moving: the PITA factor

What a pain in the ass. There are a bunch of documents I need to provide before I can move to the Netherlands. Most of them, like my college diploma, they already have on file from last time. The problems, of course, are the same two that were problems last time: my birth and marriage certificates. It’s not like I’ve been born again (in any sense) or married again in the last three years, but the official certificate isn’t enough for them. They require an apostille to further legalize it – which is basically a stamp from the state of Pennsylvania saying yes, these are our legal documents and we vouch for them.

It sounds like it would be tedious, but not that awful: request birth certificate (from state office), request marriage certificate (from county office, send both back to state for apostille, get them back again, send on to HR person. But it’s worse than that.

The county is still living in olden days: there are two ways to request a marriage certificate, in person and online. In person is obviously out (and I won’t ask my mother to do it; it’s quite a long drive through traffic that scares her. My brother and SIL already have over an hour commute, in the other direction). But by mail is also problematic: you are supposed to send a check and SASE. I can’t find the checkbook for my US bank account, not having used it in a good three years; I have accounts in the Netherlands and Taiwan but neither place even uses checks, at all. I don’t keep US stamps around, either. I could send a FedEx airbill with my credit card number on it, but the only ones I have access to are international airbills. I guess that would be OK, even for domestic mailing.

The state at least gives you a choice: request the certificate by mail (sending a check and SASE) or online. By mail has all the problems listed above, but the online method has an issue of its own: you pay by credit card and they will only send the certificate to the billing address of the credit card. Because US credit cards require a US address, that means it gets sent to my in-laws, who kindly let us use their address for US mail. Oh, yes, and the fees are $10 for the certificate, $8 for the online service, and $17 for airmail, which is the default.

Also, I’m not really crazy about trusting international mails enough to have stuff sent here and then send it back for the apostille. Fortunately my in-laws are nice enough that they’ll help us on this. So I’ve requested the birth cert and it should be sent to their house in a few days. I’ll either find a checkbook and send mail requesting the marriage cert to be sent to them along with a preaddressed, prepaid FedEx airbill, or ask them (or my mother) to send the request, with a SASE.

Then they’ll send the birth and marriage certificates to the state capitol (which, by the way, is on the opposite coast from them) along with a prepaid airbill, to be sent either to me or to the HR person directly.

Are you tired yet? Because I am, just from writing all that, let alone doing it.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

tarot and candles

stonetalker is doing one-card draws (I think until midnight Eastern today, if you’re interested:

I posted, “I’d just like to ask about the risk in some job decisions my husband and I have made recently”

The answer was, “The Six of Water tells a story of cooperation. It is a card of happiness that comes through sharing. The Six of Water is advising you to watch for unusual ways in which you can share your happiness with others. There is karma with this card, too; a bonding with those with whom you have shared previous lifetimes, or far-memory. Keep sharing your happiness, and happiness will keep itself sharing with you.

I feel no uneasiness regarding your job decisions; I feel these too were karmic for you. Just keep flowing with optimism and cooperation.”

No, I don’t particularly believe in the Tarot, but I do believe in “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” and that the universe is stranger than I can imagine. I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically magic about squares of carboard with pretty pictures on them; whether they can serve as tools for gifted people to tap into something bigger … I sayeth not. But I don’t say that they can’t and anyway it’s always nice to get affirmations, given that the alea is pretty much acta.

The risk is not so much about whether things will work out for my job, as whether Ted will get a job, and whether it’ll come with an expat contract. However, I feel strongly that they’d be idiots not to hire him, and they’re not idiots.

The above helps with the optimism bit, but I think I have the opposite of SADS, anyway. I perk up in winter. I loved last winter’s trip to the Ice Hotel and I’m lookng forward to going to the Netherlands in (under) two weeks. It’s probably largely because having spent most of the last 20 years in hot climates means that I am completely sick and tired of heat, but it’s also that the winter in those climates is so short and fleeting. I haven’t gotten tired of it at all. Then again, I didn’t mind the winter in the Netherlands. I confess I was more than ready for spring the winter I spent in Worcester, MA (see my very earliest blog entries) but that was mostly about being resentful and tired of Worcester.

I can tell my level of mood by what I’m singing, sometimes. Lately it’s all about hope. Last week it was Gordon Bok’s Turning Toward the Morning. Just now I caught myself singing his “Julian of Norwich”:

“Love, like the yellow daffodil is blooming in the snow;
Love like the yellow daffodil is Lord of all, I know.

Ring out, bells of Norwich and let the winter come and go –
All shall be well again, I know.”

In the next few weeks I know I’ll be singing Peter Yarrow’s “Light One Candle”, because I always do this time of year. I’ve come to think about that song, and Chanukah in general (and also St. Lucia’s Day and Christmas) as being about lighting a candle when darkness is looming, as an act of hope, faith, and defiance.

I see I lied above – I can tell by the non-tirra-lirra-y songs. I don’t exactly “perk up” in winter, because that implies being chipper and cheerful and carefree. You don’t need hope in that mood, just as you don’t need it in (metaphorical) summer. What winter rouses in me is more a mood of bloody-minded optimism, which makes me want to simultaneously embrace the cold and darkness (when I was in my early teens, when crowded parties got too loud and oppressive, I used to sneak outside and go walking, at night in winter without a coat), retreat from it (into the pleasures of cozy room tea or chocolate, book, fire, knitting), and defy it, by lighting lights and refusing to let darkness convince me that it’s here to stay. In winter I feel more like me.

I suppose none of the above makes much sense to anyone not living in this head. It’s a good mood to tackle paperwork hassles in, anyway.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.