IPW

Today: A Retrospective

Let's go straight to the mailbag shall we? Since starting this blog a couple days ago I have gotten exactly five comments. And I'd like to go through them with you. Let's see, here's one from Rob, who is the mastermind behind this venture and he says Right On, very good I will continue to the right. Here's one from Ebag... You've really lost it brother... yes, he's probably on to so something there... Oh! here's one that I liked the looks of, "Sheer Genius" says Kristin who is in fact my Mom, so that's a little sad....hmm, something from a Stirling who sounds like a shiny young lad, "Sometimes I think things too, but I can't read or write so good. Hence, no blog." HENCE is an AWFULLY BIG WORD for one who styles himself a cretin...so I don't put much faith in that one... Well! There we are, please feel free to keep the comments coming. In the meantime I will report on the happenings of the day.

The Day

M and and I woke up early as we had to perform a ritual known only to married couples with at least one non-citizen in their midst: The Immigration Dance. We've gone through this before of course, but we were really looking forward to the disaster that was sure to be the New York USCIS office. We had a Green Card to renew (the card is not green). We gave ourselves plenty of time to get lost wandering among the hundreds of Federal buildings in downtown Manhattan so of course we were a half an hour late by the time we actually were directed to the proper entrance. We had a thorough cavity search by the front door, and then had to go through security (I don't think the bad man had a uniform on come to think of it). From there it was disturbingly straight forward. I was sort of looking forward to a bureaucratic debacle so I could relate it in these pages but what we found was basically a pleasant, unstressed process. After being given directions to go to both the 3rd and the 10th floor from two different guards, we decided to go with the more trustworthy looking one and our presumption paid off. We followed a collection of computer printed and hand drawn signs down twisting corridors for a few minutes, a bit like finding the bake-sale in the basement of a church, and finally found a room full of patient people who all looked only slightly disoriented.
The people at the windows were unfailingly nice and courteous, even friendly. I suspect it had a little to do with the fact that our English is pretty good and that we didn't arrive in a big group that breaks into a huddle every time a question is tossed our way about the possible meaning and ramifications of answering a question like, "Name?" or "Age?" There were a few of those folks there, but even they got pointed in the right direction in the end. (I can only assume this, they may have all been sent to work-camps in Minnesota for all I know.) In fact the whole process was so chill that I ended up feeling proud. Patriotic even. When we got pointed to the room we needed to go to, the guard at the door was down the hall goofing around with his buddies, and caught up to us in our seats a little apologetically and told us to wait until our number was called, as we had already surmised and asked us to kindly turn our cell phones off. A formality I'm sure, since I could have called him on his cell phone and told him to get back to work in the time it took him to find us in our seats. We only waited 15 minutes or so, in the meantime an insane woman wandered through (how did she follow the hand-drawn signs? Who knows) talking with the friendly guard as if they were old buddies. I started to think she might actually have been lost and living in the building for several days when she asked the guard to come help her with the automated appointment computer they had set up in the corner (What was she doing there?? I was dying to know, her accent was American and she was mad as a hatter.) He sort of walked halfway there when something reminded him that he shouldn't leave his post so soon again, he told her, "I'm sorry ma'am I can't help you!". She pleaded with him. "I can't leave the door!" He said as if turning down a trip to the fishin' hole. He seemed to really want to help. He turned around and started to walk back, he saw us watching him and said guiltily, "I really have to stand by the door, I can't help." He did enlist the fellow standing at the machine next to her to help, but from the bits I heard I still couldn't figure out why she was there. Finally she was done with getting an appointment I guess and went to sit down. Just as she was about to sit she asked the guard, who was watching her kindly, what time her appointment was and showed him the paper she had received. He looked at it and told her, "Next Thursday ma'am, you just come back then and we'll see you." If having to return home and then come back two days later and go through the gauntlet she must have already've been through disturbed her, she showed no sign. In fact she seemed to look forward to it. I sort of looked forward to it also. It seemed like she was having the most fun she'd had all month. Our own processing was completely uneventful. Pictures given, stamps made, passports punched, next in line. The woman at the counter might have been selling us candy. I half expected her to pinch Magda's cheek.
And so it seems that America's experiment with being hard-asses may be ending after a trial period following Septeleventh. The flowers are blooming again, when the guards can wander off down the hall and the mean INS lady pinches your cheek (or might have) you have to think it will be all right. Unless that's what got us in this mess in the first place.
As we were leaving the room, an elderly couple who seemed to be Muslim were coming in. We asked our friend at the door which was was out, and he told us, as we were jumbled together with the old man and woman, "Straight, then right then left" That's where we went and that's where the mightily confused couple went too.