it could have been a no good very bad day

I have been chasing my tail a bit this year on the FM3 renewal.  They’re asking for more involved paperwork than last year and today I finally tracked down a translator with a seal.  I showed at at immigration this morning after thinking I had all the paperwork in order and could at least get the paperwork STARTED, only to find I’d brought 1 wrong piece of paperwork and 1 that needed translation.  My FM3 expires in 5 days so it is getting down to the wire.  Luckily, instead of simply sending me away, I was shown to an attorney’s office who was very happy to charge me $400/page to translate my paperwork.  Ouch.  Even in pesos, ouch.  Then I spilled some coffee on her assistant’s closed computer and the day got very bad.  She was cursing in ENGLISH so I knew it was going to be very bad and very expensive.  Strangely, after all the cursing and trying to clean it up, they were both very comfortable letting me leave taking only my name and cell number.  BUT before I managed to spill coffee on the computer, she walked into INM and got my paperwork started for me!  So the tramite has begun and I won’t be fined for renewing late.  I can only hope.

When I was at INM, the receptionist recommended that Scociabank did legal translations of the documents I needed (but I had lied and told him I’d already checked and they’d said they didn’t) and after the fracasso with the laywer I figured I needed a new translator.  So I checked with HSBC (who told me their executives could only answer that question and that they’d be in in an hour or so) and then at Scociabank.   I cooled my heels at Scociabank just waiting for some executive to simply answer the question and after 15-20 mintues, I had my answer, “no”.

At home, I was able to contact some computer repair folks and the lawyer and with no demands yet being made on me to replace the 6-month old laptop (which had only a 2 month warranty – don’t ask),  I arranged for contact between the lawyer assistant and the computer technician and I am hoping the cost will not be too dear.

By the end of the day, I had managed to get Pikey’s retainers replaced (for only $1500), the translation begun (pick it up tomorrow) and 3 out of 4 kids to Judo.  Both boys were in their judo class, Jamie and Sissy were at Sam’s getting crap for tomorrow’s excursion and Ellen and I were buying dinner (tamales sold on the streetcorner).  The tamale lady recognized me from last week and we tried chicken mole, chicken in green sause and another chicken I can never remember because it is a word I don’t recognize.  We sat on the curb, watching the black clouds roll in from the north, certain harbringers of rain, and listened to one of the “viene viene” guys singing a haunting ballad.  The parking lot was vast, the sky darkening, our bellies were filling with warm delicious tamal and we had a haunting meoldy to accompany us.

It really was a perfect day.

Plus, I now have a little slave who will be working off a $1500 debt.