Remember my progress update? All we need are the State Police clearance and the FBI clearance in terms of the things we have to generate? I wasn’t worried about the State Police. I sent them a short but very specific letter with the following things in bold: need it to be notarized, notary must sign name as it appears on stamp, sign legibly, and DO NOT STAPLE THE CLEARANCE TO THIS LETTER. Apparently bold and in all caps doesn’t work – do I need to take out a billboard? Slip an extra $50 in the envelope? We received both of our clearances yesterday. Mine was stapled to the letter. I know that seems like a small thing but apparently when Guatemala sees empty staple holes they start wondering what was removed and if it was information they want to have. Steve’s wasn’t stapled, but it also wasn’t notarized at all.

I was rather agitated by the inability of the State Police to follow directions (because you know if I didn’t follow their directions I would end up in jail). Steve was playing poker with the guys so I decided to have a self-indulgent night at home. I ran down to the grocery store and liquor store (in this nazi state you can’t buy any alcohol in the grocery store and if you want beer and wine you have to visit 2 different stores – the beer distributor and the liquor store – because if they were sold together chaos would result). I returned home with shrimp, a loaf of crusty bread and the makings for appletinis. I ate, drank, and watched TiVo (it’s been hard not hearing what happened on the Grey’s Anatomy finale!) Steve returned to find his wife much less tense than when he left.

I was in one of those frou-frou cafes this morning to buy a cup of coffee. The woman in front of me was trying very hard to find something to eat for breakfast. The woman wanted 2 scrambled eggs and soft bread toasted. The snotty café employee was offering a frittata and a nice 12 grain (hard crusted) bread toasted. They don’t serve plain scrambled eggs and don’t have grocery store loaves of bread to toast up.

As I stood there, I couldn’t decide who to be annoyed with (because I had to be annoyed with someone…they were standing between me and my coffee – I had to get up at the ass crack of dawn this morning so I really needed it). Should I be annoyed with the customer for choosing this obviously frou-frou place when there are several other diner-type choices on the block which would happily scramble her some eggs and toast her some Wonder bread? Or should I be annoyed at the snotty café employee for looking down her nose at the customer’s pedestrian tastes and not just taking the eggs she would use to make the frittata and scrambling the damned things for the lady? See the difficult decisions I have to grapple with every day?

By the way, the coffee was as bitter as the snotty café employee.

Our county made the big switch to electronic voting machines. Yesterday was our first election using them. I and about 199 other county employees were drafted as roving technical support staff. We were given 90 minutes of training, a cell phone and a name tag. Some of those drafted have trouble accessing their Outlook calendars. It was shaping up to be a good time.

The average poll worker is well past retirement age. This is one way they choose to stay involved in their community and it allows them to catch up with friends twice a year. They were scared to death of these machines but they were all good sports. I thought it was way better than being stuck in the office…many co-workers disagreed.

I do have to share my funny story of the day. During their training, the poll workers received detailed instruction sheets for opening and closing the voting machines. I stopped by one location around closing time to check that they got their closing tapes printed. The woman was complaining that the printer wasn’t working. I checked and found that it wasn’t plugged in. She looked at me, then at her instruction sheet and said “it doesn’t say here anywhere that we have to plug the printer in”. I told her that I was quite sure it needed to be plugged in as it is an electric printer. She studiously wrote in the margin of her instructions “Plug printer into wall” so she wouldn’t forget next year.

Just thought I would let everyone know where things stand on the adoption front. Not a lot of movement right now – just waiting. We finally got Steve’s birth certificate today. We have only 3 things left to collect to complete our gathering of papers.
– Witness letters
– State Police Clearance letters (mailed in the forms last week)
– FBI Clearance letters (mailed in Saturday…however discovered last night there was an error on Steve’s form so not sure how long it will take to rectify that)

Once we get those things, we’ll submit all of our paperwork to the Secretary of State for certification. We are also waiting for the notarized copy of our home study so we can make our appointment to submit the I600A and get our USCIS fingerprints taken.

So, that’s where we stand. Waiting…

A woman who is using the same adoption agency has started a neat venture. She is selling some adoption related items to 1) raise money to give to adoption related charities and 2) to spark conversations about adoption and family. I think it is a pretty cool idea – a great way to encourage others to ask you about adoption without making it awkward. Many of these people are curious about adoption but then ask the question in a way that puts parents on the defensive. Check it out.

Adopt Proud

Every year, a group of us head to the Outer Banks, NC for a week. We rent a huge house and usually end up with just fewer than a dozen adults and just fewer than a dozen children (the oldest is 7). It’s a very loud week but lots of fun. We are now officially the last childless couple in our group of friends. While it is a little sad to be the last childless couple, there is also some inherent freedom in our status. If it gets too loud in the house, we can leave or go to our room and shut the door. If we don’t feel like going the playground, we don’t. If we want to sleep in, we do. If we want to leave at 4am to beat traffic, there is no little one to disturb and hustle into the car. If we both want to stay up late with the gang, drinking and playing their geek games (oh the games brought out are another post entirely), we can do that without worrying who is going to get up with the kids in the morning. If I want to spend the afternoon reading a book and napping, I can. As crazy as it sounds, we can’t wait to give this up. We are excited that this is our last trip without a child. Next year, we will have to worry about how to entertain our child during the endless drive. Next year, we will gladly go to the playground. Next year, we will join the other parents in planning some fun kid friendly activities. Next year, we will have to pack toys and a high chair and diapers and a video camera. Next year, when we hear a child crying, we will have to listen closely to see if it is our child. Next year, we will look at each other and say…”remember how easy it was last year?”

There is a whole world going on out there that I know nothing about. I consider myself moderately well informed on what is happening in the world around me. I don’t think I’m sheltered or naïve. I’ve worked with kids, abused women, addicts and the government – I’ve seen the seedy underbelly my friends. Then on someone’s blog I see a link for www.liquidass.com . Curiosity made me check it out. I realized that there is a whole, way more twisted, world that exists in some sort of tandem with mine. Just keep your stinky ass smells to yourselves. Thank you.

You had to look at it too, didn’t you?

Someone googled ‘dirty parts of disney movies’ and my blog came up 4th in the list…I bet they were pretty disappointed to find my little blog. It’s funny to see what odd things people search for…and even odder when my blog comes up in the list. Hehe…

As you might have gathered from a previous remark I made disparaging Republicans, I’m a Democrat*. I have friends who are Republicans and I adore them. But when they gather in large numbers and influence policy, I’m not a fan. This article today made my head hurt: http://www.slate.com/id/2141183/?nav=tap3 Why oh why do Republicans insist on ignoring science and scientific processes in order to further their agenda – usually in the name of religion? (Ok, Democrats suck sometimes too…but in general suck less often and they don’t piss me off as much.)

Mr. Republican Senator: “What?!? Scientific studies have shown that abstinence programs in schools don’t work? Studies have shown that giving kids an abstinence-only message and not giving them information about safe sex might be dangerous? Hogwash (because stuffy old Republicans say things like that)…I’m not buying it. You better give a more balanced view (meaning one that ignores your science and supports my beliefs) in that conference or I’m canceling it.”

Hey, as I approach my turn as a parent, I’m all about abstinence for teens. I hear the studies about teens having sex and the huge spike in oral sex among teens and it scares the shit out of me. But, I remember being a teenager and I know 1 thing for sure. Kids need the right information, ALL the right information about sex and being safe. Because some kids are going to have sex and the ones who don’t are going to fool around at least a little bit. Except my daughter. [Shut up all of you…let me have my delusions.]

* Steve is a Libertarian…we debate political issues but since his party has very little influence I don’t bother getting too worked up when we disagree. Besides, Libertarian ideals annoy me less then sanctimonious Republican ideals. I could even agree with them on some issues if they would just dial it back a little bit. I agree that individual liberty is in jeopardy and should be protected but I think that they need to be more realistic about what it means to be part of a society/community.

In one of my early entries, I referred to the riding lawn mover incident but said it was a story for another day. My mom commented that I should share that story. She emailed me again last night asking: “Just what was the incident with the riding mower exactly?” I know I told her about it after it happened. Not immediately after but within 5 or 10 years. But, since she doesn’t seem to remember, I’ll share it again.

One summer day when I was about 12, I found “mow the lawn” on my to-do list. I put it off for much of the day but finally knew that if I didn’t get started it wouldn’t be done when mom got home. So I put on my walkman and rode around mowing the lawn while belting out Prince (Purple Rain being my then favorite lawn mowing soundtrack). I’m sure it was quite a show for the neighbors.

Because I didn’t like to get the hand mower out to trim, I would attempt to get as close as possible to the trees, shrubs, flowerbeds and sidewalks. On the back edge of the yard, there were 2 very large pine trees. They were actually in the neighbor’s yard but the branches started low to the ground and hung over some of our lawn. I was on the mower trying to get all of the visible grass so that I could skip trimming back there. I got a little too close. Several of the branches got sucked into the blade. But instead of cutting them, the branches wrapped around the blade. As the branches got wrapped around, the mower was pulled further and further into the tree. By the time I got the mower stopped, I was at a 45 degree angle with the mower’s front wheels up the tree. The back wheels were still on the ground…but not by much.

Yes, dear friends, I managed to get the riding mower stuck up the tree. After I finished freaking out, I began trying to free the mower. That sucker was stuck – it wouldn’t budge. I had visions of my mother coming home and finding the mower in the tree and panicked. I called my best friend who lived up the street. Imagine getting this phone call:

Me: Melisa, you have to come help me get the lawn mower out of the tree before my mom gets home!

Melisa: What?

Me: You have to come help me get the lawn mower out of the tree before my mom gets home! She’s going to kill me!

Me: Stop laughing, it isn’t funny!

Me: Stop laughing, I’m dead if she comes home and finds the lawn mower in the tree.

Melisa: Michelle, you are such a dumbass.

Melisa rode her bike down – I could hear her laughing from a block away. Together, we managed to unwrap the branches from the mower blade and get it out of the tree before my mom got home. So there you have the story of the riding lawn mower incident. Hearing that story, don’t you kind of have to marvel that I am able to string coherent sentences together? I sound like I should have to wear a helmet at all times for my own protection and have someone cut my meat for me.