Yea Federal Government!

Last week we witnessed two stunning feats of governmental efficiency-- we received our new passports in less than two weeks and received the approval of our fingerprints (the second set, mind you) for the adoption in a mere 4 business days. I know those of you who have never done an adoption paperchase may not fully appreciate how incredibly rare and awesome this is, but if you would imagine going to the DMV once or twice a month on the busiest day, but never getting to the front of the line, on a day when the air conditioning is not working and it's 95 degrees out and you didn't bring a pen or pencil and you can't find one anywhere, and when you get to the front of the line you have forgotten an incredibly important piece of paper that you didn't know you had to bring ...... that's a little bit what it feels like. Actually, it's worse, but I don't want to scare away any potential adoptive parents.

So I'm not sure if it's because the economy is in the toilet and they fear for their jobs, or all of the federal employees have Obama-mania but whatever the reason, I am grateful for these small favors. Yea Federal Government Employees! Yes you can! Process those passports! Check those fingerprints! We even got a nice letter with our fingerprint approval congratulating us on the adoption, with a form that we could have used the first time around--figures, we had to hunt for that one for a while.

I do wonder though, if the quick turn around times were due to our scrupulous adherence to the rules? Can you just imagine the passport processor weeping as he processed our application, "They used the black ink, just like I asked them, and they STAPLED their photos to the application, and LOOK, they wrote checks in the correct amount! I love these people, kiss kiss! They go to the front of the line!" It could happen. I'll bet that fine print about the black ink gets a lot of folks.

Now we have a tentative court date in Ethiopia, March 25th, but our agency tells us that the judges on that day may not get through all of their cases, or may not even hear any of the scheduled cases that day. So let's all send some of that governmental employee mojo to Ethiopia. 'Cause we can't travel until we are through Ethiopian court, and we want to pick up the newbie as soon as we can!