Relief

I have been wild and exhausted with anxiety. Grant’s passport was stuck in limbo at the US passport agency, and there didn’t seem to be any way to break it loose. We had applied for renewal of our passports back in October, using a new online process: create an account at MyTravel.gov, fill in the form, upload a headshot from our iPhone, and pay $130 by credit card. Easy peasy. I finished mine October 15th, and got an email notification the next day my application had been received. Grant could not create an account at MyTravel.gov. I’m still not clear why, but after several days of his being very frustrated by numerous attempts to use his normal email address, he just couldn’t seem to make it work. I suggested a different email address. I ended up creating it for him using my address at Yahoo. Not really a big deal, except I don’t use that one much, and I can’t remember the password. Fortunately, I have it open on my cellphone, so I could check for any emails that came in. 

On October 20th, he finished his application. I got a notice it had been received and in the works. MyTravel.gov said it would be 6-9 weeks to receive our new passports. And, by the way, our existing passports were now cancelled while the renewals were being processed. Not a big deal because we weren’t traveling out of the country until June. That was before we decided to bird in Belize beginning February 2nd. Not to worry, we had plenty of time. My passport arrived just before Christmas. Grant’s did not. I figured the government doesn’t work much over the holidays, but the passport would arrive probably between Christmas and New Years. It had been applied for 5 days after mine, so if it didn’t come for a couple of weeks later, all good. No worries.

I started to worry January 3rd, one month before Grant needed it. Each time I checked online, the website said it was “in process”. Each time I checked, I was sent a one time password to my Yahoo email account, which I had to enter. At least one time in three, the government’s website got hung up and no OTP would be sent. Forget even trying in the afternoon. It never worked then. Extremely frustrating, plus there was no information to be found anywhere. I called the urgent travel phone number, but the gov rep couldn’t see anything I couldn’t. She assured me she was pretty positive he’d get his passport in time. Pretty positive? Not reassuring.

Three weeks before we were supposed to travel, I started to panic. I called the urgent travel line again and said we were traveling in 2 weeks, the magic time frame to be able to get an appointment at a federal passport agency. I’d buy an airline ticket to Jamaica if needed to make it true. We’d have to drive to Miami or Atlanta, perhaps even fly to New York or DC, since there’s isn’t an agency site in Orlando. Except there were no appointments available anywhere in the whole country. Ay yi yi! Grant called our US senator’s office and learned they would try to help him get an earlier appointment. What part of no appointments did they not understand? I called the urgent line again and was told the problem was all the applications that included fees for expedited handling were being processed first. The facts that 1) Grant had applied 12 weeks earlier, and 2) he didn’t have time now for the 3-5 weeks required for expedited, did not seem to matter. And no, there was no one else anywhere I could talk to.

I decided to pay the additional $60 expedited fee and the $18.32 for overnight shipping. What else could I do? Miracle of miracles, the next day, his application was listed as “printed”.  Hmm, coincidence or extortion? Now we wait for the US postal service to bring it via over night delivery. 

In the mean time, we bought and put together a fabulous workbench for the vise Patten gave us. I had already bought another set of storage shelves to get the rest of the big items up off the floor. Grant removed a shelf that partially blocked the cabinets on the west wall. Our garage is in great shape. I am pleased.