Then comes the paperwork. Fourteen forms to fill out. Oh, and please check to make sure your passports are valid for six months AFTER your scheduled return. His is fine, mine expires before then.
Get my passport renewal application at the Post Office. Processing time is about 2 weeks. The skating officials don't want me to take that risk and suggest I expedite it using a service they recommend. This is a process unto itself. First, I fill out the form. Then, I go to have an official passport picture taken. The photo shop in the next town is out of business (has been for years the man in the shop next door tells me as if I just blew in from Mars). I go to the dreaded U.S. Post Office to have my photo taken. Just as I'm about to park the car, a woman cuts me off. I have to park a block away and it's pouring cats and dogs. I go in, stand in a long line and get my picture taken. The woman who works in the Post Office talks to herself the entire time which I find amusing as hell. I look at my picture. A little on the casual side, but not hideous.
Then, I assemble a package and drive two towns over to the nearest Fedex office to have the materials mailed to the agent in San Francisco and I include a self addressed, pre-paid envelope. But first, I have to set up a Fedex account so that I can do the pre-paid return label. I fill out two pages of forms and hand it to the Fedex guy.
Get in my car and drive home in what is now rush-hour traffic. An hour later, I am home....exhausted from doing monkey work all day.
Five days later, a Fedex package arrives at my house. It's the new passport and the old, voided one.
Included with the passports is a hand-written note from someone named Maureen, the agent who expedited my application. I look at the note which says: "Looking good!"
I look at the passports side by side. The new one, while taken 10 years later than the first one, looks alot better to me.
Thinner and younger. Gotta love Weight Watchers.
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| 2001 |
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| 2011 |
WOW!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou look fabulous!
kj