Heat wave

July 5, 2023 to July 6, 2023

The two days following Independence Day are shaping up as the hottest of the summer so far - and depressingly, the previous two have been recognized as the hottest ones worldwide in recorded history. Such a bleak time, but life goes on for the moment at least and even if we aren’t inclined to bike in weather like this, we make the most of it. And in our case, the timing couldn’t be better because we couldn’t have gotten out for a real ride or hike on either of these torrid days anyway because we have other commitments.

Wednesday

We have a full agenda today, beginning with a five mile bike ride out to JoLa cafe, a spot I haven’t been to for at least several years and Rachael’s never seen. It’s pleasant biking along the waterfront this early in the day before it warms up. We arrive at 8:30 on the nose, and while I grab an outdoor table and look around to see who might show up Rachael goes inside to see what’s on offer. Her order placed, she’s back out the door precisely when the Branhams round the corner, looking fresh and fit after their just-completed jaunt from western Montana.

We most recently saw the Branhams last winter in Tucson. Even though thanks to this website we know a lot about what each other has been up to since then, there’s nothing that replaces a face-to-face meetup and the time passes too quickly by the time we all need to move on.

While we wait for the show to start, we can notice the sign in the window. The last time I was here, before the pandemic, this end of the building housed some small business I’ve forgotten the name of. Since then JoLa has expanded to take over this end too, doubling the size of the cafe.

I almost forgot! I think it was Janice that remembered we needed a group photo before leaving.

Thanks, Janice! We don’t have many team photos.

It’s warming up by the time we bike back to the apartment. An hour later we’re out the door again and on our way north. Tomorrow is our long-anticipated appointment at the Seattle passport agency, and we’re breaking up the journey by staying overnight at my brother’s home in Gig Harbor, just across the water from Tacoma. Stewart and Lynn moved there about three years ago, and this is the first time we’ve been to their new home.

We don’t see Stewart and Lynn often enough, and in the past it was usually when we would show up together for event gatherings - mom and dad’s birthday celebrations, most typically. Spending the evening together like this is the longest and most focused visit we’ve had in years. We enjoy the chance to see where they’re living now and to hear how their lives are now that they’re both fully retired.

And, we get to meet their cats! They have three pedigree ragdoll cats, a breed I hadn’t heard of before but quickly fall in love with. They’re adorable animals, and almost puppyish in their incessant seeking of human contact and attention. You really can’t sit down for long at all before one of them slinks up and flops down at your feet begging for you to lend a hand.

Stewart, Lynn and their three free-range ragdolls. It’s feeding time, and Stewart is dishing up the chow.

Alex, the youngest and friskiest of the three Anderson ragdolls.

As the nearest of the family, Stewart and Lynn have really provided the primary support for mom and dad over the challenging last two years, coming up often to check in regularly and help manage their affairs. They were especially a huge help when dad downsized and moved out of the apartment he and mom had shared and into an assisted living unit just last month.

While we’re sitting around chatting in their living room after dinner, Stewart sifts through an envelope of old photos they found in helping dad move. There are some real treasures here, some of which I recognize and some I’ve never seen before.

Bobbie Brown Anderson (dad), 1930 - age 18 months.

Grandpa Woodings, Mom, Grandma, Aunt Virginia - probably around 1940? All deceased now.

Dad, sometime early after he became a flight test engineer at Boeing in 1957.

Dad, me, Uncle Harry’s boat (which he built himself), and some silvers.

Stewart’s little league team. Stewart, the shortstop, is kneeling in the center of the front row. That’s me, the assistant coach, on the left.

Thursday

We both start waking up around five thirty or so, and lie in bed until nearly seven when we hear signs of life. Avoiding stepping on the cats, we head downstairs and cht with Stewart for awhile before heading off to the nearby Starbucks for coffee and then driving up to Seattle for our passport appointment. Our appointment isn’t until 11:30 and assuming reasonable traffic it’s only an hour’s drive, so we’re in no rush. We hang out for about an hour taking our time over our coffee and pastries while I read the news and Rachael tackles the highest priority time-filler task of the moment: picking accommodations in Mallorca for the end of our upcoming tour of Spain.

As we’re preparing to leave, Stewart walks in to pick up breakfast treats himself. We chat some more, he updates us on Lynn’s status (she’s awake, basking in the tub with three ragdoll cats keeping their eyes on her), and then we leave for the drive north.

The drive is as unremarkable as any drive into Seattle during work hours is any more - meaning pretty awful really, but not so terrible that it slows us up by more than a half hour. It’s about ten when we park the car and start walking to the passport center. Our appointment isn’t for another ninety minutes, but I’m thinking if we arrive early maybe we’ll be serviced and on the road back to Portland early enough that Rachael can get a ride in.

Ha, ha.

Entering Seattle up Alaskan Way. The traffic is at a crawl so I can afford a quick photo. The peaked grey building in the center is the 42 story Smith Tower. Built in 1914, it was the tallest building on the west coast until the Space Needle went up in 1962. Looking at this scene now, it’s hard to believe that we lived about three blocks up from it in a public housing project when I was in sixth grade.

Just a few notes on the experience, for something you might learn from if you need an in-person renewal some day yourself. When we arrive, there’s a long line out the front door of the building for applicants queued up waiting to be granted entrance for their appointment. The line is monitored by an agent who screens and admits folks in small batches. When we reach the front of the line he asks to see proof of our appointment and the conformation number, which stumps us. We didn’t think of this as a requirement and haven’t prepared for it. We aren’t even certain we received anything other than verbal acceptance when Rachael called up to schedule it. We step out of line and anxiously hunt through emails until fortunately I find it.

Once I’ve found it I reread it and see I’ve forgotten something important. It states that we need to show up with completed applications, photos, and printed proof of our upcoming travel. It’s that last point I’d forgotten about. We have it, but it’s sitting on the coffee table in the apartment together with unneeded instruction sheets I pulled out at the last minute before leaving. So dumb.

Just the right document, in just the wrong place.

So we anxiously look through the emails again until I find one from Booking confirming our reservation; and then we start looking for the nearest print shop until I look up and see the cafe right here and wonder if they might have a printer. They do, as it happens. They’ll print documents, as well as take passport photos for anyone who needs those. They sell beverages and snacks too, but I suspect all their profit margin comes from servicing the last minute needs of poorly prepared passport applicants like ourselves.

It only costs us $15 to get a printed copy of our hotel reservation, and we’re happy to pay it. We step back in line, and fifteen minutes later we’re up to the front and get admitted into the building this time. Phew!

The Fifth and Yesler Building, the home of the Seattle Passport Agency. The lineup on the sidewalk is folks queued up either waiting admittance for their passport appointment or to pick up their new passports. I wonder if it always looks like this during the business week.

Entering the building, we’ve traded the last queue for a new one, this one to get through the security scanners. We pass that test, catch the elevator to the sixth floor, follow the arrows and eventually come to the door of the passport office. We open it and enter a large room filled with maybe 150 applicants - half of them are standing in a very slow-moving queue waiting to reach the window where our applications and proof of an appointment will be examined and we will be given a number and told to take a seat and wait our turn.

The other half of the people have already gotten their numbers and are sitting, waiting their turn. We join them, and wait for our number to come up above the eight service windows where applications are received. We wait roughly two hours. While we wait Rachael enjoys a conversation with a young man here to have his passport renewed in time for his evening flight to Toronto. And I worry about whether this is actually going to work and we’ll get our passports.

I’m worried primarily because of our proof of accommodation in Canada, because the email we had printed out is defective in two ways. First, it doesn’t really identify it as being our reservation. It refers to me by my first name only, so really it could be anybody’s. Also, it’s not even correct. Our reservation is for July 10th, but the email is for the first version of this reservation, on July 11th. We changed our minds and moved our reservation and our entry date into Canada up by a day so we could make a passport appointment sooner. I point this out to Rachael and say that if it comes up we’ll say our travel date is July 11th, to match our document. In my head though, I’m worrying the whole time that this won’t fly somehow and we’ll find ourselves parked on the sidewalk again desperately trying to find acceptable proof, getting it printed, and starting all over again.

Against all odds though, when our number comes up it all goes well. The agent asks for our documentation, asks our travel date, and then proceeds with reviewing and accepting our applications. When he asks for payment, I let out a big inward sigh of relief - we’ve been accepted. $360 the poorer (passports are $120 each, plus $60 for expedited processing), we head outside and immediately head across the street to the building with the nearest public bathrooms, which we should have visited three hours ago when we first arrived because there are none inside. After that we go to the adjacent cafe for brief decompression break before driving home.

A toast with a toast. Mission accomplished, as far as we know at least.

So do we have our new passports?

We do not have our new passports. We’re given a time when they’ll be available though: at noon the next day, or anytime after. We aren’t hanging around another night of course, but will pick them up Monday on our drive to Vancouver. Surely they’ll be there waiting for us.

Last round for now. Well deserved, badly needed.

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Comment on this entry	Comment	12

Andrea BrownGoodness, what an ordeal. I'll be sure to get my renewal many many months in advance when it's time to do that again.
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10 months ago

Patrick O'HaraPhew.
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10 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Patrick O'HaraSo far, so good. I’ll feel better when we have them in hand.
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10 months ago

Suzanne GibsonNerve wracking! But it looks like you're good to go. I aso had to get a new passport as my old one had expired a while ago. Let me tell you how this is handled in a small town in Germany.

Traveling within the EU I only need my "personalausweis", or pass port card I think it's called, in Germany the legal ID that every adult must have. I made an appointment online to apply for a new passport a week earlier and walked to our local town hall. I waited ten minutes and was admitted ahead of schedule because someone else didn't show up. All I needed was one passport photo and my personalausweis. The rest was done electronically and all I had to do was provide my signature several times by writing on a screen on my side of the plexi-glass window. I found all of this very efficient and more than amazing.

But the best part was when I, or rather the woman processing my application, discovered that my personalausweis had also expired last September! I never noticed that, and neither did anyone else. For all of our travels in France and Italy this year I actually had no legal ID whatsoever! This was still no problem for the application procedure. The friendly and helpful employee at the town hall just said I could simply apply for both documents at the same time, I wouldn't need any additional photos etc. I'll have my personalausweis within two or three weeks, my passport will need five weeks.
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10 months ago

Bob DistelbergWell, that all sounds pretty awful. I’m so glad that the last time I renewed mine I was able to get photos taken and submit paperwork at the local office associated with the post office. Non-expedited of course, but I seem to remember actually getting the new passport pretty quickly. Anyway, glad it all worked out for you!
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10 months ago

Rachael AndersonTo Suzanne GibsonHow great!
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10 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Bob DistelbergThat’s the normal route, alright. The wait times now are reportedly terrible but if we’d applied last winter as soon as we returned from France it probably would have worked fine, but we hadn’t even been aware that they were due for renewal yet until sometime this spring. With our plans to go to Canada this summer there was no option but an in person renewal.
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10 months ago

Kelly IniguezI was telling Jacinto your story right now and mentioned that I hadn't see anyone lined up outside of the passport agency in Tucson. He said in this weather it would be dangerous to have to line up outside. He is correct - the high in Tucson is 110ish every day for the next ten days.

I think you are due a reward for your ordeal - whatever that might be!
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10 months ago

Rachael AndersonTo Kelly IniguezYou’re the ones that deserve a reward after all your hot, grueling days! Our reward is getting to go to Canada!
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10 months ago

Janice BranhamYou've done us all a public service here. This is one hassle I will be sure to avoid when the time comes to renew ours.
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10 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Suzanne GibsonPretty remarkable that you skated by with obsolete identification! They must not routinely check your ID in hotels when you register, like they do with us?

Actually your process doesn’t sound that unlike ours, except that ours is so badly backed up here that it might be 2-3 months before your new passports pop out the other end. The normal renewal process is just to mail in the application, a photo, your expiring passport and $$ and then wait and watch the mail.

It’s much different though if you have an urgent need for a new passport on short notice. A little advance planning would be helpful here.
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10 months ago

Suzanne GibsonTo Scott AndersonI forgot yours was an application on short notice. That partially explains why it is so ridiculously complicated. I never really expected the German procedure to be so incredibly simple, though. Another difference - we have to appear in person.
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10 months ago