DaveAndAnastasia

In what context did you see "eligible to work"? There is a difference between being a "legal alien allowed to work" and being "authorized to work" (someone in the US on a K-1 before applying for AOS is "allowed to work" -- because they're legally able to apply for an EAD -- but is never "authorized to work" -- because it's not possible to actually get an EAD based on a K-1 before the 90-day stay granted by a K-1 expires), but that's different.

Buy some of the cold-weather version online, or when you get farther north? /has been pretty cold by southern California standards this month, overnight lows barely above freezing ...

The next time they do this thing, it'll be here in 'Murrica (and a little bit in Mexico and Canada), not creepy in-stadiums-built-with-not-quite-slave-labor Qatar, so you'll probably hear more about it, not less. Sorry 🤣 My Orange started 6-0 ... and finished 1-5, but that still means they had a rare 21st century winning season (so their offensive and defensive coordinators were promptly hired by other teams, and their best players declared for the NFL draft or entered the transfer portal). I didn't watch any college soccer, but apparently the Syracuse men won the national championship, so maybe I should have ...

Made Christmas cookies this weekend; managed low-carb gingerbread cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and chocolate crinkle cookies. All good, though the gingerbread tastes most like the original version. Mini-Dave helped decorate the gingerbread, PRG put the chocolate in most of the peanut butter blossoms (no one makes sugar-free Hershey's Kisses or passable knock-offs, oversight, man; so we had to melt some sugar-free chocolate chips and butter instead), but no helpers for the crinkles. Mini-Dave wanted to go to the Safari park on Saturday, other plans, tomorrow, man. Saw the Nutcracker on Saturday with PRG, left mini-Dave with babysitter (only second time in over two years we've done that), then brought him with us to dinner at Burmese place. Also fun. Saw cheetah (usually is resting when we go there and not out) and gibbons (apparently not monkeys because no tails) at Safari Park on Sunday with neighbors, happy mini-Dave and neighbor girl.

That might let someone not from Europe or South America win.

Eh, I don't trust flying on Russian airlines right now; flying western planes (or even Russian planes with western engines) operated by companies that can't legally get spare parts does not seem safe.

... but that's still crazy; back when I visited Anastasia in Russia in 2018 I had a direct flight from SVO to LAX and back for less than $1000, and when she came here in early 2019 one-way from SVO to LAX was less than $700 on a flex ticket (so refundable and included two bags). I've been trying to figure the best way for us to visit Anastasia's family next summer (not really super enthusiastic about going to Russia right now, but my wife hasn't seen her family in person since coming here in early 2019, they've never seen our son in person, and she has some living grandparents still), though, and came to pretty much the same conclusions about lowest-cost way to get to Moscow from San Diego or LA (adding another connection vs two or three hours in an Uber or a shuttle with a small child as I'm not driving home from LAX after a transatlantic flight) as you did from Dallas (getting anywhere closer to Anastasia's hometown from outside Russia isn't really possible; Kazan's closer than Moscow but the only way to go the rest of the way from there is by bus and if the Allegro isn't working then flying to Helsinki, taking the train to St. Petersburg, and then flying from there to Anastasia's hometown doesn't work). Yeah; logically, it makes no sense that the US-Turkey (or other middleman country) flight would be the cheaper one, but the airlines operating the route know you don't really have many options.

The wrinkle in this is that apparently if your patronymic is not shown on your name change document (marriage certificate or other), then it's something of a pain to get your surname officially changed in Russia ... though this is apparently usually resolved by not officially changing your name in Russia (Anastasia is doing this).

Those aren't really mutually exclusive, but you should apply for an SSN before getting married (mostly to avoid having to argue with people who may not have correct understandings of the law) and then change the name on the card after EAD (or green card, if there's not much time between the two so it's not worth bothering to update her social security card twice or your wife gets her green card without having received an EAD card first). Back in 2019, Anastasia applied for her SSN her second full day after POE (in downtown San Diego), and then we got married the day after that (in Temecula, because they were the 2nd-closest county clerk's office that did outdoor ceremonies and downtown San Diego's web site was full of warnings about parking availability). Also as minor aside, you'll want to be consistent in whether or not your wife uses her patronymic as a middle name in your paperwork; we kind of changed our minds on that between the K-1 application and the AOS application and the discrepancy meant we needed to get a supervisor involved to update her social security card even though Anastasia [my last name], Anastasia [her maiden name], and Anastasia [patronymic] [her maiden name] were obviously the same person.

Because the USWNT frequently wins the Women's World Cup (of the 8 tournaments, they've won 4, made the final in one other, and finished 3rd in the other three) ... while the guys made the regular World Cup semifinals once in 1950.

There are various short-term insurance plans available and you can decide for yourself if the coverage is good enough to be worth it for you, but if you're using a K-1 how you're supposed to (which is to say you already know you are going to get married, you're not treating it as a "trial period"), the best thing is to just get legally married ASAP and put your new spouse on your plan. And many employers will let you make coverage retroactive to your legal wedding date. So in our case Anastasia had no health insurance for ... three days. I think that was a manageable risk.

UnitedHealthcare is one of the largest insurance companies in America (and what we have now and had since we were married, though my employer's changing for next year); you shouldn't have any trouble finding hospitals, doctors, and other medical service providers that are in-network for just about anything with them though of course you should check.