Documents I.

At some point during our stay in Italy, we are likely to need to our birth certificates and marriage license. In fact, as soon as we arrive in Trento, an authorized copy of our marriage license is required to apply for the family stay or family cohesion visa. That is, J will be allowed to live in Italy and travel in the Schengen states on a student visa, while G and I will be allowed to stay with him as family members. J read somewhere that the signatures on authorized documents should be no more than five years old. Apparently the more recent the date, the less hesitant the Italian authorities will be to accept a document's validity.

We were married six years ago, and the only birth certificate copy I have is dated 1983. It's small and gray and has a slight signature in purple ink that looks like a kindergarten teacher made the authorization. Therefore, last week we drove to the Bay Area to get more recent and official-looking copies.

As long-time residents of California, we have learned to expect lines, bureaucracy, vacant information desks, and getting snapped at several times in the course of any official business with the state. We've also learned that arriving as close to opening as possible at the Department of Motor Vehicles, for instance, will lead to more friendly service and fewer waits, presumably because everyone has just had coffee or is too drowsy to snap. On Thursday, we were already running a few minutes late, so J dropped Miss G and I off at the Santa Clara County Clerk Recorder's Office (SCCCRO?) to wait in line while he searched for parking. Ten minutes later, I met him at the building entrance, birth certificates and marriage license in hand.

We had a morning's worth of bottles and extra clothes with us for G, and J had even brought Harry Potter 7 along to pass the time. Instead, it took longer to find the automatic pay machine in the parking garage than it had taken for me to speak to information, stand in line, write a check and wait for my documents to be processed. Three cheers to the SCCCRO.

With a free morning in front of us, we were able to meet my mother in Los Gatos for coffee and almond croissants before J went off to work. It was G's seven month birthday.