Thank you for processing my passport renewal one day before my vacation. I can now heave a huge sigh of relief. I don’t even care that the new passports look like a bad patriotic checkbook (©landisdad).

I’d also like to thank my friends for listening to me babble on about not having a passport (despite having sent the renewal in April), and to the random strangers that my MIL has been talking to about this for the last three weeks, since I slipped up and told her that we hadn’t gotten our new passports yet. I know that having a complete stranger telling you about her children’s inability to go on vacation with her is probably annoying, but hey, you live in NYC, you deal with annoying strangers every day.

Thank you, senatorial constituent service rep that I talked to last Friday. I’m not sure what worked, but something did.

Sorry to the aforementioned MIL for getting snitty with you on the phone the other night, when you asked if landisdad and the kids would still go on vacation if I couldn’t go. And I’m glad that your first-ever text message (from me, after getting the passport in the mail approximately 25 minutes ago) was a good one.

Whew. Now, my blood pressure can go back down, and I can start packing.

Bonus–thanks to landisdad for finding an English language bookstore at our mystery destination, so that my Harry Potter dream can be fulfilled. I’ll see you all on the flip side.