passport forms

My passport expires at the end of October, so I am applying for a new one. The first step was getting passport photos, which turned out to be quite straightforward. I went into a little shop that mostly sells cell phones, chargers, and phone cards, but has a "passport photos" sign and is set up to do them quickly and well. I chatted with the man behind the counter while he showed me the image, printed it, and cut the prints to size. He asked if I was a teacher, then when I said no segued into asking what I do do, and from there to my college major. He seemed surprised when I then in turn what he had studied, but told me that "in [his] country" he had studied philosophy.

Then I came home, completed and filled out the forms on the State Department website, and am going to take everything to the post office tomorrow, where I hope they can either accept it for me (Greeley Station is listed as a passport acceptance facility, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.), or at least advise me on what sort of envelope to use and sell me express mail postage. I'm paying for expedited service, and additionally for next-day postage of the passport when it's ready. My travel plans for summer and fall, while still vague, are such that I can't count on a long enough period between now and the end of October when I won't need my passport to feel comfortable not paying the extra fee for expedited service. This means that I am paying about as much in fees for faster service as I am for the passport itself; this is a side effect of frequent short trips to Canada, interspersed with occasional visits to my mother in England.

In the course of tucking the current passport, photos, forms, and check safely into a seldom-used pocket of my daypack, I found two pairs of earrings that I had thought I'd lost on my way back from England in March, and had given up on after searching my suitcase and asking Mom to look around the room I'd been sleeping in there. I am pleased. One of them is my first pair of haiku earrings.