しまった! The American Embassy has rejected our application for removal of conditions on my permanent residence status because it arrived too early and they expected it to get to them a maximum of "90 days before the second anniversary of the alien's resident status being approved". Where am I from, Neptune? Our efficiency (well, Whitney's efficiency - she organizes it all, I can't understand anything beyond the first line of the light blue letter they sent back to us) and anticipation of them taking too long again has been foiled by their willful safeguard against any efficiency taking place.

It is at least a fairly large mercy that they decided to send us the $545 cheque back instead of just cashing it and keeping quiet. Also included in the envelope were all the items of evidence of us living together that we gave them, the cut-out address section of the envelope we used, and the top sheets of the form with notes like "FSI 06squiggle02" written across them. The cover letter was noticeably absent, so we reprinted that and resisted the temptation to replace "All the best" at the end with "You're all idiots". I've been told to send it back on or after 7/27 (7th of Icosajuly), at which point they might get back to it.

At least our Economic Stimulus payment arrived yesterday. It's like an apology from the country to its population for being this useless for the last eight years.