Discolor Online

Knock me over with a feather, Kate's passport has showed up!

Last week I called the agency because her status was still not showing up online. After waiting for over 30 minutes on hold, I got a confirmation that it had been received "June 19th" which was a full week after I turned over the documents. The woman on the phone told me flat out that I shouldn't expect to have it by Friday (when I thought she was going to her dad's... he's begged off of that and she's not going until the 3rd now but I didn't know that then) and gave me a locater number so I could go to the website to print out an official receipt on the assumption that Kate would have to travel before we got her documents back. Of course, when I went to the website armed with the locater number I found the option to look things up by locater number has been "temporarily disabled". As of yesterday her application was still not showing up on the website as even being received.

Needless to say, I was feeling very confident in the process.

Yesterday was exactly two weeks since we went to apply. Could it possibly be that because our case was weird (establishing her citizenship and all those additional documents) it got special attention off the bat? As I was told not to expect anything until the middle of July, I'm
quite thrilled.

Her passport is far fancier than mine (issued in 2000) and includes all sorts of electronic bits inside a thicker, sturdier cover. Even the individual pages are all full of patriotic slogans and illustrations of flags, eagles, Mount Rushmore, the statue of liberty and so on. The inside back cover includes an image, as if from space, of the moon, the earth and a satellite. Is this some sort of imperialist claim to the planet and space? All this hyper-nationalism is a normally the kind of stuff I find weird and not a little creepy but hey for now I'm just incredibly, blessedly relieved that Kate can come and go to Canada as she pleases now AND I don't have to worry about anyone questioning her citizenship or her right to be in the country/living with me/going to school anymore.

Labels: Kate, passport

FINALLY.

I was told flat out that I should expect "expedited" service to take at least five weeks, not the two weeks listed on the government websites. I'm not surprised. I had to insist that the guy at the office actually send the various notarized lists, forms, and statements that I painstakingly collected over the last couple of months. He started dismantling the packets of information I'd so carefully assembled: my citizenship documentation, my sworn list of addresses, corroborating documents for the sworn statements, certified copies of our parenting plan (which specifies that Kate is to travel to Canada to spend the summers with her dad), etc. I said, "I'm pretty sure they want that documentation; they asked for it on the website." Sheesh.

Now the waiting begins. I don't actually expect to see her passport in five weeks. As long as I get it in the next ten weeks sometime we should be okay. She can get INTO Canada, it's just getting her back that could, in theory, be a problem. Though with the easing of the passport requirements I'm hoping that having the receipt showing that we've applied and it's in process will be sufficient.

Labels: Kate, passport, summer

It's the last month of school for Katherine and the last month that Orca will be in their current location. They have to move out of the school by the end of the school year, which means there's a lot of activity surrounding the move taking place in addition to the usual end of the year activities. Additionally, the teachers and the PTA are really going out of their way to try and make the end of this school year a special one for all the students but for the departing 5th graders especially. In that vein we have the following social calendar:

June 8th School Play (fundraiser for next year's 6th grade trips)
June 13th 5th Grade Class Trip to Wild Waves and sleepover in the Columbia Tower
June 14th 5th Grade Breakfast after sleepover
June 18th 5th Grade Graduation
June 19th 5th Grade Luncheon
June 20th Orca Field Day
June 21st Orca End of Year Celebration

In among all the school activities, we have Kate's make-up birthday party on June 9th and Chris's birthday dinner (I'm taking him to the Herbfarm!) on the 15th, then a "thanks for watching Kate for us" brunch with our kindly Kate-sitters on June 16th. Holy crap, June's half over! I haven't even been to a single SIFF movie this year and it's not looking like there's going to be much chance for me to change that.

I've gotten the papers I needed from Kate's dad to finally make the passport application we've been needing to file since April, so we'll be doing that tomorrow. Yay!

Labels: Kate, passport, school, summer