Permission To leave

It would be tragic if it weren't so funny. Finally have the visas in my hand now, after nine (count 'em) months of gestation, and leaping through hoops. Yesterday was the highlight, at the US Consulate in Krakow, as new but essential forms were pulled out of thin air before we were allowed entry into the inner sanctum. Therein, one aspirant US visitor - an opera singer - was asked to prove her skills by executing an aria. She did; she got the visa. Would I have to improvise a film, I wondered?
The old Jedi mind powers still work, though, but not over the phone. I did manage to 'persuade' the young Polish gym teachers they hire as filters to let us in, but the disembodied female voice on the telephone was not to be swayed. Still. Feast your eyes. That's what all the fuss has been about.
The great paradox, of course, is that now I have full legal permission to stay in the USA and work, I find I can also - for the first time in over a year - leave the place, and idle about. Hmmm, what a dilemma.
And finally, today, the Ryanair plane we took to London had the Pythonesque ID... EI-DLE. Sick? As a parrot.