Good news, everyone

I didn’t mean to abandon my blog for so long that the main page was blank, but Things have been Happening. We had our visa interview on November 3, and I am happier than you could ever imagine to say that we were approved. This visa has been all I’ve been living and breathing for the past year, and I can’t tell you how nervous we were beforehand. I very levelheadedly convinced myself that blogging about anything would jinx the visa, so I decided I’d wait until after the interview to write, not realizing that after the interview I’d suddenly have a million things to do, like planning a wedding and preparing to move back across an ocean and trying to unclench my jaw.

The visa interview itself was a breeze. It almost pains me to write that, given all the stress that it caused, but it was fine. Our appointment was at 8 am, so we took a cab to Grosvenor Square at 6:30. I’d spent the weeks before sick with worry, and Nick was very good about calming me down, but suddenly that morning our roles reversed, and Nick sat in the cab grinding his teeth while I enjoyed the sunrise tour of London. We crossed the Thames, past Big Ben and Parliament and Westminster Abbey, and then Trafalgar Square and Soho and Regent Street (our cabbie got lost), and I thought, “If we don’t get the visa, I’d be happy living here.” I really do love London, and am going to miss it terribly. It’s just been the living in limbo that’s been unbearable.

While we waited outside the embassy, Nick suddenly turned to me and said, “If they ask me a question and I freeze or freak out, I’m just going to blurt, Sweet Pickles is great!” That made us both laugh and relax a bit. When we were finally allowed inside and took a seat in the waiting area, I looked out the window and saw the Oklahoma state flag and that was oddly reassuring. (When we passed the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Parliament Square, I felt the same way.) We spoke to a very tight-lipped woman and then a very friendly man, who just happened to drop in conversation, “Okay, so you’re approved…” and then he made some joke to Nick about getting me to the altar in a hurry, but I was too busy telling myself not to say all the cheesy melodramatic things that were welling up inside me to pay attention. I bit my lip so I wouldn’t come out with something awful like God bless your family or Sir, you have made me a very happy woman or any of the other made-for-TV-movie drivel that my brain was shouting. Then we walked back out to the lobby and squealed and kissed and jumped up and down, and behaving like a cliché has never felt so good.

We were out the embassy door by 9:30 am, and so euphoric we walked straight into a fancy hotel bar across the square and ordered champagne cocktails. We waited until 4:30 am Oklahoma time to call my parents from the hotel lobby and shout our good news down a pay phone, and then we went to three other fancy hotels and had more champagne cocktails. On November 3, 2010 I peed in the nicest bathrooms of my life. One (The Connaught) had an actual French maid waiting to hand me a a towel. After all the before-noon cocktails we went home and slept for three hours, and then had a celebratory Chinese takeaway dinner with Ian and Antonia, and Nick caught up on Cooks Cooking for a Chance to Cook before bed. Is it in poor taste for me to share that visa sex is the best sex? Probably.

So we’re coming home and getting married! Will you think less of me if I tell you that aside from seeing family and friends, I’m most excited to eat a Wendy’s cheeseburger and wear my bathrobe? Not at the same time, of course. Even I have some scruples. Although to be fair, most of them involve this sort of situation.

Happy Thanksgiving, America. I’m thankful I get to come home and marry the man I love and sleep in my bed and get annoyed with the MTA again. I miss you, and I’ll see you soon.