Giddy up pony!

All those nice things I said about the government in a earlier post I take back. In the middle of the night I remembered noticing when we received our receipt for filing our I-600A application that we had forgotten to use "Douglas" on the application. My name on the receipt says only my maiden name and not my married name. Since we've been told how picky Russia is on our names and our agency recommended using exactly what is on our passports, I decided this morning I'd better try to fix it. Silly me for thinking I'd talk to a real person today. I call the customer service number for the USCIS. There are something like 14 different options to choose from--no kidding. They even have an option if you need a doctor to do your physical exam--I guess you need that to get citizenship or green card or something? Option 2 fit my need the best, but I listened to them all just to be sure I had the right department, so I was listening to Monotone Hank for a LONG time. I really hate those prerecorded voice messages because if you get down to it, NONE of the options fit what you are looking for. I press "2" and the automated voice asks me for my receipt number. I punch the numbers. It says I didn't enter enough numbers. Well, the first three numbers are actually letters. How in the world do you get an "S" to be pressed? So, I just do it the old fashioned way and use number 7 for the "S" etc. It tells me my receipt number is invalid. I try again, still invalid. There is no "Press O for an operator" option! A third try results in Monotone Hank hanging up on me because the system obviously cannot cope with my level of apparent incompetence. So I try to accomplish my task from the USCIS website. Again, I enter my receipt number and again it tells me it is invalid. Now, I decide I should register for updates, and perhaps once I do that, there will be a link that I can use. I register, and it tells me I have no applications on file!!!! So I turn to the old fashioned way of pony express. I have my nice little letter typed explaining the changes I need to make and will enclose a copy of our passports. Of course, on the back of my receipt, it says that if we have questions, we should contact USCIS. However, in italics is says, "We recommend you call." HELLO!!! Obviously the government doesn't have very much faith in its own self run postal entity. We shall see...

By the way, did you notice the weather sticky for Krasnoyarsk? That gives a whole new meaning to an Arctic air mass!