Romancing the Stone with a Colombian in the room

I haven't written about Thanksgiving week yet, and now it seems so passe that I don't want to just write about how Thanksgiving week went, albeit it was anything but uneventful.

Plenty of things happened over Thanksgiving this year and they were all good things. For instance, my brother and his wife came out to Denver for a visit over the holiday and stayed Wednesday night through Tuesday morning... that's six days. What's so special about that? Well, for one thing this is the first time, in a very very long time that my brother has been able to come out for a period longer than three or four days. That is, of course, if you count the day when he actually has to board a plane and go back to whence he came from, ridiculously early in the morning. OK, so that's not so exciting now that I'm writing about it. I mean, if you really think about it it's not even two full days extra from the usual. But you know, it's like money-- if it's anywhere over $50, it sounds like a lot of money for you to do plenty of things with, but when you go out there and try to put that money to work it suddenly and very quickly dwindles down to mere peanuts before you even get a chance to spend it. It's psychological, obviously.

Another thing that made this Thanksgiving super special was the fact that it was my sister-in-law's first visit to Denver and stay at our humble abode. Still not very exciting to anyone but us... *damn*. BUT if you recall what I wrote at the beginning of this post, my intent isn't to write about Thanksgiving, but rather something that took place during the Thanksgiving holiday. Something that I've been mulling over in my head for a few days and now feel ready to write about.

One evening during my brother's stay we decided to watch a family favorite-- Romancing the Stone. If you're not familiar with this flick, it is total escapism and adventure that takes you from a romance novelist's apartment in New York City, to a treasure hunt in Colombia. Now, the significance of my brother and his wife's visit is the fact that my sister-in-law happens to be Colombian. Adding another first to her list, she viewed this piece of pure 80s entertainment.

I found out a long time ago that though this movie is set in Colombia, it was not shot there due to an influx of kidnappings right around the time the crew was supposed to go down there. Instead, they shot it in Mexico. OK, I thought. It may not be authentic Colombia, but it should be generally close. I have no idea what I mean by generally close, but I expected something to be accurate even though this is hardly a movie that required more than someone's fun imagination and creativity to produce.

Putting aside Michael Douglas's inability to pronounce Cartagena correctly throughout the movie by adding one of those squiggly Spanish accents to the "n", so that Cartagena (it's spelled just like it sounds, only the "g" is an "h") is Cartagenia. Or more precisely, Cartahaynia, pronounced with a deliberate twang. That's annoying and completely incompetent on the director's part, but I digress. No, I'm talking about the complete disregard for the distinct differences between Latin America and Central America... folks, they're totally different. They are two different continents with different landscapes, cultures, climates and Spanish dialects.

What bothered me the most after watching Romancing the Stone with a Colombian in the room was how much was ridiculously made up. The first thing that made my brother and his wife chuckle was a close up shot of a supposed Colombian license plate. I can't imagine replicating a country's license plate would be that difficult, even if there was no internet to make such information easily accesible. The second thing that made them burst into laughs were the gators just roaming about on pavement. The dialect spoken was Mexican and the people were Mexican. Not even the native dress of peasants or the police/military were accurate, according to my sister-in-law. "Not even close," she said. My favorite was the llama... there aren't any in Colombia, or Mexico for that matter. They really went out of their way to be wrong, I guess.

After saying all that, you're probably wondering why I'm making such a big deal about an 80s movie with a romance novelist as its main character. Well, it's mostly because I am doing research for a historical fiction story I hope to turn into a book one of these days. Fiction has always scared me more than non-fiction, because fiction is, well, fiction. You, the writer, make it up and it's all you. If you make a mistake, you really look stupid and people will roll their eyes. I know, because I roll my eyes all the time at fiction that pretends to know what my people-- Arabs and/or Muslims-- are like. I've also read and seen fiction that makes Denver look like this snow-covered place where people wear their coats all winter long over their Denver Broncos gear and go on about how cold it is with a cowboy's twangy accent. I grew up and have lived in Denver for 20 years, and I can tell you that that painting of Denver is pretty much bologne.

Finally, I am of the total belief that if you're going to go out on a limb and do something, you should do it right or don't do it at all, otherwise the Colombian in the room will laugh at you.

A big day at the Colorado Convention Center

For those of you unaware of, or not up to date on my immigration status, today has been a very emotional day for me. I became an American citizen in a very special naturalization oath ceremony. I make it a point to say it was special, because it was apparently the first and perhaps the only time the state of Colorado will host such a large naturalization ceremony, involving some 1,800 persons from 120 countries at the Colorado Convention Center.

This day has been a long time coming.

I originally applied for citizenship back in August of 2004, just three months before my green card was set to expire. I submitted fingerprints, completed an interview with immigration, and even passed the citizenship test with flying colors by November of that same year, only to be shuffled to the bottom of an endless pile of citizenship requests. I spent four years in limbo, way outside of the processing time frame stipulated by USCIS (the new and improved name for INS). Just an FYI, the time frame is 180 days, total.

Anyway, during the four years in limbo, I'd call every six months or so and get the same answer... that my case is pending FBI background checks. Meanwhile I'm hearing about people getting their citizenship finalized within the 180-day time frame, while people in the same boat as me were making waves by taking their cases to lawyers who demanded that the USCIS get moving on the incredibly delayed FBI background checks. Several newspapers were reporting on the subject, and I read most of them. I was beginning to not feel too bad, and let my patience take care of my frustration. I used writing as an outlet, and gained great feedback and relief.

During all of this, of course, I had to keep going back ever so often to renew my green card extension, which was stamped into my Iraqi passport. I was able to travel with this extension, so though my green card had expired back in 2004, I was still using it to its full capacity in 2008, thanks to the extension.

Even though I had passed my citizenship test and done everything required, I was beginning to lose hope, and all but gave up on getting an answer at all. I was happy enough just renewing my green card extension with a simple stamp. I was happy, and USCIS was happy. It worked.

Then one day, things got a big push forward. I don't know what triggered it, but the FBI must've dug my case out from under the pile and thought: "She's waited long enough. Let's have mercy on her and conduct that pesky little background check." I got a letter requesting I go in for a second session of fingerprinting. I went in to get that done back in April. By mid-May, I got a letter stating that my citizenship request had been approved, and to wait for an oath ceremony notice in the 30-90 days. I was happy just with that, and expected the longest possible wait of 90 days to hear about my oath ceremony. And finally, the oath ceremony notice arrived. It hadn't even been 30 days since I got the approval letter... I was ecstatic. I told my family and closest friends about the big day.

Now the big day has come and gone, and I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel. Writing is an outlet of feelings and thoughts for me, but I still can't express the mix of emotions inside of me right now. Maybe it's because I'm tired, or maybe because I'm still a little in shock from how fast everything happened... it was like bam bam bam!

I'm now an American citizen.

Am I happy? Yeah. Am I sad? Yeah. How did I expect to feel? I don't know.

That's about all I can say about my feelings at this time. I wanted to blog about it to let everyone know about my news, but a more formal piece describing the experience in more detail will have to wait until I get my feelings sorted out. Right now I'm running on almost no sleep, and "What just happened?" mode.

HELP!

REWARD

PLEASE help me find my beloved cat:

• 7-year-old Persian male
• Orange tabby
• Has dark tear stains near his eyes

Missing since 8/15/2007.

If you, or anyone you know live in Parker, Colorado, please take a good look at the pictures and see if you've seen my cat. Please email me with any information you might have at Reemawi@aol.com.

Thank you!