rs-forever's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Renewing the Passportus I had the nicest weekend ever. It was Ryan's first weekend ever since he started working. I had missed him so much during the week, it felt so nice to have him back, to go out to eat at a fancy new Turkish place in Arlington, to sleep late on Friday night, sleep in on Saturday morning, then go to the mall, to the Lego Store, then to drive back to Amherst in the snow on Saturday night, stay up late again on Saturday night, watch Fantastic Mr. Fox with Ryan and Allie on Sunday afternoon, and to finally drive back again to Boston on Sunday night. The only bad part was that we would have to leave Kitty there again, and I miss him terribly during the week if he is not around. I always expect to see him, but never do. It is nice of Allie to care for him while we are away, but I wonder if we are taking it too far. I also endlessly worry about him escaping through the door, and running on to Rt 116 which is so busy. Then came today. And today was really the crappiest day I have had in a while. It took me forever to get the smallest things done. I have to renew my Indian passport because it expired. And the Indian consulate is so _anal_ about how they want things to be done. They have several pages full of detailed rules, and several such pages show up in a google search because those idiots forgot to take the old pages off. So here I have to browse through pages of banality (nice pun?) to figure out the tiniest things. My chore list was so simple: Simple? I thought yes, but not at all, it turns out. Because there is no CVS around, except in the next town, for which I assumed I would have to get onto I95. I have an increasing I95-phobia. The moment you enter the highway, you have to weave to the left lane through vehicles trying to weave right to take the next exit, which is almost immediate. It is like a circus. Ofcourse, there are no rules for vehicles ramping up, and vehicles ramping down, so one has to play it by the ear. And I have donkey ears. I have been driving since two years now, but it is still not easy to do I-95. So if not in CVS, where could somebody print pictures. Target and Walmart were a good 15 miles away. There is H-Mart, which anybody as reasonable as me would think is like KMart or even Walmart. They had a bunch of Chinese characters under H-Mart, and I thought, ah, such a nice global store this is. Turns out it is a food store. Yes, mostly Asian food. I could have kicked myself for not looking HMart before. But now that I was inside, I had to shop. So I bought Persimons, 6 for $4, avocados, tomatoes and coriander to make Guacamole. And some Mango Mochi. I asked some cute looking Chinese women if they knew of a CVS in the area. After a heated discussion (that sounded so cute, I thought it may even be Japanese) they said they did not know. I pointed out to them, I was only asking them because they worked at the "May I help you" counter, to prove I was no silly enough to ask random people about CVS. I thought surely at Burlington Mall they must have a place to get pictures. But at Burlington Mall, there are several, several distractions. There was Victorias Secret, that I really don't get to browse around too much because Ryan gets embarrassed by their shameless mannequins. So I go in there to look, and the only bras that they have in my size (34-A) are extremely padded. I like some padding to prevent show through, but I do not like padding that makes my breast size to be something it is not. I am happy with a 34-A and I do not wished to be padded to be like a 34-C, even a 34-B. I am comfortable with being small. Perhaps most women are not, so VS needs to do this, but I am. But they want me to believe I am imperfect by selling these gigantic bras. I did find some with a light padding, but they were so awful looking. All the pretty ones are never available in an A cup. So I stormed out of VS, and then spied JCrew. JCrew was full of "Ah, we only wear pastels" women. In my magenta scarf I felt like I was hurting their eyes. My hair is crazy too, and very out of character. So with the prim, pastel, sensible hair women I felt extremely out of place. Also everything in JCrew is atleast $25 and up. Even in the Sale section. They had tonnes of 0s and Extra Smalls on sale, which were pretty, but I would make the seams show because I am not white. Anyway, they were frightfully expensive. So I walked out of there too. Then I went to Macy's to ask if they had a photo booth. There a woman told me there was a CVS right in the mall. Unbelievable! So I go to the CVS, and they have a photo machine. But the USB interface was broken and a tape stuck over it. I felt so unlucky, because I had my passport pictures on a USB drive, and I had a camera with an SDCard in it, but not the same pictures on the camera. The two check out people there were Indian, but they did not suspect me to be, so they spoke in English. They said I could go to this other far-away CVS, and gave me exact directions to go there. But I went to the Apple store instead thinking I could use one of the Apple computers to transfer data from the USB to the Sdcard ot print out at the CVS. One JJill-type lady rudely told me to use another computer because these computers were only for training purposes. I nearly stuck my tongue out at her. So I found another MAC Book Pro to use, and then I could not figure out how to copy-paste on the MAC. Turns out that the hoity-toity MAC OS, does not do the Control-C Control-V copy paste. Why, it does the Function key Copy Paste, and how in the world could I have ever figured that out. But there was a kindly gentleman, about my age who helped me. And in thanks, I ranted about how anal the Indian embassy was and he should thank his lucky stars he does not have to renew a passport there, or print out pictures at CVS which was too cheap to repair it's machine. Ashamed at my ranting, I apologized and ran away. Back at CVS I could not figure out how to print zoomed-in pictures in a Passport size, and I did not remember if they wanted a 2"x2" picture or a 3"x3" pictures. I was so upset that in additon to the stationery I needed, I bought two large snicker bars (2 for 1$). This time I spoke to the CVS guys in Hindi, for shock value. One of them was from Bombay too. He said I should not worry, just fill out the form completely, and they would mail me the passport. He was nice. I marched by all the hoity-toity J-Jill ladies, and the VS-sized people chomping on my Snickers bars, in a lame attempt to show them I did not have to worry about what I ate. I really don't think anybody cared. There were a bunch of kids and their parents waiting in line to meet a stupid Santa. Really. They would stand in a queue of 20 to meet some guy posing as a Santa that does not even exist. How twisted. Then I drove to the far away CVS and figured out how to print the pictures. I thought it would be instant, but the CVS guy said it would take 20 minutes on the machine I used. Had I used the exactly same looking machine to the right, I would have had my pictures right away. And where does it say that I asked. He said that CVS wanted them to replace the signs, so it did not say it anywhere. I was now really pissed off, but I didn't show it at all. Instead I went and browsed through make-up on sale until he called my name in a funny way. It was within 10 minutes or so, so I said a big Thank You! Then asked for a pair of scissors to cut my pictures up, then asked him directions to Bank of America. I am the worst customer's nightmare. Then I drove to Bank of America, which was in Burlington Mall again, and an Indian lady helped me. Ofcourse, she spoke to me in Hindi right away after I told her I was going to renew my Indian passport.She was Gujarati, and suggested I transfer some funds to another account with a higher interest rate. She also wanted me to sign up for a Credit Card and some Keep the Change Program. At that point I declined all three, thanked her, and left. To get my notary, I spoke to the Bank Manager. She said she never gets it right, and she is sorry, but is Bombay my middle name, first name or last name. Sigh! Then I went to Trader Joes, bought some fish (Sashimi and Mahi Mahi), some flowers, some tortilla chips (to go with the guacamole), some frozen Indian food that I know is overpriced and some hummus. A man in the line spoke to me, and I felt so happy that people were not unfriendly all around. He had a little girl with him. He had just bought her a stuffed hippo, and she said she was going to name it Betty. He said she should be careful because if Betty were overweight she might take offense. I think the little girl had a friend called Betty. I do not like making children feel like weight is an important thing. I drove back to the hotel now, and I am going to clean things up a bit, and work on my paper that I have to give to my advisor tomorrow. Such a long day. I wonder how Ryan's day is going. I will mail out my passport application tomorrow. Hopefully it comes back in time to file for my optional practical training (OPT). English is such a hypocritical language. Potatoes but avocados. I am sure the British did this, just so that they would know how to spell things correct and feel all good and warm and fuzzy. Idiots. They forgot about spell check :-P 5:39 p.m. - 2009-12-07 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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