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Archive for June, 2018

Passport Question

June 16th, 2018 at 04:49 am

So I found my birth certificate in preparation for getting a passport. It is the one made for me after I was adopted - so it is stamped 3+ years after I was born.

The passport paperwork says that if your birth certificate is stamped over 1 year past your birthdate, that you need additional documentation, such as hospital records or an affidavit by someone who was there.


I don't remember seeing any adoption paperwork in my dads files (which is weird, because he kept *everything*)


I'm wondering if anyone else has ran into this issue in getting a passport?


How critical is it for me to have one on a cruise?? Of course, since my current name and birth certificate name don't match - a passport would be much simpler …)

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I'm almost done with my runbet - just 1 more run. I' not going to rejoin another one - at least not until after the cruise. That way I can be sure the $ is available for cruise expenses.

Sigh. I kind of wish I'd never suggested this.

Cruise Update

June 10th, 2018 at 05:00 am

So on Monday I get a text from my brother telling me that he's met someone who is "it" and he wants to bring her on the cruise with us in Sept.

I tell him that while I would love to meet his new girl, I felt that adding her to our cruise would change the whole tenor of it. (IOW - he'd be totally into her and we'd get very little time just us.)

He then tells me mom suggested it.
Ugh.

Tuesday I stayed home from work sick. Had a long conversation with my brother. Found out he'd been dating this girl for less than a month, but feels SURE she is the real deal.

She's 28, a French citizen, and possibly Catholic. (The only reason this last bit matters is that the faith my brother and I were raised in is quite different than Catholicism. Plus he'd probably have to have his first marriage annulled.) Her family owns some wine vineyards in France I think.


He's traveling to London in a few weeks to meet her family at her brother's graduation from Oxford. Then she's going to be getting some 90 day Visa to be in the States, while working on securing a job so she can stay.


The cruise falls within the first month of this 90 days.


So … I spent another 40 minutes on the phone with Expedia finding out how / if we could make these changes.


I didn't have her full name or birthdate, so it mostly was a waste of time.


Then my mom called, and that was another hour+ on the phone.



My brother got her info to me on Thursday morning. My boss kindly let me take an extended morning break (after I gave her a brief rundown)


An hour on the phone with the CS rep yielded the following -


Because we were going from triple occupancy to double occupancy, my mom and I's room costs $240 extra.


My brother and J's cabin will be an extra $700 above what he'd already paid.


Plus of course transportation costs are going to go up.


Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose my Swagbucks on this deal now.


I was just barely figuring out how to cover all the expenses in time - so now to have to add an extra $120 to it …. UGH! Especially since if she actually does come (a lot can happen in 3 months …), then I'll have very little time with just my brother. Which was sort of the purpose of the whole trip!


So … I'm scrambling to see if I can find any new bank bonuses. I think I'm probably done with CC bonuses for at least a year. I'd thought about selling my iPad, but I've started using it a good bit again lately.


I could have just said NO, but then there'd be a good possibility that he'd decide to just not come.