Passport Madness

CJ and I are in talks with his brother and wife about possibly going to Mexico in April, as a last minute get away trip. I don't have a passport, though, and since the new laws require you do, I realized I needed to get my booty in gear if I wanted to leave the country in April.

Yesterday, at work, I printed out the forms for a passport and filled them out. All I needed to do was go to the license center (near our house, literally across the street), show my birth certificate, get my pictures taken, and pay. I raced home, with K singing along to the new Rihanna CD in the backseat, and got home at a good time. I rushed in the house, grabbed the checkbook, let the wild puppies out to go potty, said goodbye to them again, and raced across the street. I struggled taking the stroller out of the trunk, but got K situated in it, and wheeled her into the license office. We entered, and as soon as I started talking with the woman behind the counter, I realized I had left my birth certificate on the desk at home. Crap. She told me I only had 10 minutes until they stopped processing passports for the day, so I had to race home and grab that again. She told me she'd take my picture, so they could process it while I ran across the street. I had to leave the stroller under her watchful eye (because that would cost me way too much time to reload and take out again), put K back into her car seat, and re-enter the house, throwing the dogs into spasms of joy once again.

Once inside the house, I grabbed my birth certificate, and noticed the phone was blinking, indicating a message. I quickly looked at the caller ID, and seeing it was the library, I assumed some more books I put on hold had come in. The license center is next door to the library, so I would just add that to my tasks to get done once I returned across the street.

Treble raced down to the door, and showed me he REALLY wanted to come with me. So, I sighed and let the dogs into the car with me, where they had a joyful reunion in the backseat with a perplexed Keifer.

We returned to the license center; I took K out of the carseat, strictly told the puppies to STAY in the car, and raced back inside, sweating madly by this point. It was only 8 degrees outside, but I had stripped myself of my down winter jacket and was fine in just a sweatshirt (and I had my cuddle duds on under my jeans, so that helped keep me toasty warm). The woman laughed and told me I had just made it. I put K back into her stroller, where she proceeded to giggle and flirt madly with two older gentlemen who were filling out some paperwork. The woman working with me laughed at K and told me she should be in a commercial with that giggle and flirty smile. I wonder if K thought the men were Papa material?

Anyhoo, we got the passport situation under control, so I rolled K over to the library, and went to look on the computer to see what books had come in. There were none, so I scratched my head and wondered, why would the library call me and leave me a message?

AHA! I remembered! The county library system has a contest of sorts in the winter months of January and February, rewarding readers with a weekly drawing when you enter your name after reading a book. I asked the woman at the information desk if indeed I had won a drawing, and I had! YAY! The best part about the prize was it was two movie tickets to the local movie theater! Even better! *And even more wonderful, is that I had won a similar drawing 3 years ago for the same contest, that time winning a book of my choice. I apparently have no luck in any other contests I've ever entered, but the library continues to demonstrate to me that it is my good friend*

So my frantic afternoon paid off - I had won movie tickets from my favorite place, the library, and my passport was under control, hopefully getting processed in time for a trip to the warm and sunny tropics.