Relief!  The green card application is finally in the mail.  It's not unaccompanied by self-reproach, however.  Why did we wait so long to start the process?  We were married in July, so why not begin in August rather than December?  Why, once we had begun, did we proceed so slowly?  I usually pride myself on my efficiency at this sort of thing.  I've certainly filled out enough application forms in my life.  And why did I keep overlooking requirements so that each time we thought we were done, I'd discover something else that needed to be included.  And now there's the lingering suspicion that the tiniest error or omission is going to be a new roadblock, delaying action.  For every two- or three-page form, there were a dozen pages of instructions.  Could I have missed something?  The next steps are to wait for confirmation of receipt, set up an appointment for biometrics (electronic fingerprints, eye scans), hope for an interview, and then wait for the results. 

The most running around involved Mohamed's medical tests.  It took the "civil surgeon" (a term no one I know had ever heard of) two weeks to return our calls, and she was the only one in Topeka.  The trip to her office was surreal--an old house in an industrial section of north Topeka.  On the second trip, I noticed that there were only two other houses in the neighborhood, and both of them were boarded up.  Across the street was what was once, I think, a church, converted into a nightclub, but now also boarded up with the front iron grill flapping in the wind.  The office was open only by appointment.  On the first visit, the very chatty office manager had Mohamed fill out forms, which he then typed into his beloved IBM Selectric.  The doctor started the TB test, but couldn't find a vein from which to draw blood, so we had to go to a hospital for that.  Two days later, there was the 25-minute drive to the office for a 20-second confirmation that Mohamed did not indeed have TB.  Mohamed couldn't have his vaccinations until after the TB results, so a couple of days later we went to the county health agency for three immunizations.  Mohamed didn't have to wait long (45 minutes for a public agency seemed efficient to me).  When he was done, the nurse said, "You're good to go."  Mohamed asked where he paid, and that seemed to throw the office into a tizzy.  It was obviously a question they didn't hear often.  The first problem was finding the credit card machine.  Once everything was ready, the administrator asked how much he wanted to pay and was incredulous when he said, "All."  Then we had to drive home, since the civil surgeon wouldn't be in her office till two in the afternoon.   I crashed for thirty minutes, and then it was off again.  After a few more minutes of Selectric typing, the results were sealed in an envelope, which went into the application (we were given a photocopy, so there won't be any surprises), Mohamed stuck a pin into a world map, and we were on our way.

All that was left was to write three checks for the filing fees.  This should have been the easy part, if not the most pleasant.  But I dreaded it--not for the obvious reason but because my handwriting is shaky and (and I believe this is the word most often used) spidery.  It's often virtually illegible.  I had filled out the first form by hand, and when I tried to read back a series of numbers, even I couldn't read the last one.  (Luckily, all the green card forms suddenly appeared online in .pdf format, so handwriting was no longer a factor.)  All my life I've had when used to be called an Intention Tremor but is now called a Benign Essential Tremor.  My father had it too, though you couldn't mention it to him, as his coffee slopped out of the cup, because it made him angry to have it pointed out.  My hands shake--not all the time but when I intend to do something, and the more I'm aware of the intention, the more they shake.  It's extremely inconvenient and often embarrassing.  As juniors in high school, we had to serve the seniors dinner at the prom.  While the rest of my classmates were laughingly carrying several plates, it took me two hands to get one glass of water from the kitchen to the table.  Travelers' checks were a nightmare because I could never get the second signature to match the first.  After watching something on TV, I was trying to explain to Mohamed the difference between Catholic and Protestant views of communion.  As a teen-age Methodist I dreaded the once-every-three-months communion--tiny glasses of grape juice in a metal tray.  I'd get my neighbor to hold the tray so that I could use to two hands to try to extricate the glass.  Grape juice slopped everywhere, and the glass clanked against the tray.  Macedonians and Bulgarians served coffee in tiny cups that absolutely had to be filled to the brim.  I'd have to persuade them to set the cups on the table so I could try to pick them up with both hands.  The chair of the English department in Morocco was always helpful in taking them from the hosts, though at one point he told me he thought I had probably been an alcoholic who was suffering from the DTs.  Students sometimes asked me whether I had Parkinson's disease.

Handwriting, especially signing my name, was also sometimes a problem (though I actually liked writing on black/green/whiteboard in front of class).  But who writes by hand any more?  The checks I was going to write were the first checks I'd written in two months.  ATMs, EFTs--the joys of the modern electronic world.   So I hunched over the desk, shooed Mohamed away, and gathered my checkbook and pen.  In the 'pay to' box I had to write 'US Department of Homeland Security," no abbreviations allowed said the instructions.  Steadying my left (writing) hand with my right, I filled out the first line.  It wasn't beautiful, but it fit.  Three checks later, success--of a sort. 

Now it's time to relax, if a bit apprehensively, as the process unfolds, outside of our control.  Blood has been drawn, photos have been taken, and sweaty checks have been written.