Today is July 31st and I finally had mug shots and fingerprints done at INM. The card will hopefully be ready next week and I will once again live and work legally in Mexico. But only for one year, and not the three years I requested.

The renewal process has been somewhat of a gong show. In actuality, the original application for a work visa a year was less tedious.

I accepted a job offer in April from a school here in Mazatlan. While I had been assured that I would have the school’s support in renewing my work visa, this was not the case when it was time for action.

This necessitated retaining a professional to assist me with all the documents.  He had come highly recommended. However due to his inefficiency and ignorance, the proper documents were not filed requesting a three year renewal. Instead documents were filed for a one year renewal.

I wanted a three year renewal for two reasons. The first is that I would not have to deal with Immigration again for three years. The second is that one year costs 3500 pesos and three years only $6600. 

This morning at Immigration, the staff there explained  to me in perfect English that they were willing to renew for three years. The mistake was not theirs. Of course the person I had retained tried to blame it all on Immigration. Scrambling to save face, he actually told me that Immigration had told him that it couldn’t be renewed for three years because I had moved to another city and changed jobs. That really took nerve on his part, seeing as we were all standing in front of staff in the Immigration office. 

I had a fabulous immigration lawyer when I lived in Guadalajara. German Pajarito, you need to open an office here in Mazatlan. I highly recommend German to anyone requiring legal advice in Guadalajara. He is one of the most honest and trustworthy people I have ever met in my life, and a talented musician as well.

As to who I do NOT recommend here in Mazatlan, he shall remain nameless for now…………

It’s mid-July and my work visa expires next week. A month ago I retained someone to help me with it. I was assured that all that was required was a photocopy of my passport, a photocopy of my migratory card and a photocopy of a utility bill. A simple process. After all, it’s only a renewal. 

Two weeks later I messaged the office to find out what was happening. Oh, more information is needed. I provide all of the information. A messenger arrives at my home the following day to obtain my signature on some documents.

Then the following day I receive a text that the messenger will be back to get my passport and migratory card as the originals are now needed to file the documents. This was on a Thursday. The messenger promised I’d have my passport back on Friday.

True to his word, the messenger returned my passport to me on Friday, along with the migratory card. The papers had not been filed. Why? They required three types of documentation from the school where I now teach. Except that they have also asked for documentation from the school I no longer teach at which is in Guadalajara.  I now live in Mazatlan. And the director of the school where I teach here in Mazatlan is out of the country. OK, we still have two weeks to get this done before the visa expires.

This past week brings us closer to the deadline and the entire process has now been revised. The school cannot provide me with the documents I require. On Monday, I registered at El SAT and was assured that everything could now be filed with INM. I would just be registering as an independent worker rather than an employee at a school.

Instead of the messenger arriving in the morning on Tuesday, with the revised documents, I got a message asking for more details of my last employer in Guadalajara. And now more documents have got to be filed. 

To my surprise the messenger arrived with the new documents a couple of hours later. So once again I signed my life away to documents in Spanish that I did not completely comprehend. Yes I got the main idea. But even with English legal documents, there is legalese that is not possible for a layman to decipher. At any rate, everything will be filed at INM this afternoon and then I can breathe again.

Wrong! Nothing was filed! More documents required! Daily the messenger arrives with more documents that require my signature. And because I moved to another city and am teaching at a different school, there is now a monetary penalty. And of course there is now a new fee to file these documents as well.

It is now Friday and time is running out. Will this visa actually happen? Stay tuned for Part 2……………

It’s June 25th again. Twenty-two years ago today I baked Kelsey his last birthday cake. It was his sixteenth birthday. Yes I baked birthday cakes for my dogs. But I left off the icing. I don’t know who was more excited. My kids loved celebrating birthdays. And Kelsey would see me bake a cake without icing and he knew it was for him.

My husband and I had been in our first house for less than a week when I spotted an ad in the newspaper for apricot toy poodles. I had always wanted a dog. And now we had a house and a yard. It was time. So what if the sod wasn’t down yet, or if the fence wan’t built? Who needs a sidewalk anyways? Landscaping could wait.

I phoned my mother that day and by the time we arrived at my parents’ house, my mother had made Kelsey a little quilt and there was a dish with chicken for him. But she still chided me because we had just moved into our house and hadn’t unpacked any boxes yet. My reply was that the boxes could wait along with the landscaping.

Kelsey was the runt of the litter. He was this tiny lump of apricot fluff. He couldn’t manage a single stair, wasn’t in the least bit interested in being house trained at first, but he really loved the homemade meatballs I used to make him. Dog food? Yuck!

When he was a baby, I would take him to work with me. He slept most of the time on a blanket on my desk. I gradually began to leave him at home for small periods of time during the day. He was always so excited to see me when I came home from work. That tail wagged constantly and he would cuddle and give me dozens of kisses.

Kelsey loved ice cream, and he knew that he always got his own dish or cone whenever we went out. He also loved pizza. One night when we were eating pizza in front of the tv, Kelsey started barking loudly. He was our watchdog. He would announce the arrival of visitors before the doorbell sounded. So off we went to answer the door. But there was no-one there. When we returned to watch tv, there was Kelsey up on the coffee table having a grand old time with that pizza.

Kelsey was extremely intelligent and was house trained in no time. As he grew up, rather than stand by the door to let us know he had to go out, he would play the piano. As it would become more urgent, the speed and volume of the notes would increase.

His favorite toys were squeak toys. He chewed at them voraciously until the squeakers wore out. He also enjoyed chewing on small rawhide sticks.

I would often take him to visit my grandmother in a nursing home. There was a strict rule that pets were not allowed, but the staff all looked the other way. My grandmother’s friends would all crowd into her room to see the dog, and of course they always had treats for him.

He loved to go for car rides, especially when he could stick his head in the air conditioning vent. He enjoyed roaming around in our backyard and chasing birds. He would actually catch birds and bring them to me proudly displaying his prize. Of course I would immediately make him drop the bird and let it go. And he actually once even caught a rabbit in our backyard.

Kelsey sported quite a wardrobe as well. My mother made him cable knit sweaters for the winter and we also bought him T-shirts. We even bought him rubber boots, but he refused to wear those.

When my son was born Kelsey was very protective of him. He would sleep under the crib. When Kyle awoke from his nap, Kelsey would be tugging at my jeans long before my baby uttered a cry. When I nursed Kyle in the rocking chair, Kelsey was at my feet chewing a rawhide. As Kyle grew and sat in a high chair, Kelsey always waited for food to fall. And Kyle delighted in accommodating him. Kyle also used to throw his soothers to Kelsey, chuckling loudly as the dog chewed them up.

As Kelsey grew older he had some health problems. His hearing and his eyesight were affected. He became lethargic when kidney problems surfaced. And about two and a half months after that sixteenth birthday, it was time to say farewell.

Love you forever Kelsey, always in my heart.