Artemis’s passport arrived in time. She and I went to the Shangrila Hotel Friday morning. A foreign service officer was there in the lobby processing papers for other Americans in Qingdao. Or rather, she was explaining to most of the them why she couldn’t process their papers.

“You should have made an appointment if you needed more pages put in your passport.”

“I need all of these documents photocopied in triplicate before I can help you.”

“No. We don’t take personal checks.”

“If your (half-Chinese) son needs his passport renewed, you need pictures of him from every year of his life, from the time his last passport was issued to today.”

I knew that Artemis and I would have a much easier time of it. I had been calling and e-mailing the embassy every week since we went to Beijing. The officer was prepared for us and she had what we wanted: Artemis’s passport and her Consular Report of Birth Abroad. As soon as I had the documents in hand I ran out the door to hail a cab. We needed to go to Josh’s school where one of the administrative assistants was waiting for us. Then the three of us went to the the Public Security Bureau (PSB, for short) to apply for her exit visa.

We arrived at the PSB too late. There were no more please-take-a-number tickets, which meant that no one else would be applying for a visa (or a work permit, or a residence permit) that day. They told us to come back on Monday.

Today is Monday. Artemis and I braved the rain, and she skipped her morning nap, so that we could be first in line at the PSB. They are now processing her visa application and they tell us it will be ready on Friday morning. Since we have non-refundable tickets for Saturday morning, we are cutting it awfully close.

I have horrible fantasies about not getting the visa in time. If we miss our flight on the 15th, we are going to have a couple of very angry grandmas.