Livingston, I Presume

Making the Foreigners' Police look good

Slate has published an unbelievable first-person account of one man's struggle to get a U.S. passport. Could be yet another ho-hum tale of a huddled mass member yearning to be free and live the American dream except for one thing: The man in question, Bruce Reed, is in fact an American citizen and is merely trying to get his own passport--and those of his family--renewed in time for a planned trip to Australia. That sort of thing used to take a few weeks; now, with the new passport requirements that mandate U.S. citizens have a passport if they're flying to Mexico, Canada, or the Caribbean, it can take not just months but many months. Sometimes longer.

Reed and his family applied--and paid--for rush passport delivery a full two months before their departure. It was not enough, not by a long shot. By the day of the intended trip, he still had not received the passports--despite many promises to the contrary by officials staffing the overjammed phone lines--and headed for his last hope: a Washington-based passport office. Here's how he describes it:

The scene bore a passing resemblance to the fall of Saigon. Some people were crying. Others were screaming, either at agents or at the armed guards who herded us from one spot to another until the room became too packed to move. A few travelers were in more advanced stages of resignation, sitting on the floor staring at books of Sudoku or simply praying the dwindling supply of oxygen would hold out long enough.

Hyperbole, surely, but having spent some time in the passport office at the U.S. Embassy in Prague, I'd say it's probably not that exaggerated. He waited nearly three hours before being able to see someone, and that's where I very nearly fell off my chair with mingled laughter and horror:

I reached the caseworker window in a mere 150 minutes, still with a faint hope of making an evening flight. But the agent at Window 8 had other plans. She angrily questioned why I needed a passport that day, when my flight wouldn't land in Australia until two days later. I tried to explain the International Date Line, but she had already reached a verdict: Our passports couldn't possibly be done in time for us to leave, so that meant she had no obligation to complete them. And since the office was closing for the weekend, she gave me a slip to come back for them—on Monday.

Seriously? There is seriously someone working in the passport office who doesn't understand that a flight all the way to goddamn Australia can't be done in a single calendar day? I think that frightens me more than zombie fat and semi drivers yakking on cell phones.

Reading the whole thing gave me an immediate flashback to the hellish bureaucracy that occasionally characterized life in the Czech Republic. The old jokes were that Kafka was a journalist, not a novelist and that the way official things worked in that country was the result of the unholy union between the Austro-Hungarian and Communist bureaucracies. Even so, and maybe this is nearly three years away talking, I don't remember things being as terrible as Reed's passport experience was.

Oh, we had some doozies, for sure. Having to get Connery and me--a scant six days post-partum and only a day after we'd been released from one hospital--to a separate Prague hospital miles across town to undergo blood tests and physical exams to get Connery's insurance stands out as a real low point.  Finding out that I had been accidentally living illegally in Prague and would have to pay a fine was another. Still, once you figured out the system, navigating was occasionally time-consuming but not soul-crushing.

I tell you what, U.S. passport office, when you start making me feel nostalgic about Czech bureaucracy, you have a big problem. My passport is up for renewal in 2013. I'd better get on that now.

What I did on my summer vacation, lessons learned edition

Nothing.

And it was glorious.

OK, so not entirely nothing. We did drive a couple hundred miles to reach my parents' cabin in Condon, and then another hundred miles (or what felt like it on the requisite dusty, bumpy, gravelly roads) to Ashley Lake to spend a few days at the Ritter family reunion. Highlights included near-daily naps, good company, and lots of Scrabble. We did, however, learn something, just as if our vacation had been some kind of extended sitcom. Below please find our many lessons:

• Vacationing with a child is never quite as relaxing as you think it's going to be. Relaxation, in truth, requires days off for Mom and Dad while child remains in preschool. But that's hard to do when you actually leave the area.
• Montana sure is purdy, even when half the state is going up in flames.
• Nine times out of ten, my mom will still beat me in Scrabble. But the practice of playing against her means that at least nine and a half times out of ten, I will beat anyone who is not my mom.
• Marshmallows roasted over a propane grill? Not quite as exciting but infinitely safer than campfire-toasted.
• I will never drown, as I am my own personal flotation device.
• How Harry Potter ends, without spoilers. (And I'm not telling!)
• "Sleeps eight comfortably" is only useful information if the term "comfortably" is defined. For example, "Sleeps eight comfortably if you are in college and routinely pass out on friends' couches" or "Sleeps eight comfortably if you don't actually like sleeping with your husband" or "Sleeps eight comfortably if you can also fall asleep in airport terminals and other crowded venues" would all be vast improvement on that vague first sentiment and a darn sight more honest.
• Most people can't be trusted around orange food.
• Jennifer Weiner has serious male abandonment and sister issues that she should probably work through outside her fiction, but that doesn't stop her writing from being entertaining and enjoyable.
• The only clothes you really, really need to pack when you're going camping/cabin-ing are clean underwear for each day. Even so, I managed to forget mine at home. Thank god for Kalispell.
• People in laundromats (see above underwear lesson) tend to be rude the world over.
• I know I already said it, but Montana really is magnificent. Which makes this early, scary fire season all the worse. Say a little prayer or send us some good thoughts. Maybe pray for rain. Hell, I'd take snow.

Travelers, not tourists

I quietly added Uncornered Market to my blogroll a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to write up a little recommendation for it. Since most of the United States will be spending the weekend either: a) sweating b) hiding in air conditioning or c) hiding in the basement wishing for air conditioning, I thought now would be a good time. You can only watch so many movies, you know.

Anyway, Uncornered Market is the closest thing Dan and Audrey--friends of ours from Prague--have to a home right now. They embarked on what most of us would call the adventure of a lifetime--a year to 18 months of traveling around the world--earlier this year and have been writing, taking pictures and video, and posting about the whole shebang. It's the kind of site that will make you wonder why it is that you are reading blogs and not, say, being driven around by mad, drunk Georgians or boarding buses filled with Iranians or taking 10-day jaunts to Turkmenistan. (Why aren't you? Huh?)

Dan and Audrey are the kind of travelers that most of us wish we were. They're flexible, ready to rough it, and absolutely committed to seeing the "real" in any country. They aren't searching for the McDonald's or the Starbucks because they're too busy charming the locals into finding the best places to eat and drink. And with their site, they are putting together an amazing collection of information about places that most people will never see.

Have fun exploring!

And now for something completely different

NB: A version of this column appeared today in Business to Business.

Don’t tell Child Protective Services, but I occasionally let Connery watch Monty Python. We watch it on YouTube, the named-in-a-lawsuit site containing more digital video than you could watch in a lifetime, including important and historic events such as the Fish-Slapping Dance.

I shouldn’t be surprised that he likes it. The first song he ever learned to sing in harmony with us was the legendary British comedy troupe’s “Lumberjack Song” because, frankly, how many times can you sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” without getting bored? Besides, the word “larch” is funny without my having to do anything at all.

All of which is a long-winded way of getting to my main point: the delicate place where business meets age-appropriateness. We’ll call it Spamalot for short.

My parents—leading the charge of the multi-generational travel trend among Baby Boomers—have decided to take their kids and grandkids to Las Vegas to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Part of the reason we’re going this spring is that the musical Spamalot—which publicity describes as “a musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail”—is playing there starting next month. (Clearly, the desire to share British humor—or should I say humour--with my child didn’t occur in a vacuum.) We didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition when it came time to buy tickets, but as it turns out, the Spamalot box office won’t sell us any for the youngest generation, which includes my Monty Python-loving son.

In fact, they won’t sell tickets to be used by anyone under the age of 8. Not if you beg and plead. Not if you promise to run quickly and quietly for the exits in the case of child meltdown. Not if you explain patiently that you know the show and agree that there are parts that might be offensive but pledge that you will not sue them for recklessly exposing your child to fart jokes.

It was an interesting contrast for me, since I had only a few months ago called the box office of the Intermountain Opera Association to ask about taking my son to see their production of The Mikado. The man I talked with there was not only willing to give us a ticket for my son but was also actively encouraging about exposing children to live theater—as long as the other patrons and the performers were not disturbed. Fair enough, and certainly a rule we follow whether at The Mikado or Mackenzie River Pizza. We ended up going to a wonderful matinee performance, and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Connery still talks about going and loves to listen to the CD.

I guess you could argue that The Mikado—lacking as it is in fart jokes—is more suitable fare for a small child. That may be true, but shouldn’t I, as the parent of the small child in question, get to decide what is appropriate?

The show’s seemingly arbitrary restriction made us seriously consider calling off the entire trip, a decision that would represent a loss to Vegas businesses of the airfare, hotel rooms, show tickets, and meals planned for six adults and two children. I guess it’s nothing to the booming economy of Las Vegas, but it is a big deal for two retired teachers and their kids who wanted to celebrate a big milestone.

Given attempts to recast glitzy Las Vegas as a family vacation destination, the response we’ve gotten is odd. How much better would it be for them to take the Intermountain Opera approach? Recognize the inherent risks in having kids at a live show, discuss it with the parents up front and then work like crazy to get kids hooked on all theater when they’re young. The Baby Boomers might be the ones buying the tickets now, but that won’t last forever. And in a world in which almost any video can be found with a Google search and a high-speed connection, live performance is going to need all the audience loyalty it can muster.

Back to...North Dakota?

We arrived home from California yesterday evening after mostly good roads, with a mostly sunny toddler. Really, we were unbelievably lucky, having enjoyed amazing weather in the Bay Area (sunshine! every day! in Northern California!) and dry roads all the way to Belgrade, about an hour from our house. Still, it was hard not to be a little depressed from Belgrade on, since none of the mountains were visible (and none of the other cars on the road, either, but who's quibbling?) and it was 8 degrees outside.

We made it to Livingston in time for dinner--mmmmm...what's left in the fridge after 11 days?--but seem to have been involved in some sort of whole-town tornado situation in which our lovely mountain burg has been transplanted en masse to the flat and snowy reaches of North Dakota. I know that when we left here, there were mountains. Five ranges, in fact. Now, I see no mountains. No discernable difference between nine and noon. And it's f*ing cold.

But I digress. The trip was great, and the drive overall was not as grueling as I had expected. We did it in two days both ways, with overnight stops in Nevada. I tried hard to like Nevada, and indeed I did very much like the flat, wide expanse of Highway 80. It was well maintained and evenly graded, just as the AAA guidebook had promised. In certain portions, there were some very nice mountain vistas, and we managed to survive one whole stretch of the day thanks to a double-rotored helicopter transporting telephone lines and creating v. much excitement among the toddlers in the car. (OK, we thought it was damn cool, too.)

But you know? It's hard to come away from Nevada feeling entirely good about the experience. In Elko, we had booked our night at a hotel with a pool. We paid extra for it and knew it would be worth it because it would give us something to bribe the boy with when the going got tough. We talked it up. We cajoled. We wheeled and dealed. And when we arrived, the pool was closed, owing to the shenanigans of guests the previous evening. Through gritted teeth, we agreed to take the room anyhow, and we downgraded Connery's expectations so that a hot tub would suffice. When we had changed into our swimwear and padded down there, we were met with a chemical soup so toxic that the water foamed up a good three inches and my skin immediately turned an alarming shade of red. Even more lovely were the dozens of cigarette butts surrounding the hot tub and the half-empty beer bottle in the corner. So classy! We soaked long enough to say we'd done it and then ran back to the room for a Silkwood shower to try to get the chemicals off.

For dinner, we tried a local establishment that billed itself as a Family Fun Center (with Toddler Corner!). We figured the food would be passable at best, but it was important--again--to try to offer some rewards for Connery's good behavior. Instead, we walked into a strip mall/warehouse and were assaulted by the smell of bad pet store. (Any of you Great Falls readers remember Jack's Pet Store downtown? It smelled just like that.) The toddler corner seemed to consist of chairs pulled over to the video games to allow a 3-footer to reach Mortal Combat.

By contrast, the Pizza Hut seemed like some kind of paradise. As we left Elko the next morning, we stopped for gas. We didn't think to check the prices, because everything had been about the same all over (around $2.49/gallon), but Chip had already pumped in half a tank before we noticed that this store, by virtue of its proximity to the highway, had decided to inflate its prices over $3/gallon. The Chevron right across the underpass from this Chevron was charging $2.40/gallon. I wonder how many tourists they get with that? I wonder how many of them make fervent vows never to return to Elko only to stay in Wells on the way home and immediately contemplate reneging on said vow.

But I should stop now, lest you think that I am totally negative and the choir whiner and all that. Because overall--and I will document this later in song and story--the trip rocked. We saw tons of friends, went to the beach, sang at a dear friend's wedding. shopped until we dropped, rode the cable car, drank Frappuccinos at an alarming rate, and got to spend Thanksgiving with a great Ritter contingent. Plus our friend Matt totally kitted out our iBook G4, replacing our 40-gig hard drive with an 80-gig one AND throwing in an 80-gig external hard drive just for fun. The thing runs like we just bought it yesterday.

But really, wouldn't you rather hear me bitch about Nevada?

Pampers PLUS!

Editor's note: This is not a post about poop. Squeamish people can keep right on reading. Really!

All you parents out there, I bet you think you know the tolerances of diapers. I bet you think you know them so well that you could express them in a quasi-mathematical format:

If x=blueberries and y=bran muffins and the function is (b) breakfast, then function (l) lunch cannot include z=prunes (which of course are not prunes at all but dried plums! they're not your father's prunes!).

But do you really know what diapers can do? What their outer limits are? Allow me to tell you the story of how we came to understand the value of the diaper--sans poo--lo, this very weekend.

First a little background...My husband is many things: sensitive, handsome, funny. He is also a good driver. I would wager to say that he could be called a great driver, actually. He is one of the only Americans I have ever known who enjoyed driving in Prague--not in any way a car city, unless you're suicidal--and his quick reflexes have gotten us out of many a carjam, including one notable incident on I-90 in Connecticut during which we could have both been killed due to a distracted driver pulling into us at 75 miles an hour. (He is also the only American I know to have been pulled over by a traffic cop in Crete. Up until we were pulled over, I was not aware that there were any traffic cops in Crete, because there didn't appear to be any laws to enforce, save "Go faster!" and "Get out of my way!")

Anyway, we were driving yesterday on our old friend Highway 89, going to meet Nana and Grandpa in White Sulphur Springs for lunch and swimming. The weather was fine and the road was dry, and we were--as always--early. Like 45 minutes early. Most of you probably haven't spent time in White Sulphur Springs, so you'll have to take my word for the fact that staring down 45 extra minutes there would have been a hardship. So I convinced Chip to slow down to 55--a respectable, if slow, speed for a two-lane highway--and take the last few miles at a scenic drive pace. Even at that rate, we were almost immediately up the ass of a 4x4 pulling a trailer, so Chip pulled into the other lane to pass. I chastised him for passing early--since we were still a few car lengths behind the passing zone--but before I could even finish my sentence, the 4x4 was making a totally unsignaled turn, right into our lane. Stunt Car Driver Husband swung into action, swerving into the ditch, avoiding the 4x4, and--crucially--executing a quick maneuver to avoid the reflector pole straight ahead of us. The pole glanced off the side mirror on the passenger side, and we came to a stop.

No airbags deployed since Chip managed to avoid the impact, and everybody was fine. (Not entirely true. The karma of the dickhead in the 4x4 should be ruined for a good long time, since he didn't even stop to find out if we were OK.) The only casualty from the whole, VW-commercial-like experience was the cracked case on the side mirror. Even the automatic movement of the mirror hadn't been damaged! Here's how the mirror looked following the accident:

Once we met up with my folks, my dad assured us that we had probably done no lasting damage and predicted that the case could be salvaged with some super glue. Being a retired shop teacher and entirely too clever for his own good generally, he could have been expected to say that even if we had run smack into the pole, but in this case we recognized that even mechanically deficient people like us could probably handle super glue. (Just don't touch the eyes!)

We had the traditional adequate lunch at EAT and a very nice swim at the hot springs. It passed all too quickly and then it was time to head home again. All seemed fine until we started to reach normal highway speeds again. Then the case started flapping madly in the breeze, and we could tell that we were soon going to move from super-glue repair to dealership violation. We stopped the car to rummage around for string, a bungee cord, duct tape...but to no avail. Then I spied a diaper. "Isn't Connery's butt just about the same size as our side mirror?" I said with a glint in my eye.

In a word, yes. Diapers. They're not just for shit anymore! Oh, and you can forget all those expensive brands. This generic, Albertsons-brand diaper held it all together, with no embarrassing leaks. Well, right up until the point when we had to pass someone on the left and reveal our little secret.