Opal's US passport
These days, you need a passport no matter how old you are; gone are the days
of being added to a parent's passport. And we're planning to take Opal to
Australia in August. Technically, we have a while before we'd absolutely
have to apply, but not so long that any parts of the process would get easier,
so we thought we'd do it before Paul went back to work, when we had maximum
ability to fuss with bureaucracy.
First, we had to get her birth certificate. That involved filling out a long
and badly photocopied form in the hospital, and then driving to San Jose
to get the actual physical object. Paul was very worried that they'd get
her last name wrong, as almost everybody insists on either "Armstrong-Zwicky"
or "Armstrong" (somehow, just "Zwicky" isn't as popular).
The first time we went to San Jose, we all three went, which I felt a bit
silly about. As far as I know, they do not make you produce the baby to prove
she exists to get a birth certificate, so why drag her along? Well, because
it made a good excuse to get out of the house and see a bit of the world.
But I was sure we'd have the only 3-week old baby in the office of births
and deaths. But no, almost everybody picking up a birth certificate had showed
up en famille. The lone father with no wife and children looked almost abashed
about it. On the other hand, the trip was an almost complete failure. First,
we had to park way far away because all the parking spaces were taken, one
of them by somebody who appeared to have some form of parking fetish, since
she kept sitting in her car backing it just a little bit out and then pulling
in again. Then, we discovered they only took cash or check, neither of which
we had, and Paul had to go in search of a cash machine. Finally, they didn't
actually have her birth certificate yet, and told us to call back later.
The only thing that saved it from being an utter loss was that we got to
go to the Australian store, where they all cooed over the baby and we got
ginger beer, shortbread creams, and a Jamaica rum chocolate bar. (Even so,
they don't carry Bickford's lime cordial and they were out of Bundaberg ginger
beer and Paul had to make do with Schweppes, which is not as good.)
Paul made the second run by himself, and came away with two birth certificates,
correctly spelled, and her Social Security card showed up, also correctly
spelled, so we were able to fill out the form. This is a bit tricky, since
children's passports are good for 5 years, and as a strapping 5 year old,
Opal is going to have a passport that says she's 1 foot 9 inches and 10 pounds.
Fortunately for us, she has hair and it's a very plausible color. Unfortunately,
not only do we not know what colour her eyes are going to end up, we can't
even name the colour they are now. When she was born, they were a sort of
dark grey. Now, they're blue-grey in some lights, green in some lights, and
brown in others. We left 'eye color' blank, and went off to get a passport
photo. First, we tried Sears, but their customer service was impossible.
The photo place was staffed by just a photographer, who was photographing
other people and couldn't even speak to us forever, and when she did couldn't
tell us when she might be able to do it. We bailed out, with no clear plan,
but while we were standing in line to mail our taxes, we noticed a sign that
said that all the local post offices that did passports offered photo services.
So, once the tax-time madness had died down, we trotted off to the post office
with the forms and the papers, all three of us (this is not silly, because
you do need everybody to apply for a passport, although I must say they didn't
ever check to see if we actually had the baby with us). Just as we got to
the head of the line, the woman directing people about which line to stand
in asked if we had pictures, and when we said we didn't, informed us that
Mountain View post office only does pictures of people who can sit up by
themselves (this is exactly how she phrased it). Apparently some post offices
do babies, others don't.
So back to Sears we went, as it was the only place we knew of that would
do a passport photo of a baby. After another 15 minute wait, enlivened by
watching and listening to the other photographic clients (a baby somewhat
older than Opal, wearing a truly regrettable hat with roses such as Mrs.
Pollifax uses to smuggle passports, and a 3-year old who decided the photographer
was some sort of doctor and howled bloody murder any time she was in the
same room with him), we popped Opal into Sears' baby-propping bucket and
danced around attempting to get her to open her eyes, look in the direction
of the photographer, and keep her hands away from her face. It took 4 attempts,
and the result is no better than anybody else's passport photo, but at least
the newborn acne doesn't show much.
On our next trip to the post office, we were behind somebody who hadn't bothered
to properly read the forms and had not brought either his wife or his checkbook.
His outrage slowed things down, but made us feel superior, as we had all
the forms and papers and people we needed, right until they noticed we'd
forgotten to fill in "eye color". The woman behind the counter said sternly
"Write down whatever color they are right this minute", so we settled for
"hazel" as covering most of the possible options, except for when they're
blue-grey.
Now all we have to do is get her Australian passport, which requires her
Australian citizenship, which is an entirely different set of forms...