The key to the Stratego game, created by Jack after researching on the internet. Apparently the American game has the numbers printed on the pieces, but not the one we got. The sergeant is a pretty good likeness. The scout looks like a guy with a saddle on his head made out of the wooly hide of a sheep, hence the shorthand scribble.

Monday, sunny and in the mid-eighties without a breath of a breeze, I went to the American Embassy to get my passport renewed. I figured this was a good day for it since they're only open in the afternoons when I'm working, but my office was closed that day due to it being the Fourth of July Eve. I needed to get a new one before the slow, creaking wheels of the commune's bureaucracy granted me resident alien status, because the passport expired in January and I think they will only issue me an ID if there is more than 3 months left on it. This gave me plenty of time to get it renewed, because the residency process takes like 6 months (we just got a letter acknowledging our application last week, about 1.5 months after it had been submitted). However, I also wanted a valid passport for any cross-border trips we might decide to undertake at the spur of the moment, and, not being sure how long the renewal would take, I wanted to err on the side of caution.

The whole process was bizarre for a variety of reasons. They had the entire sidewalk plus the parking lane blocked off in front of the American compound, with barbed wire and jersey barriers funneling visitors to the first security checkpoint. After gaining permission to pass through, I was directed to a second one, which was housed in a temporary building that led into the actual building. There was a note on the door saying that you were to ring the doorbell and wait for the green light to come on before entering, one person at a time. There was a note on the doorbell saying "doorbell". Three people were ahead of me. The first guy in line waited and waited, peered through the reinforced and distorting glass window in the door, tried to peek in the door when deliveries were made, pressed the green light in case it was another button, and all the while we were all frying in the heat and I just wanted to shout "just ring the damn bell again!" Finally, after about 10 minutes of waiting, he somehow got the green light and went through. Next up were a father and son and, based on the experience of the guy in front of them, they also DID NOT RING THE BELL. What is wrong with these people? I'm pretty sure all of them spoke at least basic English. As soon as the guy in front of me went in I immediately rang the bell and it was no more than 30 seconds before I gained entry. They took my cell phone at the door and gave me a receipt for it, searched my bag and let me through.

Then: more line standing, this time in the airless interior (no A/C here, unless they were somehow confining it behind the glass partition). This line was longer but moved more briskly, each person only taking a few minutes. Fortunately, even though the web site was curiously silent on whether you could use the mail-in passport renewal form, I had the foresight to fill it out anyway or I would have had to stand in line twice. There were a number of more interesting cases than mine, a man who needed to renew his passport before traveling on July 18th, an elderly British woman who had purchased property in Colorado and had to have her documents notarized at the embassy, a young lady in standard-issue college wear (t-shirt and short sweatshorts) whose passport had been lost or stolen, a snappily-dressed gentleman who had run out of pages in his passport and who had to cancel a trip because of it. The woman who had lost her passport had to go in a phone booth-sized room to discuss the matter privately with one of the staff members on the other side of the glass--I was reminded of those visitor's rooms in prison movies. After waiting about a half hour, during which time the menu from the DVD "Johnny English" played the same snippet of sound and footage over and over, I got my receipt and was free to go. My exchange was notable because I learned that (a) you don't have to turn in your old passport when renewing it abroad and (b) you get expedited service for free--they said I could pick it up in 16 days. I recommend this to anyone who plans to take a 3-week trip that originates in a major European capital, as long as you have some time to kill in your itinerary. The whole process took about an hour.

After finishing "The Great Stink", a novel about a crazy engineer working on the sewers of London in the 1850s prior to the advent of any type of treatment (which is a good book if you don't mind repeated references to vomiting, excrement, noxious fogs, and the Thames being one giant cesspool), I've now started on David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day". The stories towards the end are about his struggles learning French while living in Paris and Normandy, and while normally when reading his books I just think about what a wacky life he leads, in this case it's enough to make me weep with joy at the familiarity of what he's describing: the desire to wrap yourself in a comforting blanket of English sometimes, knowing that everytime you open your mouth in French you sound like a fool. Fortunately I'm not nearly as reflective as he is, so I go blithely on my way, saying the few words I know badly, picking up some more from my various daily exchanges, usually without major embarrassment. Also fortunately, our French teacher is not a total jerk like his was.

Tuesday two of the three shades came down in the bedroom. We discussed alternatives, including the expensive and therefore dreaded installation-by-someone-else option, but I managed to find some bigger hooks with anchors at the hardware store, so we're going to try that before abandoning all hope.