My wife Lesley became a US citizen today. I was so proud, yet stupidly forgot to take a camera. I turned on my camera phone for a moment, but you’re not supposed to have cell phones on in fed buildings(?). I got one small snap, but it’s horrible. The chap next to me said he’d take a picture, but his battery ran out right as he snapped her pic, so we didn’t get it. 
So, now she’s completely legal and can’t be deported! However, we’ve got a new semi-issue on, and that’s the passport. She had to turn in her greencard, and also ship off her only original naturalization paper to get a passport. So until that’s returned (expedited service – 2 weeks hopefully) she’s got no real papers (we made a photocopy but it’s not the original!), so it’s a little strange.
The officiator was a rather nice guy, but was publicly anti-Bush. He made a few comments about ‘the president’ and would roll his eyes, or made some type of somewhat sarcastic face when he said it – it bothered me some. Probably bothered the 4 servicemen there too, but no one said anything. By the way, I didn’t know one could be in our armed forces and not be a citizen – I would have thought that would be a requirement. Did this change at some point???
I recorded the ceremony on my iriver, but there were so many loud kids around me (4-6 years old it seemed) that I’m not sure much is really audible of the speaker’s comments. Side note – there really should be a blanket rule against having kids in functions like that. If they’re asleep, or well-behaved, perhaps make case-by-case exceptions, but the moment they misbehave, they should have been kicked out – it ruined it for the other 100+ people in the room there for a once-in-a-lifetime ceremony. There was one chap who was good with his daughter – she was probably 9 months old and would cry/make noises some. When it started to get bad, he simply took her out of the room. I publicly thank this man – from India, if I heard him correctly – for people a responsibly polite person.
