alexist

When the US embassy refused to pay the C-charge, there were loads of comments about arrogant Americans.

Well, now that the charge has extended into Kensington & Chelsea, lo and behold, lots of other countries are refusing to pay up!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6383605.stm

You really can't design a form, can you?

First of all, I've got a PDF here. Some of it is editable, some not. Why can i enter place of birth and address, but not name? And why is the DS-11 (Application for US Passport) partly editable, but the DS-2029 (Consular Report of Birth Abroad) not editable at all? Surely you'd prefer the form to be typed in neatly. Clearly, someone at the Department of State had Adobe Acrobat and could produce editable forms. There was no technical impediment.

Second, the instructions on the DS-2029 contradict the form. The instruction page says "enter the date in the form January 1, 2000". The form box says "Date of birth (mm-dd-yyyy)" Which is it? (And somewhere else it DOES say Month Day, Year next to a date field!)

The Office of Management and Budget estimates the burden for the DS-11 to be 85 minutes. I really wonder how they calculated that. It's 2 pages long and doesn't require any esoteric information (surely the applicant knows his/her personal details).

There are days when I think the US has achieved greatness despite its government, not because of it. There are many things the British government does wrong, but the bureaucracy-customer interface is considerably better than its US equivalent.

(The exception is this weird countersigning photographs thing you've got going here. I prefer the US version: you apply in person at the post office and confirm your identity. If you don't have any ID, you can bring someone to vouch for you [I just looked, I was curious how it works if you don't have a driver's licence.])

I was really proud of myself this weekend: I actually planned 5 days worth of meals in advance so I wouldn't be trying to work out what to make at the last minute.

Monday went just fine. (For those of you interested, it was toad in the hole with onion gravy and mashed potatoes.)

Tuesday, not so good. Plan was roast chicken and rice pilaf with carrots. I got all the carrots ready, then Aliza started fussing around 16:00. She kept fussing and wouldn't be put down. I gave up on doing the rice that night, thought I'd do something else with the chicken, then decided "to hell with it". Dinner was pasta. This is forgivable, I guess; I can't hold the baby and cook at the same time.

Wednesday was fine. In fact, Aliza was so good all evening I had time to make rugelach (which i have been scoffing--ironically, considering my recent KitKat addiction which was going full throttle the other day, I've been more into the cinnamon-walnut than the chocolate ones).

Tonight, I was going to roast the chicken. But Aliza decided she'd actually have an afternoon nap at 16:30 (she doesn't seem keen on sleeping then), and, well, I decided to have one too....

Oh, and the flat is a wreck, I'll have to tidy this weekend. It's easier to do when there's someone else to go to Aliza if she needs something. She will sleep during the day, but she hasn't settled into a predictable nap schedule. To a point this is dependent on what we do; if I take her out, she often does go to sleep in her buggy. Today was unusual in that she stayed awake most of the trip, which is probably why she settled for a nap later.

Change your diaper, 3 minutes later I smell something. Yep, you guessed it. And right after I take the diaper away and wipe her off (before I got a chance to slide the new diaper under her) she pees all over herself. So I change her clothes.

Naturally, that means she belches milk all over her clean clothes. Well, we were going out anyway, I guess.

This afternoon, she managed the pee trick again. I know it's a common baby thing, but how many sets of clothes can she go through in one day?! Good thing I got more Persil at the supermarket :-P

I've put a few more pics of her up--I didn't get that many good ones, because it appears I have recently developed an inability to hold the camera still while taking photos. Tomorrow I have to get bathtime ones for my mother :)

All at the usual location... (though who knows, maybe I'll switch sometime, I do have FlickrExport)