I am getting pretty fed up with this entire green card thing.

First, there was the questionnaire. In January a package came from the lawyers containing a list of questions copied directly from the I-485 form. This proved to be the strangest questionnaire I have yet seen on any government form:

Have you ever engaged in genocide, or otherwise ordered, incited, assisted or otherwise participated in the killing of any person because of race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin or political opinion?

Have you ever illicitly trafficked in any controlled substance, or knowingly assisted, abetted or colluded in the illicit trafficking of any controlled substance?

Have you ever been a member of, or in any way affiliated with, the Communist Party or any other totalitarian party?

And last (on the form) but not least, and my favorite:

Do you plan to practice polygamy in the U.S.?

Are they expecting anyone to check the YES box? On any of these? And readily admit that they’re a mass murderer, a drug dealer, a Communist (in the States, remember!), or heaven forbid, a Mormon^*?

I ignored the questionnaire and its related paperwork until a few weeks ago, when the lawyers pointedly reminded me that it needed doing. So I checked NO on everything, spent some time trying to figure out just where and when my Dad was born, and proceeded to collect the various other bits of paper I needed. One of these was a medical form filled out by an INS certified civil surgeon, so I took Friday off to go see the closest one that didn’t require an appointment - Dr. Cortes in Oakland.

Now, the exam is supposed to consist of a through physical examination, and the doctor is supposed to “work with the patient and their vaccination record to decide on any needed vaccinations”. Not Dr. Cortes’ office, which was the model of efficiency: “Do you have a vaccination record? No? Okay, you will get three vaccine shots today, and that will be 190 dollars for everything please.” Two quick jabs with a needle (they were out of one of the vaccines), another needle for a tuberculosis skin test, yet another needle for a blood sample (AIDS test, and if I heard the doctor correctly, syphilis test as well - how bizarre), and a 5 minute examination which consisted solely of a blood pressure measurement and some intense listening to my breathing - assembly line medicine.

I do in fact have a very spotty vaccination record. Due to weaselings in years past done for fear of needles (“Everyone in Grade 6 please proceed to the auditorium for shots.” “Uh, hi, I’m a little young for 6th grade.” “Um, okay, you’re excepted. Come back in a couple of years.”) I managed to avoid all shots from the age of 8 onwards except for measles immunization, done during the epidemic which took place during the 3rd or 4th year of university. That’s right, I’m now only guaranteed not to be carrying measles, mumps, rubella, or varicella (whatever that is) - I could be a Black Plague or ebola vector. Be afraid.

The next hoop I had to jump was to get some photos which satisfied some arbitrary requirements. That became the errand for Saturday. I found someone in the phone book with a prominent “We Do Alien Cards” banner in their ad so that turned out to be a no-brainer, although now that I have the results in my hands I’m fairly certain I’m going to be in violation of the “no splotches” requirement - there are little white spots all over the place. What kind of cheap film did the photographer use? And why did it cost me so much for it?

Today, the law office informed me that the photocopy of my wallet-sized birth certificate wouldn’t do, they had to have a full-sized one. Identical in every way except that my parent’s names are on the latter and not the former. This means I have to write away to the Vital Statistics division of the Province of Newfoundland, cough up some more cash, and wait around some more.

What a bloody waste of time and money.

Other things - I saw Kiss of the Dragon on Friday (summary: good, not great). And spent a lot of Sunday writing some useful Perl scripts.

* Okay, so perhaps I’m being needlessly glib here. Judge for yourself.