Car dent update

We got our car back today from the shop. This is what it looked like prior to having the dent fixed.

Permanent incredulity ... uh ... residency

The things I had to call INS for last week were the following:

1. I haven't actually gotten my green card yet but am supposed to photocopy the front and back of one for my citizenship application. What do I do? The answer: Photocopy the bio page of my passport and the page of my passport where my "temporary evidence of permanent residency" stamp is.
2. There's a section in the Guide to Naturalization (page 53) that instructs me to attach sheets of paper to my citizenship application explaining why I answered "Yes" to any of the 15 questions in Part 7 of the application or "No" to any of the 5 questions in Part 8. However, Parts 7 and 8 do not have yes or no questions, numbered 1-15 and 1-5 respectively. Huh? The answer: That's a "typo" in the Guide that hasn't been fixed yet.
3. When might I expect to get my actual physical green card? The answer: We don't know but we'll forward a request to your service center (Nebraska) to see if they can update you on that.

That was that ... or so I thought. I get an email from USCIS on December 21 (which I didn't find out about until I finally checked email today) that says the following:

U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Nebraska Service Center
P.O. Box 82521
Lincoln, NE 68501-2521
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Dear M. SMALLWOOD:
On 12/20/2005 you, or the designated representative shown below, contacted us about your case. [bunch of personal information after this which I'm not posting, for obvious reasons]

The status of this service request is:
On 6/22/05) we mailed you an Approval Notice and requested that you make an appointment with your local USCIS office to submit photographs and have a fingerprint taken. We need this information to create your permanent resident card. You will need to make an appointment to visit your local office. To make an appointment you will need to go to our website and schedule an appointment using INFOPASS. You can access INFOPASS online at http://infopass.uscis.gov. In the future, if you change your address please contact customer service at the number provided below.
If you have any further questions, please call the National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283. [it goes on from here, nothing of interest past this point]

Now, anyone who has been reading this blog since before this past summer knows that I did make and keep an appointment by Infopass. I went to the USCIS office in Cleveland. I had a rough time of it too (see August blog archives for details). Argh! What's a girl to do? So, I replied to the email from USCIS to the address it was sent from. Here's what I said:

Dear U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,

On 08/16/2005, I, Eshinee M. Smallwood, went to a U.S.C.I.S. service center in Cleveland, OH (1240 EAST NINTH STREET, ROOM 501, Cleveland, OH 44199; LOBBY) for a 1:00 PM appointment. I had made this appointment online through Infopass, Confirmation No.: CLE-05-9002, Authentication Code: b4b3.
Fingerprints were taken at that time and photographs were submitted and approved. The U.S.C.I.S. representative then stamped and wrote in my passport the following information:
[personal info left out]

PROCESSED FOR I-551
TEMPORARY EVIDENCE OF
LAWFUL ADMISSION FOR
PERMANENT RESIDENCE
VALID UNTIL AUG 15 2006
EMPLOYMENT AUTHORIZED
CLE AUG 16 2005
SEA
IR6
8-29-2002
I called the National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283 today, 12/28/2005, to find out what happened to the photographs that I submitted and fingerprints that were taken at the Cleveland office. I spoke to 2 separate representatives and neither of them could tell me why I would receive the email below. Their only recommendation was that I make another appointment on Infopass, have more pictures taken and come in for another appointment. As this would require nearly 4 hours of driving to get to another appointment and further expense to have more photographs taken, I would rather find out what happened to the items submitted at the Cleveland office to see if this inconvenience on my part is actually necessary. Perhaps they haven't been forwarded to you yet.
If you have received these items, please indicate what the problem is with them. For example, if the problem is with the fingerprints and not with the photographs, I'd rather not pay unnecessarily to have more photographs taken.
Thank you for your assistance in this matter.
Eshinee M. Smallwood

Nice email. Too bad it didn't go through. It was returned to me:
USCIS-SRMT@dhs.gov: User unknown

Double argh. So, I went online and found out who my congressman is. I emailed him from the website, asking him if his office could intervene in my case, find out what's going on. I'll keep you posted on my progress on this front.

Let's start at the very beginning ...

Let's see; my last regular post was on Saturday, December 17. Here are the highlights since then:

• Sunday, 18th - Sang and played with Mosaic at Cross of Christ in Bellevue, WA. Had dinner with the Cruz family in the evening. Had a bit of a rough time trying to get home at 11:30 at night when the road a few turns from the Buerers was fully blocked by police because of an accident. The road had been icy and rain had fallen so an accident was not surprising. Good thing we had my laptop with us, Streets & Trips at the ready for alternate route planning. When I saw the route we had to take, I knew that we would have been wandering tiny, winding neighborhood roads for a very long time before we ever made it to our final destination had it not been for Streets & Trips.
• Monday, 19th - Drove back to Bellingham in the morning. Started cleaning up the place a bit and, if I recall correctly, did the rest of the Christmas shopping.
• Tuesday, 20th - Worked on my citizenship application all day. Made several phone calls to USCIS (a.k.a. INS) to make sure I was filling out my form correctly.
• Wednesday, 21st - Worked on my citizenship application all day. I'm not kidding.
• Thursday, 22nd - Went through papers, throwing away as many as I could. Packed for the trip to Potlatch, ID for Christmas. Went for early Christmas dinner at Rob's grandparents with his folks and the Harris' family.
• Tip's Eve, 23rd - Drove to Potlatch with Rob's folks. Nearly hit a white horse in the middle of the road somewhere in eastern Washington.
• Christmas Eve - Did as little as I could get away with. Went to Rob's brother's church (Larry is the pastor) for Christmas Eve service.
• Christmas Day - Went to church in the morning after opening gifties. Did as little as possible in the afternoon. This included watching Ever After with the girls; June (Rob's mom), Suzanne (Larry's wife) and Pat (Suzanne's mom).
• Boxing Day - This was both my parents' (39th) and Rob's parents' (40th) anniversary! Not much I could do with my folks from here but we had a feast for Dennis & June. Salmon, truffles, salad, Chinese dumplings, champagne ... a good time was had by all. After dinner, Rob and I performed a couple of songs for the anniversarying couple; Love Song (by Bruce Cockburn) and A Taste of Honey (by the Beatles). Later that evening, Rob and I watched Spiderman with Larry.
• Tuesday, 27th - Drove back to Bellingham.
• Today - Today deserves a post of it's own ...