Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Pre-Clearance, Edmonton Style

So, we're sitting in the Edmonton International Airport Immigration Pre-Clearance "Bad Room," eh? We've handed over the stack 'o docs to be scrutinized (Employment Authorization Document card, Advance Travel Parole document, I-485 Application Receipt and new I-94 application) to a Man in a blue suit and now we're parked in the "holding room." It occurs to me that there's nothing like owning a document with the word "parole" on it and being in a windowless room with nervous cell mates to convince one that the INS operates on the principle of "guilty until proven innocent." And how is it even possible to construct a room that feels like it's 50 years old, lovingly preserved with original ick-yellow vinyl furniture, in a terminal that's only five years old?

Anyway, there we sit, trading airborne stress contaigens with one obviously distraught big-boned Canadian woman of Eastern European heritage and her cowering spouse. They're holding a muted yet ferocious conversation in rapid-fire staccato shots of Slavic vitriol. While I don't understand a single actual word, the intent is obviously something to the tune of "I TOLD you to take the friggin' document off the kitchen counter. It was RIGHT THERE, under your wallet and keys, for crying out loud! My mother was right about you...."

Next to the happy couple sits Nervous Asia-Pac Dude, hugging a very bulgy backpack close to his chest, sweating impressively. Besides us, the remaining residents are three ball-cap/baggy jeans/skater shoes totin' baby oil-field engineer types who have been denied their TN visas, despite the previous assurance of their immigration lawyer that they would breeze through.

Discussing their situation in loud, above-the-roar-of-a-diesel tones, the red-haired kid with the wild flush in his cheeks explains to his buddies, "The officer says we've got the wrong visa applications." (Translated here for a multi-national reading audience. What is actually said sounds more like "He sehs we goht the wrohng veesa ahhplehcayshun, ahn now they want aboat 900 bucks fohr a differnt one, eh?") Poor sods. Canadians grow up in a world where the rules, generally speaking, are the rules, and everybody has equal access to them. Plus, we keep them pretty simple since they always have to translated into both official languages. Government forms and processes tend to be fairly algebraic: If A=B, and B=C, then A=C. For example, if the rules say people who pay their taxes on time stay out of jail, and I pay my taxes on time, then I get to keep my rainy-day bond money. (Or maybe that's just my interpretation of it, but you get the gist.)

In any case, we have come to expect a high-level of predictability in government-related, rule-driven situations. My experience, however, is that the US immigration process has the all the orderly flow and predictability of the Pamplona Bull Run. And at times, I have felt exactly like one of those skinny Spanish dudes in the white outfits and red bandanas, hoofing it at max warp down a narrow cobblestone street with my heart pounding painfully and my adrenal glands set to full flow. I've got a huge backlog of other runners blocking the path in front of me. Directly behind me thunders a herd of easily-excitable, ridiculously powerful, Mensa rejects with pointy weapons that can make a real dent in your, um, day. (This, by the way, is the actual origin of the question, "What was I thinking?!") So as a compassionate human being, it's painful to watch the baby-engineers realize just what kind of a race they signed up for.

I have to leave them to their fate. We get called to the desk and the nice Man hands over the stamped paperwork. "Sorry for the delay," he says. "Your status is being adjusted."

If you've been tracking my Adventures in Immigration thus far, you will know by now that the cardinal rule for getting through the Bad Room is that under no circumstances do you volunteer ANYTHING, no matter how true or innocent, other than the short answer to a direct question. No questions. No quips. No polite inquiries into the general health and well-being of anyone. Just shut-the-fudge-up until forced to do otherwise. This explains why the whole process, in addition to being apparently completely arbitrary, with inexplicable rules and regulations applied randomly from port to port, and even from officer to officer, has been so difficult for me. Silence: good. Inane babble: bad. Rules? What rules?

Where was I?

Ah yes... the moment the officer casually announces, "Your status is being adjusted." Pardon?! Studiously avoiding an overt exchange of glances, we follow rule #1 and simply accept the stamped paperwork with a "thank you, sir." Then off we scuttle, back out to the sweetness of under-circulated but "free to go to the bathroom or use your cell phone if you want" regular airport air.

Once through security, we are free to ruminate on just what the Man meant. What had he seen on his computer screen? Was there current and actual movement afoot? Would we come home to the long-awaited "Congratulations, and welcome, Alien!" letter in our mailbox? Or was he just confirming that yes, indeed, our green card application was in the final "adjustment of status" phase, therefore our docs were valid, and he could, without fear of reprisal, let us back to the home of our mortgage, jobs, cat, son and laundry left unfolded?

No letter, yet. But stay tuned here: you'll be among the first to know when we're finished running through, er, with the bull.

Monday, January 14, 2008

I Smell Dirt

It's at times like this that a linguaphile truly appreciates a pure subject/verb/object combo. To be clear: I don't smell dirty. (And we won't even BEGIN to go where the adverbial sense of that sentence might take us. This is a family site, after all.) But I do love the whiff of fresh dirt. It has the olfactoral bliss of the baby lime-green of new grass. From my memory bank, it's still cool under your hands should you decide to perform the planet's best-EVER hand stand for the neighborhood riff-raff. And for me tonight, it also pulled from the air the reassuring honks of the neighborhood moms from 30 years ago, calling "Time for your ba-aaath... get in here, quick! I called you twice already, and the street lights are ON!"

THE REAL START OF MY STORY:
We spent the week-end in Edmonton, Alberta, celebrating my mother-in-law's 90th birthday. In January, the "Gateway to the North" is usually knicker-frostin', nose-hair freezin,' "I forget where I put my fingers" chillin' COLD this time of the year. True, this story would have been much better if I could have regaled you with accounts of squeaky snow under frozen-square tires, but alas.... At -10C, it was a mild week-end. The natives didn't even bother with gloves. I did, but since a two-year old left the party Saturday night without even his boots or coat on--"We just threw a blanket over him and tossed him in the car"--I can't find it within my Canajun soul to complain. It wasn't even cold enough to necessitate plugging in the rental car. And yes: normally in Canada, if your car is parked outside anywhere east of Vancouver from December to March, you do have to plug your car in. Otherwise, you will quickly become acquainted with the sound a battery makes in distress. It's neither pretty, nor productive, and is usually followed with a hearty Canadian, "Ahh, shit." We can say that word with impunity there, since usually it either involves actual cow poop (as in, "Don't come in here with your boots on; you got shit on 'em,") or the inability to smell said poop due to frikkin', freezin', battery-squishing cold. In either case, the usage is fully warranted. And now, back to our story...

A total lack of squeaky snow notwithstanding, this morning we made a teary good-bye to a 90-year old post-farmer chick happily settled in the world's BEST seniors' residence (thanks Harold, Sharon, Peter and LeIsle!). This was followed almost immediately by a stress-filled 20 minutes in the "bad room" in the immigration pre-clearance stopover at the Edmonton airport with a twist ending (more on this in tomorrow's posting). Finally, after 2.5 uneventful hours in a smallish yet stable aircraft zooming southward, I found myself delighted to be stomping around my own northern CA neighborhood, smelling dirt.

Unless you have ever waited a full six months in white silence to see fresh green stuff or to catch the whiff of rapidly thawing earth on the breeze, you just haven't really ever appreciated the exquisite aroma of room-temperature dirt. Trust me, it's worth a couple of winters of brain freeze to build up a pattern of recognition and appreciation when the sensation hits.

As some wise dude (too lazy to Google it now, but I promise the reference will show up in a Pink Fluffy posting near you soon) once said, "A rich man never knows the joy of a new potato." Well, I'm not rich (except in every way that counts), but I do know the value of great dirt when I smell it.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Alisa

Sometimes being an irreverent, mostly bratty and always verbose blogette has its limitations.

Like, when a very sweet colleague named Alisa contracts a swift and fatal blood disorder, all within the span of the "holiday break,"and dies before you even get back to work or knew she was feeling unwell. And the blogette really, really needs to address this monstrous outrage via the self-indulgent catharsis known as "blogging," but the subject matter and the most logical way of addressing it is SO out of kilter with the flippant tone and content of her customary blah-blah-blah stomping ground. What does a humbled and rebuked-by-real-life blogette do then?

She remembers that four years earlier, she was the only one with a digital camera that Alisa knew to ask to have a few digital photos of herself taken. And as the blogette tries to process the bizarreness of a single mom of a ten-year-old boy going from full bloom life to funeral arrangements within three weeks, she searches for and finds a photo she took of beautiful Alisa against a backdrop of red fall leaves.

She realizes that maybe Alisa's family has never seen this beautiful photo, and tries to think of a way to share this gift with these grieving people she has never met. So she creates a fresh, quiet, and respectful online space where she can post a visual eulogy to Alisa for people to visit when they are ready, and return to as often as they want.

And it makes her feel better. She hopes it will make Alisa's family and friends feel better, too.

Turn your speakers on.