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| Outside the Consulate with our second "number" for service. |
Six thirty this morning, no need for an alarm clock, the dudlings begin stirring. The eldest informs me he only half way peed his pants and the youngest, well, he always pees his. Despite actually not being sick anymore the youngest became so used to fussing and grumbling in general that he spent the morning perfecting his already remarkable whine. It sounds a bit like a laughing hyena that has a splinter. Its awful. Two yogurts spills, one gigantic fit over Momma pouring the wrong cereal, and a lost diaper later I started to just step over him laying on the floor in protest. Walk, walk, step over Finn, walk on, breath, walk, step back over him and continue. It worked and we finally got out the door with at least three out of the four of us wearing underwear.
The trip to Grandmas was easy breezy. I read, Jason drove, the boys hunted for trucks and trains. The drop off was a pretty quick pull up, hop out, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, goodbye and we were off to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago.
Fifty miles down the road I go back to read our instructional papers again. Now, please understand, these are like reading a foriegn language if you have not already experienced this. I have read them umpteen times and I suddenly catch a line about the Chinese consulate ONLY being able to authenticate documents from a select few states. I read on, panic setting in. Just last week we were postponed a week when the certified copy of my Ohio birth certificate had to be sent back to Ohio for certification (again). This consulate...the one we are now seventy five miles closer too...can not process two of our documents. Suddenly, our complete and soon to be dossier is not complete. Calls were made to our agency.
We decide to proceeds, we are mere miles outside of Chicago anyway and we just needed the satisfaction of at least one portion of our dossier out of our hands. Enter the consulate...they have moved locations. Find the new one....enter the consulate again, they are on lunch.
Ok, deep breath. Lunch break, smunch break.
We ate some hamburgers and fries and really good gaucemole at the bistro across the street and ran back over right as they opened. Papers organized, our number was called, our hands squeezed together and we handed over our mostly completed dossier for authentication.
Only to have it thrown back at us.
Let me repeat. The lady behind the counter THREW IT at us.
Threw it.
Then a series of really hard to understand( because the mosty broken microphone behind the glass mixed with the workers attitude of absoulte apathy) instructions came pouring through a loud speaker at us.
They wanted three copies of our dossier. We looked over, there was a copy machine in the room but it looked exactly like the one Jason remembers using when he was an elementary student. It was a monster and expensive and frankly we did not have the hundreds of dimes we would have needed for that transaction.
Out of the consulate we trod. "I need coffee.", the only words spoken. My hand in his this man I love walked me straight into a starbucks and came back to my side with a venti bold in his hands. Another call to our agency was made.
This time we were thinking that we would just go to a fed-ex, pay the $800 for our agency to process our dossier, send it to them immediately and be done with it.
But, we had driven all that way to save time and money......
New plan. Instead of doing same day processing for seven hundred something dollars we would submit our papers for five day processing and pay only three hundred. We would provide them with a pre-paid envelope to send the authenticated papers straight to our agency. In the mean time we would have the other two papers (out of state ones) sent to D.C. and then they would all arrive about the same time to be sent to China. The plan was flawless.....AS LONG AS....the consulate would mail the dossier for us.
Jason ran to Fed-EX with our dossier to begin what he calls, "Copying so fast and wildly that his fingers hurt".
I ran three blocks away to the consulate to see if they would mail our papers.
Wait...wait...wait...my number called. The dossier throwing lady was busy, got a slightly more human person this time. Yes, they would mail it. They do it often. No problem. BUT, they will only mail it if we pay with a money order.
Money order?
And here is where things get crazy.
It is 2:10. The consulate closes, doors locked and bolted at 2:30.
And, we need a money order!
Out the doors I run, and I mean run and the thing is I do not run so this is a big deal. Into a bank, no money orders for non customers, but they were kind and pointed me the direction of the post office. Four blocks, two wrong turns, and a line later I had the money order and was again running down the road.
Jason and his hurting fingers are still copying the dossier. Its a huge file of documents, stapled together and none of them can get unstapled and crinkled or its invalid. Old ladies are getting knocked down by me, cars are honking, people are staring....ok, so maybe not but I was running and it sure felt that way. Into the main bulding, up the elevator (wrong floor, try again), swooping through the consulate doors heaving for breath and sweating and grasping that money order so tight that I am numb. No Jason. Clock ticking. No Jason. Our numbers comes up on the screen. Calling B323. I stand to try and stall. I can be tell a joke or something, right? Inside I am panicking. Breathing prayers, trying to calm my heart.
Never have I been so happy to see those brown faithful shoes and familiar blue sweater running down the hallway and through the doors. We were the last customers of the day, the door was locked.
And, its here that one might think "Victory!"....they did it...a mad rush...a wild ride....but it all worked out.
Keep reading.
Money order handed over. Dossier (with copies!) handed over. Both of us are flushed, exhausted, confused and yet our hands touch and I am grounded.
Paper by paper is but into the acceptable pile. And, then...one is handed back, and then another, and yet again a third. The tears could not be held back. They started gushing.
I heard once it is entirely unacceptable to blow your nose in public in China. All I kept thinking was that I was probably offending the man behind the counters with my emotions and snot and salty tears and flushed face. The notary's on all three of those papers were rejected, despite having been approved (and paid for) by the the Secretary of State of Illinois just days before.
New notaries were required.
He said it first. And, I am glad. Jason simply said, "Ok."
"Ok, we will send the rest of the papers for authentication and these three can be done over and sent later this week. Ok."
There were a lot of "Ok's" spoken between the man behind the glass and us.
Ok. Ok. Ok. Ok.
And, then he frowned. Now the money order was the wrong amount, by a lot.
The only way to send these documents and have them processed now the way we were doing (our last chance!) was with that money order.
He looked at my tears. He looked at Jason. There was a long, long, long pause.
"Ok.", he said. "You write check."
And, we did. Then we left. Walked down the busy Chicago streets, past Mussie's favorite restraunt, past the hotel Finn was given first life, passed the parking garage......
Back track, find the car, circle around the parking garage (even that seems difficult). We stopped outside of the city at a gas station and laughed out loud at one another as we met mid-aisle both arms stuffed wtih drinks and snacks we would otherwise pass up on.
We gorged on potato chips and looked forward to seeing the boys, and thanked God for the consulate man's compassion, and watched this tremendous sunset over the mud soaked corn fields.
The exhuastion did not rush away, the tired feet and fingers and overworked mind remained. The file folder at my feet still contained pieces of a dossier we thought would have been off to China by now. But, the sun set beautifully and the papers in the file folder seemed so small.
"Doing what we have to do.", Jason said with a smile as we drove off into the sunset......
Things do not have to work out as planned, or even at all, to embrace the day and give thanks.
(UPDATE: So, its Friday. Today after co-op the boys and I raced all around town. We were able to fix all the papers with notary problems, get them certified yet again by the State Department, pick up the money order, make copies at Fed Ex and have them all sent off to Washington DC. So I can officially announce that I feel a zillion pounds lighter to have that dossier off of my desk and being processed for China! The boys ate candy and played with my chapstick, literally decorating their faces and arms with it in Fed-Ex as a form of entertainment. I wish I had a picture, but there was no time in between copying this crazy huge document, filling out the right mailing forms and chasing their slippery sugar pumped bodies through the stationary isles......Moose said tonight after watching a movie, "Man, today has been relaxing......" And, on that note I am going to bed.)
