Pasted Into the Body

My heart sank today.  The gal at the visa processing center told me, very kindly but very firmly that I would need to submit my daughter’s birth certificates along with the visa application if I was to get all processed.  Who keeps birth certificates?  Do we even have such certificates?  I am down in Shanghai.  My wife is up in Beijing.  What box, in what corner of the house, has the birth certificate?  I write my wife.  I call my wife.  I explain to my wife that this is very important.  Time is running out.  Can she please make sure that she prioritize the search for our children’s birth certificates. 

And I could tell that my anxiousness notwithstanding, she had no idea where they were and would search for them, when she was good and ready.  So I searched.  Back, back to the earliest mails in Gmail.  And miraculously, like Sherlock on the scent I found mention of the last time I’d needed to get these docs.  Looks like the U.S. authorities required them the last time we got the passports updated.  Looks like I was on a business trip in San Francisco and secured them from the local authorities. My daughters were both born in that city.  But no attachments.  No docs.  Until they are right in front of me, pasted into the body of an email I’d sent to my wife.  “Don’t worry.  I’ve found them.”

And now I can stop my worrying and continue with simple tedium.  I am back on the web interface of the Russian online visa site.  There are six pages of data entry before me.  Last night I thought I was finished.  I pressed the button that said I was finished so I could print out this document and turn it in.  Today I learned that I must enter the number of the travel agency in the same line as the agency's name.  I also had entered the arrival date on one of the forms, incorrectly. 

There is no way to go back and edit this information.  There is no way cut and paste.  Each discrete piece of information must be entered in anew.  I have three such forms I need to do.  My saving’s grace is that the kind lady at the service center has explained all that is required.  Now I have confidence that my efforts will be successful.  My biggest concern had been the birth certificates.  I’m grateful to be able to release that tension. 

Tuesday 5/29/18