The Government in all its majesty...

 Spent a big part of yesterday here:

The reason was classical "DMV 101"; the Social Security Administration had somehow input the wrong birthdate in my daughter's SS data and as you know if you've ever dealt with...well, any bureaucracy anywhere, your birthdate is part of the golden ticket to get anything done.

The problem came to light when I contacted the SSA to arrange one of the oddest pieces of federal largess (and let's not forget that I worked for these rascals a loooooong time, so my N is pretty large for "odd pieces of federal largess") I've ever come across.

I started my retirement benefit application last month, and it turns out that if 1) you're receiving Social Security and 2) you have a minor kid who is either a) younger than 18, or b) still in high school, said kiddo gets some cash from her Uncle Sugar, too.

While I talking to the nice SSA person about that I insisted that her birthdate is X/XX/XX, and the SSA person said, no, it's X/YY/XX. And I looked at the paperwork in my hand and, when we agreed that we disagreed, committed to showing up with said daughter in tow to fix the problem.

So off we went, paid for parking, and entered into the maw of the SSA.

As someone who (see above) has spent a fair amount of time sitting in various US government facilities I have to give the SSA people their due.

The place was clean and well-maintained. The rent-a-cops running the security screening were professional and polite. And the process was orderly enough, given the wild quiltwork of humanity it had to deal with.

THAT was a real novelty to the kiddo. She's not sheltered, and I think she gets that there's a lot more to city life than our little patch of North Portland. But to spend several hours in the Greyhound-station confines of the downtown SSA waiting room? 

That brought those things pretty close.

Was it the dude having some sort of loudly prolonged attack of some sort of scary-sounding respiratory problem in the men's can? The family with multiple crying infants? The frankly-scary-looking dude with more metal in his clothing that I have in my legs?

No, I think it was the elderly lady who had a long, heart-rending breakdown at Window #2 because her landlord (I think) was demanding her Social Security card and she'd tried repeatedly to have one mailed to her but hadn't received it.

She was very forcefully desperate, the unseen bureaucrat behind the glass was subvocally unable to help her, and all this drama played out in front of The Girl, who is very tightly buttoned about drama in general (and especially for a Theater Kid, which is one of her personas...). I think she was a bit shaken about someone's hardships being played out right in front of her.

Plus the guy with the dog...well, you get the idea.

We finally got called to Window #2 nearly at the end of the day, laid out our documentation, got the birthdate corrected with little or no palaver, and celebrated with a stop at St. Honore for a pastry treat. Bureaucracy, hurrah!

Now I just need to go pick up the p-work from her high school.

But before I go I think it's worth noting this...

I have no idea who the hell "Jesse Kelly" is when he's at home. but my guess is he's some bog-standard "conservative" who gets wood dreaming of the social contract of the Gilded Age.

But the notion that the "country cannot be saved" unless We the People return to the pre-New Deal era of widespread common poverty and aristocratic plutocracy seems to have become one of the few actual "policies" of these people.

Which, BTW, is why I applied for these Social Security benefits now rather than waiting until 70 when the real fat paycheck comes due.

I don't trust these bloated hyenas not to pull this fast one when they and their Orange King get their dickbeaters on the levers of power. 

I want to - as best I can - lock in the paycheck I can get, not the bigger one that relies on the social engineering skills of the MAGAt Horde.

I know I keep beating this drum, but if the American Experiment has ANY value at all, it's as a test case for the promise of the Republic to be for all of "We the People" and not - as designed by the Framers - for "the rich, the well-born, and the able".

That promise is a hell of a big ask.

It relies on We the People to be true citizens, to work hard to understand our government, even down to the guy behind Window #2, and make informed, intelligent decisions about how that government works.

To not fall for the "conservative" bullshit about "government is the problem". To make that government work for Our best interests, not those of the wealthy, or the corporate "persons", or the various power-brokers and lobbyists for this and that.

One of the reasons those Framers wanted to restrict the franchise was because they doubted the ability of the mass of the People to do those things.

I can't help but wonder.

But for now, well, the pastries were good. And the Girl gets some college money.

Now you'll excuse me, but the goddamn drywall guy is supposed to be here and I need to let him in or we'll be another day behind schedule.

Cunning Plan

So Mojo has been working the phone and the e-mail all morning, trying to unkludge this whole 171-H problem. She started the day literally in tears at the Portland USCIS office, went through much of our Oregon congressional delegation, and finally reported back that the woman she had dealt with at Portland CIS had called her to say that she (the CIS person) believes she has stumbled on a way to flag our 171-H as an "emergency" case, which will supposedly force the National Visa Center to forward it to the consulate in Guangzhou within 24 hours of receipt.

From her lips to the Goddess of Bureaucracy's ears! If it works it will be as cunning as a cunning fox appointed Dean of Cunning at Cunning University!

Of course, it may not work...

Updates to follow.

Weekend update

It was busy, and yet...

I worked like a man possessed this weekend. Painted, sealed, replaced, improved, painted again, touched up, added to, took away, checked and rechecked.

And, after all of that, I left my camera over at Christine's (of Oscar the Ginormous Fish) last night when we went to visit. So I have no pictures of the whole farrago. Those I'll post later, but rather than remain blogless I've illustrated this post with some selections from one of my favorite pre-Raphaelite eye-candy painters, Larry Alma-Tadema.

So the point is that Mojo and I worked like latifunda slaves from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon. This included:
-- watersealing the new deck
-- painting the underside of the pentroof over the deck door to cover the fire damage exposed by the demo of the old bay window
-- painting the deck door frame to match the other house doors
-- nailing down the flashing at the top of the pentroof (still trying to figure out how that stuff got pried up - stu-range!)
-- installing door stops on the deck door sidewindows
-- replacing the hinges on the living room china cabinet
-- installing a doorstop on the front door
-- touching up the exterior paint around the deck/house wall join
-- replacing the nasty landlord halo/snow globe light fixtures in the back hallway

The delightful part is that the new deck, side door, living room and back hallway are done. Complete. Finished.

All we have to do now is enjoy the nice results.

Which is good, because otherwise we'd be feeling like we had been gobsmacked by shit-luck. To wit:


Our travel authorization arrived last Thursday.

Yay!

But wait...

Our agency called. "There's a problem..." - a phrase of evil import if ever I heard one.

Seems that when we re-filed our 171-H (federal application to adopt a foreign heathen orphan of parentless condition) we missed the little check-the-block that says "dear local USCIS office: please forward this to the consulate in the foreign land where our dear little heathen orphan is living". So the local federal immigration and naturalization office did...nothing! They used our 171-H as a coaster for Friday office parties, made it into a paper airplane, decorated their walls with it...everything but send it where it would be fucking useful, which is...the consulate in Baoxin's native country!!!

Honestly.

I have never had a great deal of use for office pogues in general and federal office pogues in particular. But this is beyond ridiculous. What the hell did they think we wanted them to do with this form..??!!

Anyway, now we're caught in the Hague Trap. The 2000 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption makes the whole cammora a federal-to-federal process. In the past we could have dropped off a note at our local Portland USCIS office and they'd have fired an e-mail with our 171-H attached to the consulate, presto! This being entirely too simple, under the new Hague Convention world rules, they have to send it to the USCIS central office somewhere back east, where someone, supposedly, will fire it off to China. Sometime. We hope.

Needless to say, we don't have a lot of faith in this entire process. Mojo is going down to the Portland USCIS office this morning to start the process, but we're also going to ring in an Oregon legislator or three to make sure we have someone leaning on all the federal officials involved.

And not to be a backbiting gossip, but why the hell wasn't our agency all over this? It's not like we haven't laved them in limitless wealth, filled their pockets with the riches of the Orient. WTF, people? We may have checked the wrong block on the 171-H, but where the hell was our agency rep when it came to checking to see if the p-work was all squared away?

Rrrrrrr...

But that's all that, there's nothing more we can do other than get the paperwork filed and continue to pester the faceless bureaucrats at the wherever office of USCIS to send our form on to China.

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And as for me? I plan to spend this coming weekend doing...

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...absolutely nothing. Play with my son, and my wife, lie in the late summer sun and sleep. Nihil agere delectat.