selecting the Chromecast icon to put it on the TV, the top one is for her bedroom TV and the bottom one is for the living room TV. She is constantly turning on the living room TV from her bedroom or interrupting me when I'm watching something in the living room. I've asked my wife several times now to please make sure she understands fully how to use it.

I guess she hasn't fully adjusted to the time change yet. I let the toddler play with his Kindle last night and she responded when he started screaming in anguish when the battery died, but didn't a short time later when the baby woke and started to cry. I got up and fed her, finding the downstairs TV turned on with the Chromecast screensaver cycling.

[Jeff V]

So MIL is on her way back. That was a quick three months. Dropped her off at the airport late last night, and my wife had no mercy on me. Up at 5 am to help her prepare for a double shift at work and I get juggle both kids all day from start to finish. This will be a little more challenging than before MiL got here as my daughter became fully bipedal in the time she was here.

Wife was already searching flights while we were driving home from the airport. Expedia was not very forthcoming on deals, Kayak found fares a full 50% less than Expedia's best effort. I hope she does come back but my wife is uncertain when pressed. Apparently her dad gets a vote, but I think it'll come down to how much her mom wants to come back.

[$iljanus]

So MIL is on her way back. That was a quick three months. Dropped her off at the airport late last night, and my wife had no mercy on me. Up at 5 am to help her prepare for a double shift at work and I get juggle both kids all day from start to finish. This will be a little more challenging than before MiL got here as my daughter became fully bipedal in the time she was here.

Wife was already searching flights while we were driving home from the airport. Expedia was not very forthcoming on deals, Kayak found fares a full 50% less than Expedia's best effort. I hope she does come back but my wife is uncertain when pressed. Apparently her dad gets a vote, but I think it'll come down to how much her mom wants to come back.

Sounds like she was a real help to you after all. More importantly, did she ever figure out the Chromecast?

[Jeff V]

She did, more or less. A bigger problem was the TFC app would crash when her crappy 8 GB phone ran out of space and she didn't know what to do. I moved them all to her Google Drive (cloud), I wonder if she'll ever see them again.

[Jeff V]

Her second tour of duty ends today...she goes back to the Philippines this evening. I was kind of expecting she'd be back again next summer - my wife was talking about sponsoring her for permanent residency so she can then bring her sister over (and then her mom wouldn't be needed anymore). But then yesterday, my wife was complaining she feels no love at all toward her mom and can't stand the sound of her voice. Since I still can't effectively communicate with her mom, my offer to make/get her whatever she wants for her last dinner here is going nowhere...

There will be some complications starting tonight. My daughter got accustomed to sleeping with her, and attempts to move her back to her bed (a new toddler bed, got rid of her cage) didn't work. My daughter got especially attached to her, and is even becoming somewhat bilingual (much more so than my son). But she's still just two and "ask grandma what she wants for dinner" is too complicated a concept.

[em2nought]

This whole deal seems to have gone WAY more smoothly than I'd have guessed. My Thai buddy will hopefully have his wife and her daughter joining him in two more months here. I'm not sure how the rest of her extended family will survive without the easy conduit to his pocket, and sometimes mine as well.

[Jeff V]

Update time. MiL has been approved for permanent residency, now we need to send a second truck load of money to our government and a standard shipping container filled with pesos for her medical exam (which requires a trip to Manila since only one hospital is authorized to do it). Then she can come back indefinitely, where the next cash outlay will be doing this all over again to bring her sister here (currently defined as the end game). Sister graduated high school so we'll be sending her for nursing training so hopefully by the time she comes here, she'll be able to take the CNA exam and get a job in the field, paying her own way to finish college and become a nurse here.

As of today, though, there might be a bit of a capacity problem. About 18 months ago, an acquaintance introduced us to another American husband/Filipina wife couple who live across town from us. My wife gets along with the lady well and she's a member of one of my wife's several covens. Her husband and I have been cordial after an initial attempt at Facebook friendship ended abruptly when he proved himself to be a MAGA-level Trumptard deplorable. You'd think that someone who has taken the trouble to meet and marry a foreigner would be more sensitive to immigration issues, but my wife has at least 3 friends who married husbands who support policies that undermine their even being here in the first place. Sunday, while everyone was sending Happy Mother's Day platitudes, this piece of work posted that he notified his wife of his intent to divorce her. I don't know all of the details of their split, but it came down to him wanting a domestic servant, her wanting a kid that after 10 years he failed to produce and when she wanted IVF, he bought a Tesla instead. So the punchline is that she will likely occupy our spare bedroom after hashing out details of the divorce with her husband. How long is up in the air...she is working some sort of WFH job that's going to take some development before she can make it on her own. My wife asked for a trivial rent mostly to offset increased utility cost (we expect her to buy much of her own food).

So this girl will take the spare bedroom. When mom comes back, might have to get a sofa bed for my wife's office (formerly kid's playroom) We rehabbed it into a studio for her YouTube channel that suddenly went from nothing to something and after 1 month of qualifying for ad revenue, she's made $650 on it. Now if she can sustain that for a while, it might have a positive ROI by the end of summer but even if it cools off, she needed a hobby anyway.

[Jaymann]

What is the theme of her you tube channel?

[Jeff V]

she

What is the theme of her you tube channel?

Shopping! She started with family/recipe themes, got to the requisite 1000 subscribers in under 3 months but at that point was only at 400 out 4000 hours viewed. She was going at a pace that would take a year. Then she switched to shopping, one video hit 150,000 views and delivered 500 hours in a single day! She hit 4000 a month ago and was accepted into the revenue program 2 days later.

She always gives me a hard time for not pimping her channel, so here you go. Subscribe and watch them all. Don't skip the ads. Or just do what I do and let it run in a background tab.

A friend of mine, a world-traveler/photographer/adventurer is actually asking her advice because he wants to monetize his content. She can't even say much more besides "women love shopping!" Methinks that friend needs a more conventional business-plan approach to it.

[Jeff V]

MiL arrived yesterday for her 3rd tour of duty. It's been 4 years since she was last year...she will be here 6 months, then in md Jun we all go to the Philippines -- us for a month, her until she decides to come back. After her last visit, we applied for, and was approved, for permanent residency (including green card), but she failed to follow through within 2 years, and the money we spent got flushed as the offer was withdrawn. She is still here on tourist visa. This means I can work a lot longer each day, yay!