So, let's see how the alliterative elements of my post title relate to the craziness of the past week of my life (thanks to my sixth grader for reminding me what alliteration means). I will start with Pups and Passports. A couple of months ago, I renewed my kids passports. They were originally issued for a Disney cruise we took many years ago and had expired. My daughter needs hers for an eighth grade French class trip to Quebec in mid-May, so I decided to go ahead and get them both reissued. I was way ahead of the game and had the new passports in hand by early March.
On Monday of this week, I left the dogs closed in the office when I went out to run errands because I was expecting our cleaning service. I took a quick look around to make sure nothing was in easy reach of Laika, the 1-year old Aussie. I noticed a stack of papers to be filed which included all four of our passports and slid them to the back edge of the table with a box in front of them. Without a second thought, I closed the dogs in and headed out to tend to some business.
When I returned, I went to let the dogs out and did a quick survey of the room. Nothing looked terribly awry, but I did notice a paper on the floor which turned out to be my son's birth certificate. It was in that stack of papers - part of the passport application process that I had not yet refiled. The certificate was not damaged in any way, but it was a clue that Laika had gotten into my stack and prompted me to look further. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a second item on the floor which was in decidedly worse condition than the birth certificate, and I immediately recognized it as the remains of a passport. CRAP!
As acceptance of the destruction sunk in, I switched gears to figuring out a solution. Hmmm, new passport needed in four weeks with my husband out of town (both parents must be present to apply for a minor's passport or a notarized document from the absent parent must be provided). As if that were not complicated enough, add the prospect of an indefinite government shut down beginning this Friday, and things really started to get iffy.
I ran to Google for an answer, and started to get a handle on what would be required to have a new passport in hand before the end of the week. I was not going to trust the fate of my daughter's trip to the hands of Congress. My faith in their ability to keep the government running was/is thin at best. My husband and I were relative newlyweds during the last shutdown in 1995, and both of our jobs were impacted - his as a NASA employee and mine as an onsite NASA contractor. We sat home for three unpaid weeks in December wondering how we would make our mortgage payment and get our failing heat pump fixed. That one lasted 21 days. A similar shutdown this time, while not entirely likely, would potentially doom our chances of getting a new passport.
I won't drag out the gory details any further except to say that 36 hours of e-mails, phone calls, notaries, documents, post offices, Fedexes, passport photos, early dismissals, fees, and a 16-hour-round-trip-flight-from-Florida later, we have a new passport on the way. Again, if I had any confidence in Washington DC's ability to keep this country running beyond Friday, I would have had other options, but I wanted that passport in hand before the country grinds to a halt.
So that covers Pups, Passports and Politics. How do the Peeps fit in? I'll save that for Part 2. My devotion to Peeps could make me even more long-winded than usual (not to worry, the title for the next post will still work as an alliteration thanks to the P in Part)...
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